If you’ve been following Fango for a bit, you’re likely well aware that we are big fans of the filmmaking entity known as the Adams Family. Composed of Toby Poser, John Adams, Zelda Adams, and Lulu Adams, the real life family of four continues to push the boundaries of independent filmmaking. One of the most exciting things about these filmmakers is that we have been able to watch them evolve in real time. With each feature film they release, they pick an area of two of their craft to really focus on, and if you watch their filmography in order, you’ll see the growth unfolding on the screen.
The cinematography in Mother of Flies is the most beautiful entry in their work to date. The story lends itself to beautiful photography. John and Zelda answered the call, often capturing Toby’s character, Solveig, in gorgeously crafted natural frames, using tree branches, leaves, etc., to their advantage.
As a whole, the film feels like a showcase for actor, producer, writer, and multi-hyphenate family matriarch Toby Poser. The role of Solveig is a perfect vehicle to showcase everything Toby can do. Mother Of Flies gives us Toby Poser unleashed, and it is glorious. We caught up with Toby and John following their Fantastic Fest premiere. You can watch Mother Of Flies now streaming on Shudder.
Toby, as Solveig, you are soft, but terrifying. It's poetic. It's tragic. Can you talk about bringing that character to life with all these different nuances?
Toby Poser: I love Solveig. It just was a privilege and pleasure to play her. She's an incredibly patient woman who will wait centuries to get what she wants. And she's witchy as hell. She's generous, but she knows what she wants. I mean, that's the kind of woman I like and she's incredibly modern.
Solveig is very much one with nature, and it feels the way it was shot, she's almost always, at least in a wide shot, framed within nature. You're seeing her between branches, between trees. Was that a conscious decision very early on?
John Adams: Zelda and I talked a lot about what kind of cinematography we wanted on this one, and we wanted to celebrate the power of light and the power of this woman getting her wisdom from nature. We wanted to celebrate the flies and the birds. Also, the sound is just saturated with things from nature. So yeah, that was definitely a big part of the magic on this one.
The flies are practical, they're real flies. They're really great actors. They're always present. When you need them to be around the Mother of Flies, they're there.
TP: Oh yeah. They showed up ready to work. The hard part about the flies was like, I'm not freaked out. I was happy for them to land on my face. But the problem is that sometimes they would bite. Then when they would bite, I'd have a mark for at least a week, and it was like, “Shit. Well, do I let them stay?”
JA: Usually [for our other movies] we're trying to get all the flies out. Literally, we'll be in front of the camera trying to blow the flies away. But this time we were kind of like, “All right, let's go flies. Do your thing. You've been wanting to be in the last nine movies. You're welcome now.”
TP: And thematically, they really understood what this movie was about. So they kept showing up to remind us.
JA: Actually, Toby is a fly magnet. Now, I don't know what that means, but it's funny. We'll come home and I'll be like, “Oh my God, what happened to you?” And she's like, “The flies.” I haven't been bitten by one.
TP: I'm sweet.
TP: If I were a fly, I'd be biting Toby too.
And that's how Mother of Flies was born.
The Music
You also do the music for your movies. You do everything for these movies. Did you create both the score and soundtrack for this?
JA: Yeah, we had a lot of fun with it. Whenever we make a movie, we spend the first couple of months writing songs for it so we can kind of figure out what the tone is. We had a great time writing the music for this. Toby, Zelda, and me sitting around writing a lot of songs. Then we kind of know our tone and then we drop the music in as we edit to see how it fits. I think this was a real joy, putting the music in here.
TP: John is always writing music and he's also always capturing sounds, he’s kind of a foley library. We'll be upstairs and he'll be downstairs. He'll say, “Hey, can you step on that board again and again, find a rhythm?” And then he'll incorporate some of that into music. I mean, he's just constantly writing. Zelda, when she's home, is contributing as well, and I'm singing underneath Zelda. It's just a beautiful symbiosis by now.
JA: Two of our biggest sounds in this movie are the dishwasher opening, and the other one is just a drill. You just hear it, you're like, “Wait, oh my God, that sounds great, that old rusty spring in the dishwasher.”
TP: Can you do it in the key of C?
A Meditation On Death
This movie asks us to not shun or run from death, but to embrace it. Was that something that was important to you, to create something around that message?
JA: Thank you so much for putting it into words. Yes. We wanted this film to be love of family, love of life and love of death.
TP: Sometimes I think we get very used to the idea that people are fighting for the light out of the dark, but really this one's more about death just craves a little light too. Sometimes you just have to reach your hand out and walk with it a little … It's not time for me yet, death. Hang on, buddy. But I respect you and I'll be inspired by you and make a movie out of it, but full respect.
