“A lot of my nightmares growing up were about clowns,” Zelda Adams reveals when we ask her about her new movie, Where The Devil Roams, “especially after I watched season four of American Horror Story!”

We’re feeling you Zelda – clowns and carnivals are a staple in the horror genre, and Where The Devil Roams follows a family of carnival acts as they journey around the US, committing a murder or two along the way…

The family we follow are mother Maggie (Toby Poser), father Seven (John Adams) and their daughter Eve (Zelda Adams) and indeed Toby, John, Zelda and eldest daughter Lulu Adams comprise their own act – of the filmmaking kind. 

The Adams family write, direct, produce, edit, star and even create their own music for their movies and Where The Devil Roams is their seventh feature in a long and varied career of making films, jumping different genres.

Lately, though, the Adams have been playing in the horror pond, with their fifth feature, the dark ghostly tale The Deeper You Dig taking the family into the supernatural horror direction, followed by witchy and magical HELLBENDER and now Where The Devil Roams. Their movies are made via their production company, Wonder Wheel Productions and it’s no accident that their latest focuses on carnivals, given their company’s namesake 

“I mean, the name of our production company is after a big Ferris wheel!” Toby laughs when we delve into horror’s association with carnivals with her. “I think the kind of carnivals that we’re attracted to are the little side carnivals that are an equal hybrid of seedy and thrill. That you never know if you’re going to die on those little rickety rides but you have to go on them,” she tells us. “And the lights and the bad foods that smell so sweet and good and the strange possibilities of sideshow strangeness is very romantic…”

“There’s magic in circuses,” John agrees. “There’s also magic in the romance of us all looking back at the 1930s or anytime in the past. I think it was the perfect place to set this film of these characters that we wanted to bring to life because there is already a built-in dark romance to that time and that part of society.”

Indeed, the movie is set during the great depression of America in the 1930s and sees the family travelling around in a rather impressive 1931 Chevy (we’ll come back to that later), which is pretty ironic seeing as the journey the Adams take on their road to moviemaking, too, usually happens in the car: “We have long car rides to soccer practice or drives to the city and we are always just talking, bringing up little ideas,” reveals Zelda. “Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s Toby, sometimes it’s John, just bringing up something like: ‘Hey, what do you guys think about this?’ We like to call it throwing spaghetti; start throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks about the idea. And then sometimes this wonderful monster is formed.”

The beginning of their journey for Where The Devil Roams was no different: “I was sitting in the car with John,” Zelda remembers, “and I was thinking to myself: ‘Hey, what if the clown actually wasn’t the bad guy?’ That’d be a really interesting movie.

“So I brought this idea of a clown on the carnival circuit that’s the protagonist and John and Toby did a wonderful idea of warping that into a story that didn’t end up being about a clown, but it was about a group of carnies that were flawed, but were the protagonists of the film.”

Flawed is a pretty attenuative way of describing the three complex central characters in the film. First up we have Maggie, who we first see in the movie as a child joining her sister in the murder of their parents and who grows up to have a penchant for much of the same. At the same time, she’s a loving mother and supportive wife, who goes above and (murderously) beyond protecting her family and who we see at points lovingly touching children’s shoes that she sometimes finds – a throwback to a traumatic childhood memory. “I just thought that Maggie should be lovable and horrible and deeply, deeply flawed, like all these characters,” Toby reveals. “I don’t think she’s the sharpest tool in the shed but I wanted her to know how to use those tools. I wanted to play Maggie and she kind of just came out of the desire to play someone who was both horrible and lovable.”

Maggie couldn’t be more opposite to John, who balks at the very sight of blood after suffering from PTSD as a result of being a war doctor. Luckily for him, Maggie always makes sure to gently blindfold him before carrying out her deadly deeds. Meanwhile, Eve takes a more voyeuristic role in Maggie’s murders, carefully photographing each terrible tableau after the event.

Eve is also a mute, which was actually handy for Zelda when it came to shooting the movie: “I was pretty happy because I didn’t have to learn any lines!” she laughs. “I could just show up and go ‘let me give a couple of different expressions’. So that’s it. But I actually really did love it because she’s one of the main characters and she has to tell a lot through her emotions. So I did feel like it was a fun acting challenge for me.”

Though she’s mute, for their carnival act, Eve sings on stage while her parents perform with her and in another delightful twist of life imitating art, the family is also in a band together in real life – H6LLB6ND6R, which is what their sixth movie was named after. Oh and the band is awesome and you can listen to them on Spotify here. 

