Where the Devil Roams is the latest project from the Adams family, an actual family of multi-hyphenate artists and DIY experts. Their collaborative approach to filmmaking first got the horror community’s attention when their second film Hellbender, a unique and spellbinding coming-of-age story, reached worldwide audiences after being picked up by Shudder. Their new film, which premiered at Montreal’s Fantasia festival last Thursday, has them delving into a Depression-era carnival world and using multiple sets, a plethora of background actors, and even green screen effects. The result is a kind of visual epic poetry that crawls through intricate tableaux filled with familial love, violence, and horror.
The Third Film By The Adams Family
The story follows Seven (John Adams), a traumatized war medic, his partner Maggie (Toby Preston), and their daughter Eve (Zelda Adams) as they travel around the Catskills so Eve can sing at different carnivals. They encounter multiple characters along the way (played by various friends and family members), but as the weather grows colder, their situation becomes more desperate, and though they dream of making their daughter a success, all they manage to do is leave behind a trail of blood and gore.
This family’s filmmaking process is so impressive that the making-of stories about the film deserve their own article. During the Q&A after the screening, Toby, John, Zelda, and her sister Lulu delighted the audience with stories about building the sets in their backyard. Whoever wasn’t in the shot was essentially behind the camera, which made scenes with all three actors on camera especially challenging. They used whatever lighting was available, saving on costs and logistics. They sourced all their Depression-era costumes and props by picking up odds and ends while on the promotional tour for Hellbender. Visual effects supervisor Trey Lindsay also talked about how he convinced them to use a greenscreen to build out the crowd scenes. They shot the same actors in different costumes multiple times and then combined the shots in post. “I don’t think there will ever be an end to the learning,” said Toby.
An All Hands On Deck Affair To Make Art
The Adams family members are also very talented musicians and recording artists. The slow, rhythmic metal-rock score they wrote and performed adds a layer of foreboding to the story, and Zelda’s melodious vocals contrast the music’s heaviness. Like everything with their process, this is mostly about having fun, and leveraging their skills to make something really cool. Their method of finding characters and story as a collective, of building entire universes with their own hands, feels like a relief. It reminds me that art can be whatever the fuck we want it to be.
“All the films are little family albums about what’s happening in the family,” explained John during the Q&A. The themes they explored in Where the Devil Roams revolve around a painful reckoning with aging parents. The body horror sub-genre is just the medium they used to dig at those deeper fears. When talking about her choices to use different coloring throughout the narrative, Zelda said, “I wanted things to lose color and get visually darker as it goes,” adding that she really wanted to earn the choices they made in that final shot.
Haunting Visuals and Unforgettable Moments in Where the Devil Roams
A feeling of rot and decay builds through the film as this fictional family falls apart. And though the pace may be too slow for some, and the story too unstructured for others, the increasingly deteriorating portraits will absolutely draw you in, if you’re open to it. Zelda’s talents as a cinematographer, John’s expertise as a sound engineer, and Toby’s experience with storytelling and black-box theater come together in the most magnificent, horrific ways throughout Where the Devil Roams, but especially at the end. The images feel like a haunted collage, like the vibes have claws, and those claws are now stuck in my brain forever. The final moments of this film are truly something I will never forget.
Hollywood actors and writers are currently on strike against the AMPTP. This movie is not associated with any struck production. However, you can still support those affected most by the strike by donating to the Entertainment Community Fund here!