Many moons ago, a literary internet witch suggested I watch 2021’s Hellbender, a film about a witchy mother-daughter duo that makes metal music in the woods. This introduction to the Adams Family — a familial clan of indie filmmakers known for their “homemade” supernatural folk horror works — was a splendid and remarkably spellbinding one (pun intended). Toby Poser, John Adams, Zelda Adams and Lulu Adams have a knack for making movies that feel raw and organic, but also precise and surgical, all while honoring their earthy woodland life in the Catskill Mountains. There’s clearly no stopping this DIY horror family from playing with blood in the depths of the forest (a description that hardly recognizes the family’s astonishing craft), and thank goodness for that. The family’s newest addition to its occult catalog is 2025’s Mother of Flies, a film that wraps its audience in a biophilic blanket in the midst of its profound and poetic exploration of life and death through a necromantic lens.
Starring, written and directed by Toby Poser, John Adams and Zelda Adams (Lulu Adams has a quick, albeit important, cameo), Mother of Flies follows a college girl named Mickey (Zelda Adams) as she goes on a quest, accompanied by her skeptic father, Jake (John Adams), to find an enigmatic witch. Said enchantress resides in a remote home deep in the woods — a tree house-like abode with visible roots and flora throughout, as if the building itself is a living thing. Outside the house sits a mysterious pile of stones stacked taller than a person and evocative of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project.
The film begins with a goopy montage of what appears to be blood and guts, and visuals of a bloody naked woman rocking her hips into the earth — a scene reminiscent of 2009’s Antichrist. A soothing voice-over relays that “life is rhythm” and “death only knows silence.” Following the visceral opening, viewers meet a quiet yet self-assured Mickey in her dorm, waiting for her father’s arrival and fiddling with the communal piano as a peer cautiously asks her, “Is it back?” When Jake compliments how Mickey’s pixie hair has grown in, jokingly noting that he “misses the Kojak look,” it’s clear that she’s battling an illness. As it turns out, Mickey was diagnosed with cancer at 15 with a fifty-fifty shot at survival. After aggressive medical intervention, involving both chemotherapy and radiation, Mickey entered a short period of remission. When it came back, doctors predicted she had just six months left to live. Though she’s fairly reserved, and understandably so, Mickey’s vigorous will to live and genuine curiosity about transcendental happenings she can’t understand make her vibrant. These qualities and a “nothing left to lose” attitude lead her to a solitary witch named Solveig (Poser), who claims she can cure Mickey of her cancer.
Birth and genesis, the insidious pain of both illness and cure, making peace with the ugliness of life, seeing the unsung beauty in death and the universal importance of faith are some of Mother of Flies‘ most poignant thematic offerings. Hardcore skeptics, the spiritually inclined and the occultists, witches and enchanters of the world can all find value in this ethereal horror entry.
To Have Faith Is to Accept the Gifts and the Curses
Poser’s assertion that the fly is the “mascot for death and renewal” is beyond fitting for a film that centers a “green” witch and arguably acts as an abstract deconstruction of Sigmund Freud’s Eros and Thanatos theory; life and death are always at odds with each other, and nature always runs its course. How we move through the world is influenced by personal perceptions of both life and death, and at this point, Mickey is in survival mode, embracing her life instincts (as Freud would put it) while at war with her own body. Solveig says her witchcraft methods will take three days, and amidst her strange pricking, murmuring and rustic offerings, she provides a multitude of life lessons.
When Mickey compliments a butterfly resting on flowers in Solveig’s home, she’s told that the insect is dead. Clearly disappointed, Mickey says it was beautiful. To that, Solveig replies, “It’s as beautiful dead as it was alive.” Her words continuously challenge run-of-the-mill opinions about death. She tells Jake that “death grows within [Mickey], but shows her the meaning of life,” also noting that his fear of loss has “stripped [him] of faith.” Morals about the ingrained fear of death and its tendency to dim the light of life and faith make Mother of Flies a film brimming with existential substance.
The film’s proclivity for undermining death’s traditionally sinister connotations is as admirable as its narrative pacing, structure, and grand reveals. Much of the plot follows Mickey and Solveig on their three-day ritual journey, which sees the two build trust amongst the vegetation. Involving melting flesh, needle-like branches and snake eggs, it’s an oddly calming string of practices, even when protective father Jake mocks the “witch camp” festivities. For some viewers, these practices may feel long-winded and tedious (despite wonderfully gory moments keeping the heart rate up), but Mother of Flies rewards patience with beautiful chaos. The film rings of both the present and the past; Solveig’s necromancer history is an astonishing revelation that honors multicultural folkloric traditions concerning witches and infants.
Mother of Flies‘ visual presentation is a verdant treat that encourages the audience to find peace in the slowness. Shot in the Catskills region, imagery of moss, mushrooms, newts, snakes, deer and the glimmer of sunlight peering through gaps in the tree canopy is sublime. Even the more grotesque moments, like shots of talking decaying corpses and Solveig releasing a swarm of flies from her mouth, are artful, in part thanks to the work of special visual effects master Trey Lindsay. The warmth of the sun in contrast with the coolness of the moon, rich crimson blood against bright green herbage — the Adams Family conquers contrast and divergence both thematically and aesthetically. As viewers are immersed in Mother of Flies, it becomes apparent that this clan feels one with the natural world, even its grittiest parts. To find harmony with the lush trees and the death-hungry maggots is what the film is all about, after all.
Following its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival, Mother of Flies screened at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, and was reviewed at that festival. The film will release on Shudder in 2026.