It’s not surprising, then, that music plays an integral role for the family during the filmmaking process. “I think that music is actually a lot of our backbone when we’re making a film,” Zelda reveals. “It’s something that we can rely on and it’s something that can help guide us through the story.”

The family didn’t listen to H6LLB6ND6R on the set of Where The Devil Roams mind you, and went for a heavier vibe of music to fit in line with the tone of the movie. “Through our process, we’re always recording and listening to music,” John reveals. “So we’re all very aware of what the musical tone of our film is going to be.

“We were going for a more heavy stoner-rock vibe [in the movie] and so on car rides and stuff we were listening to bands like Pigs, pigs, pigs, pigs, pigs pigs, pigs or Slomosa.”

Oop! We’re back to the car rides again. Travelling has certainly been central to the Adams’ career, and they tell us that this whole filmmaking adventure actually started when John and Toby decided to take a year off and travel around in an RV, while home-schooling the children, who were about 11 and 6 years old at the time. 

“Instead of waiting for others to give us permission, [we were like] ‘let’s just do something we want to do’,” Toby says. “The kids were interested in acting. So we just set off on the road in 2010 for a year and we shot our first film Rumble Strips and we were just absolutely hooked!”

Rumble Strips follows a mother who is arrested for growing marijuana and takes her two young daughters on an RV trip before she’s sentenced, so they can be prepared for her absence. Though their movies all have very different tones and fit into different genres, that central theme of family is always present, whether it’s the uncle/niece dynamic in their fun 2014 drama Knuckle Jack or the incredible bond between mother and daughter in The Deeper You Dig and Hellbender, family is key. And for the Adams, that’s both in front of the camera and behind. 

Indeed, for Where The Devil Roams, even the extended family and their community were called into arms. “We live in a very small rural town and a lot of times people just come up to us and say ‘will you please kill me in your movie?’ And so who are we to deny them?!” Toby laughs. “It was so much fun and that’s very much in our DNA – we love to use what is around us. And there were a lot of enthusiastic people who were wonderful.”

Another honorary family member who appears in the film is the Chevy that the central family drives (we told you we’d get back to that) – which is actually John’s dad’s car and was a linchpin in the filming process: “[Filming] began with the 1931 Chevy,” Toby nods.”There were times we had to give it a little push, but that baby just was our star.”

“Everybody was up for Christmas,” John continues the story. “There was a snowstorm and we were like ‘oh my god, this would be great, let’s give it a try’, so we put the Chevy up on a flatbed and my brother-in-law drove the truck pulling us all along. I sat in the back filming and these guys were in the car and it was great!” 

Though Where The Devil Roams is a slightly bigger production than some of their previous movies, the community and family vibe in creating it was still very much apparent. “This film was still like a small Adams Family Film,” Zelda nods. “Maybe we had an extra dollar or two to pay for the clothes and the wood that would build our sets, but it was still John, Lulu and Alex sweating their balls off making those sets. It was still us with a broken tripod and two tiny little mics. So it still felt like it was very true to our Adams Family Films style, which almost resembles the family travelling on the carnival circuit, just trying to get by with the little things that they have.”

Speaking of that Adams Family Films style, it truly is unique and we can’t help but ask them how they would define that style: “I tend to think of us as like a band of misfit filmmakers,” answers Toby. “I guess I like the word misfit. I think there is something that feels a little bit like an outsider for us, but we are very much a ragtag team.”

“I hope people think that our films are honest,” John adds. “Like with Hellbender we tried to be honest about a mother-daughter relationship, with The Deeper You Dig we tried to be honest about guilt and loss, and in this film, we’re trying to be honest about what true love is, which is no matter how fucked everything is, love is always being able to forgive. But this really takes it to a dark place…”

Speaking of going to a dark place, Where The Devil Roams certainly broaches those murky corners, especially when the movie delves into Seven’s past as a war doctor (in one scene, Seven even decapitates a fellow soldier), which is told via flashbacks. “I love the World War One flashbacks, I think they’re really cool,” says Toby. “I think that’s where our most brutal violence comes. I think it’s the most brutal any of our films have ever been, particularly in the last World War One flashback [with the decapitiation], which is actually Zelda’s boyfriend. I feel so bad because when his mother sees that she’s just going to hate us!”

“It’s perfect for me because people say ‘how did you deal with Zelda’s first boyfriend?’ and I’m going to say ‘I cut his head off’,” John laughs. “That’s going to be it. The end of the conversation, so that people are very uncomfortable…”

What the Adams are finding uncomfortable right now (in a good way) is the wait for the movie to be released to wider audiences: “We’re very nervous because nobody has seen it until just now so we’re all excited but definitely nervous!” Toby laughs.

