Mother of Flies

NOW ON SHUDDER! Your pumpkin will be blown in half by the blast of rare spices jetting from the magnificent folk horror feature Mother of Flies, written and directed by Toby Poser, John Adams, and Zelda Adams. These filmmakers also work under the team name The Adams Family, as they are mother, father, and daughter for real. Mickey (Zelda Adams) has a terminal disease that the doctors can do nothing against, setting up Mickey to die young. Mickey’s father, Jake (John Adams), is driving them both way out into the woods upstate to undergo an unorthodox treatment that isn’t approved by the medical community. Jake is skeptical, as he thinks it may just be a cruel con being played on desperate patients. Mickey informs Jake that there aren’t any other choices and that the practitioner seems convinced her method can help. After passing a huge cone-shaped mound of stones, they come upon a house in the forest that the trees have grown into.

It is here that they both will stay for the next several days, as Mickey undergoes the strange rituals performed by Solveig (Toby Poser). Solveig lives in the middle of the woods with no wi-fi or telephones, following a lifestyle that seems to predate even the 19th century.

“… Mickey has a terminal disease that the doctors can do nothing against …”

Jake finds Solveig’s odd vegetarian meals disgusting and wants to split, but Solveig insists that he stay, telling Jake he also has a part to play in Mikey’s treatment. Jake asks his kid how the heck Mickey found out about Solveig and her alternative medicine practice. That is when Jake is told that Solveig reached out to Mickey during a dream, while Mickey was asleep…

Mother of Flies is fine folk horror crafted to the highest potency of cinematic intoxication. Folk horror is something that you feel more than see, like the sensation and smells of a mug of hot cider on a cold autumn day. The witchcraft angle is used as a jumping-off point into a psychedelic woodland trip, like if you watched the Rose Parade on acid, and turned into a float. There is one gorgeous frame after another, filled with more natural objects arranged in seriously sinister fashions. Most folk horror stays at the stem, but this movie goes right down to the gnarled roots of the sub-genre. We have everything you could ever wish for in a folk horror movie, including flashbacks with pitch-perfect period costumes.