JA: I mean, you're here in life, so enjoy it, fight for it. And welcome death because it's coming and it's beautiful. If life is this beautiful, then why wouldn't death be?
TP: Yeah. Solveig knows that shit. I mean, literally. She's like, “I will comfort you and give me something a little in return.”
We have been watching your kids grow up in real time through your films. As artists yourselves, how has it been watching them progress in their craft and as artists as well in their own rite?
JA: It's a little hard to watch our movies because I'm looking at my kids and it's a bit heartbreaking, but it's also really wonderful because we're not just watching what made it onto the screen. We're also remembering where we were when we shot things, what was going on, what soccer games we were playing. So it's very lucky that we have all this stuff there in live motion.
TP: Oh, it's so cool. We're lucky when we get Lulu because she's just such a life wanderer and she lives in Scotland, but Zelda's really grown up with it from six on and to see how she's evolved, as not only an actor, but as a filmmaker is really cool. She brings so much to the table and I'm just so proud of her.
JA: Beyond her acting, which you could always tell, her filming, her cinematography, her eye is magnificent. It's been so fun. Now she's off at college and getting educated and going to Paris and going to museums and then being like, “Let's do a shot like this painting from the Renaissance.” It's just wonderful watching her.
TP: And still wanting to work with us. We're like, “What?”
JA: Yeah. We'll see how long that lasts.
TP: I pinch the hell out of myself. We're going to shoot with her again this winter. And it's like, how do we get so lucky?
Broken Bones And A Road Kill Freezer
You guys have talked about the fridge of roadkill that you have at your house. Some people have a costume closet, and you guys have the roadkill fridge.
TP: The meat freezer, yep.
JA: You know what? I mean, you see something like, “Look at this snake. We might need it. We might need it.” So into the freezer it goes next to the hamburgers. Who wants to come over for dinner?
TP: Or we let the meat kind of slough off of the bones and then we keep everything around our house and it's great security. Because when people show up, we either have fake prosthetics lining the porch or these bones that are in mid-decay and it's good protection.
JA: We don't need that ADT sign. You want to come up? Come up.
Speaking of bones, Toby, you broke a bone while making this?
TP: I did. I broke a rib. The first time we were shooting the death vagina because I was hanging upside down naked, slathered in blood. Thank God John had a firm grip. I mean, I'm not exactly a feather and he's holding me by my legs over an opening of this death vagina and it's just so weird.
JA: She had to go get it out of it.
TP: Just broke my rib. It was worth it.
Did you know at that moment that it was broken?
JA: Yes. I was like, “Oh my God, what happened?” She's like, “I think I just broke a rib.”
Did you take any downtime after that?
TP: No, because I didn't want to do it again. Although we did.
JA: You were a good sport. That was amazing. I was like, “All right, let's quit.” You're like, “No way. Did we get it?” I looked at it. I was like, “Not really…”
Next Up For The Adams Family
You two are never static. Are you taking a moment now to enjoy the fruits of Mother of Flies? Or are you already thinking about the next thing, onto your next project?
TP: What do you think?
I already know the answer. You don't take any downtime. You break ribs and you keep going. You are probably deep into production on the next one.
TP: That's the way of the shark. If you stop, you die.
JA: Yeah. Plus this is fun. This isn't work. This is fun.
JA: We're here having fun with Mother of Flies, talking about it, just talking to so many wonderful people. And that's just feeding our next script and our next everything, where Toby's going to be a sheriff. Basically we're going to go home and just wait for the snow and then we can shoot away.
For your last couple of films, you wanted to focus specifically on FX, then on cinematography. Is there something in your next film that will be your primary focus?
JA: Beautiful question. Yeah, we want this one to be real kinetic. It's going to be a movie about a very bad day of the sheriff's life and we just want it to be relentless. That's going to be exciting for us because we love setting up paintings as shots, but this time we don't want to set up paintings. We want it to be a ton of motion. It's going to be a good learning experience for us. I think this is way up Zelda's alley because Zelda loves motion.
The Witch Movie Resurgence
Witch movies are having a bit of a resurgence right now. Why do you think that is, or at least personally, why did you want to tell that kind of a story?
TP: The concept of the witch historically is, well, it's fascinating because often it's a maligned woman who is just doing what someone wants or they're just maligned because they're smart. They know how to harness the energy of the earth to heal. And they've been maligned by a lot of fucking hypocrites. That never gets old in the justice of the witch, not only the woman as a witch, but just the witch in general.
JA: Yeah, it's the fear of wisdom and knowledge. Right now, in our movie, Solveig has the wisdom and the knowledge and that can be problematic for people.
Mother of Flies is now streaming on Shudder. Watch our full Fantastic Fest interview with Toby Poser and John Adams below.