“This is our horror movie. Now when we roll it out, we’re just fucking terrified!” John says. “This is where it’s fun for us.”

The movie will be showing at this year’s FrightFest and the only people who will be terrified are audiences because the Adams have hit the nail on the head once again with Where The Devil Roams  – bringing horror, heart, and humour all into one glorious genre rollercoaster of a carnival ride.

Where The Devil Roams will be showing at FrightFest in London on 25 August. Get your tickets here.

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Young Izzy has lived an isolated life in upcoming horror Hellbender. However, a chance encounter with a new friend finds Izzy questioning her life and finding out a few dark secrets about her family…

Watch the trailer for the movie here…

In Hellbender, 16-year-old Izzy (Zelda Adams) is kept isolated on a mountaintop with her mother (Toby Poser), who tells her she has a serious illness and can’t be around other people. However, Izzy begins to question her sickness and pushes back against her confinement, secretly befriending Amber (Lulu Adams). Her happiness at finally connecting with someone is short-lived, however, after she eats a live worm as part of a juvenile game and finds an insatiable and violent hunger awakened within her. Soon, she finds out that she is a Hellbender, part of an ancient line of beings who have powers and a darkness inside them. Can Izzy confront the secrets of her past, understand her lineage and battle against the growing hunger that lies inside her before it’s too late?

This latest film from the upstate N.Y. filmmaker family The Adams and is written, directed, produced, scored, and edited by Toby Poser, John Adams, and Zelda Adams (The Deeper You Dig) — who also star, alongside Lulu Adams. It’s the sixth feature from Wonder Wheel Productions, the family-run production company founded by Poser and Adams and their children, and the family also produced the music for the feature with tracks from their experimental punk band H6LLB6ND6R.

“It’s a story of a mother who is watching her daughter become an adult. And that is exactly what’s happening in our family,” John Adams told us when we spoke to him about the movie last year. “It’s beautiful and it’s painful, and one of the great things about horror movies is you can take just a regular drama, something as simple as a mother watching her daughter become an adult, and you can dress it up with blood and witchcraft and it just explodes with fun!”

Hellbender will be released on Shudder on 24 February. Read our full interview with the Adams family here.

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In Hellbender, 16-year-old Izzy (Zelda Adams, pictured above) is kept isolated on a mountaintop with her mother (Toby Poser), who tells her she has a serious illness and can’t be around other people. However, Izzy begins to question her sickness and pushes back against her confinement, secretly befriending Amber (Lulu Adams). Her happiness at finally connecting with someone is short-lived, however, after she eats a live worm as part of a juvenile game and finds an insatiable and violent hunger awakened within her. Soon, she finds out that she is a Hellbender, part of an ancient line of beings who have powers and a darkness inside them. Can Izzy confront the secrets of her past, understand her lineage and battle against the growing hunger that lies inside her before it’s too late?

Hellbender is the sixth movie created by Wonder Wheel Productions, the family-run production company founded by Toby Poser, John Adams and their children, Zelda and Lulu, and we sat down with Poser, Adams and Zelda during this year’s Fantasia Festival to discuss working as a family, creating a horror movie during lockdown and their experimental punk band H6llb6nd6r…

How and when did you first get the idea for Hellbender?

Toby Poser: There were a few things going on. First of all, we had our band H6LLB6ND6R, which kind of came first and we were doing videos for that and toying with these witchy dark visuals, and then something came up with me and I learned that I was donor-conceived at 50 years old! Which was like ‘wow, yeah, okay!’ and that kind of got some juices flowing, thinking about genetics, and we just started to play.

John Adams: We talked about it a lot. Zelda was playing soccer at the time so we were in the car all the time driving to soccer games and we were just talking about movie ideas. We had such fun making [our previous movie] The Deeper You Dig that we knew we wanted to make another horror. So we just talked over and over about different ideas, bounced them off each other, and finally came down to this idea that turned into Hellbender!

Your band, H6llb6nd6r also features a lot in the film, when did you first form the band?

Zelda Adams: We’ve played music for quite a while. We’ve just called it different bands. When I was a bit younger, our band was called Kid California, but in the past two years, we changed our band named to H6LLB6ND6R, simply just because it sounds awesome.

Then we were like, ‘we need to make a movie with this title!’ But yeah, John used to be a rock star… he still is! He’s great at playing all sorts of instruments and I love singing and Toby has a wonderful mystical voice so it’s something that we just love doing together.

So can we find your music online?

Zelda Adams: We’re on Spotify and Apple Music, our band is called H6llb6nd6r but all the Es are 6s! (Find H6llb6nd6r on Spotify here).

