The UK’s top scare bonanza, FrightFest, returns to London for its 24th edition on Thursday August 24 – Monday 28 August 2023 and the festival always attracts not only some of the top horror movies we’re going to be excited about for the coming year, but all aspects of the filmmaking community.
This year, members of the Adams family – comprising John Adams, Toby Poser and their children, Lulu and Zelda Adams – will also be attending. They are the creative minds behind The Deeper You Dig and Hellbender and it’s safe to say the filmmaking family are firm SciFiNow faves. We’re not kidding, we’ve chosen their latest movie Where The Devil Roams as the SciFiNow hosted movie at the festival, and we’ll be speaking to them after the European Premier of their movie on 25 August at the festival.
Where The Devil Roams follows a family of carnival folk as they murder their way through America during the 1930s and come across a mystical hand that’s linked to the devil.
“We always love playing with mythology in our films,” says Toby. “It was similar in The Deeper You Dig, we had this old verbiage in an old book. In Hellbender we also have a book and we were creating the Hellbender characters. So in this case, we just love the idea of ‘let’s really explore the story of the devil’”.
Not only will the Adams be attending FrightFest to discuss their movie, but Toby will also be attending as a mentor for the festival’s New Blood initiative. When we ask her for a snippet of what advice she’ll be giving aspiring filmmakers at the festival she says that “it would be to not hinge everything upon money and budgets. There’s so much at your fingertips or just beyond the corner of your eye that you can make something wonderful with.
“If you have a story that is honest and compelling, just make it and don’t worry about all the bells and whistles, otherwise you’ll be waiting forever,” she continues. “Just get going and then you’ll get better every time. Just like us, we’re learning every time. I can learn as much from that person I’m going to be talking to as they can from me.”
Where The Devil Roams is the Adams’ seventh feature and they can’t wait to see it on the big screen in Leicester Square with a crowd of fellow horror fans: “My favourite thing about FrightFest, showing at FrightFest is actually the FrightFest audience,” John nods. “I can’t wait because they’re such a film-educated crew and I’m just excited to learn from them. That’s going to be really great for me. I look forward to that.”
Us too!
Where The Devil Roams will be showing at FrightFest in London on 25 August. Get your tickets here.