There is a lot of folklore included in Hellbender, did you do any research when writing the movie?

Toby Poser: Yeah, I really love taking deep dives into research and in this case, I was doing a lot of reading about Lilith, and Eve. I especially was really snagged on the Aural Burrows, this idea of regeneration, and we wanted to come up with our own mythology, which was influenced by all of these old antiquated stories of females, power, fear of power for women. We jumped off from all of that it was super fun.

John Adams: Toby writes this stuff down and it’s very important. It’s really cool because it’s great that she keeps it organised, because there are definite rules and laws to Hellbenders and Toby made sure we followed them!

Toby Poser: Nobody can read my handwriting but me. That just adds to the mysticism!

John Adams: It’s so true, but there’s no code so when she’s gone, no one’s gonna be able to know what the hell that was!

Did you shoot the film during the pandemic?

Zelda Adams: Yeah, this was shot during the pandemic. After we finished The Deeper You Dig we were thinking, ‘oh, we kind of want to make our production size a little bit bigger, maybe have a bigger crew hire, more actors…’ and then COVID came along and put us in our place and we’re like, ‘yeah, that’s definitely not happening!’.

Where did you shoot the film?

Zelda Adams: We went back to our small roots and I’m really happy that we did. We actually bought a truck and a trailer and decided to travel around America, so that we could still see the world during COVID but still be isolated.

So a lot of the film is actually shot around the United States of America, a lot of which is in the north west. A lot of the dream sequences are just shot in mid-America and the deserts. So yeah, this is a COVID film! In a lot of the scenes Amber’s character is played by my sister Lulu (Adams), and we’re actually social distancing in all the scenes that we have together, pretty much. Ot was interesting social distancing with my sister while filming!

All your movies are family affairs, how do you manage to keep work life and home life separate?

John Adams:  Well I think at this point, this is our sixth film and I think we know what each person does best. We work very seamlessly and we rarely have any kind of arguments because one of the things that we can do since we shoot on a Canon 5D is if somebody has an opinion on how they want to direct the scene or how they want to seem to unfold, we just shoot it their way. Then we shoot someone else’s way. We can shoot it three different ways, and then we let the editing process tell us which way wins.

All three of you take on multiple roles when making movies, are there any roles you particularly like and any you particularly don’t like?

Toby Poser: I love writing, and I love directing actors too. I come from a theatre history so for me, it’s fun to be on the other side, and then to talk with actors and try to get my thoughts in, filtered through their performance. So writing and directing I really love.

John Adams:  I love cinematography and I love music. I’m not a huge fan of acting so luckily I was dusted really early [in Hellbender]!

Zelda Adams: Cinematography is my favourite too, because when viewers look back on a film, they’re picturing the visuals. So I love trying to leave a visual impact. My least favourite is probably writing but luckily we have Toby to do all the writing work!

Speaking of the visuals, there are plenty of beautiful shots in the film. Do you have a particular favourite?

John Adams: My favourite is this shot of Toby, making the first totem out in the dark blue woods. For me, everything about that I just love. How about you Z? What’s your favourite?

Zelda Adams: There’s a shot of me going down the river with blood all over me that is I think it’s just so visually appealing!

Speaking of that totum scene Toby, did you pre-rehearse how you would move your hands to create the look of casting a spell?

Toby Poser: We didn’t really plan it, we knew we wanted her to be casting a kind of spell, but once we got into nature, which is pretty typical for us, we let nature sort of guide us on what to do. There were these amazing orange fungi, and cool mushrooms and we shot that in the Pacific Northwest. It was just incredible.

John Adams: We did work on the rhythm of her hands [though]. We started working on the rhythm of her hands so that they had a spell-like quality that had a nice rhythm. We knew there was going to be some cool sounds over it. I think that was one of the things that we shot twice, because the first time we didn’t think we captured it the way we wanted to. The first time we shot it turned out to be a rehearsal!

Seeing as you’re all there from the film’s conception to its completion, do any aspects of the filmmaking process happen organically?

Zelda Adams: A lot of our film happens organically. Like the scene with the carcass. When we come across that huge deer carcass. We were actually going to shoot another film in the forest, and we’re walking, and we see this gem of a dead deer and we’re like, ‘wow, we have to make an entire scene around this’. So, a lot of it is improvised based around nature.

John Adams: Yeah, one of the dream sequences, was shot in the White Mountains and it all came together because a storm rolled in. We were out in the middle of nowhere, we didn’t really know exactly what we were doing but a storm suddenly rolled in, and the elements really determined how that dream sequence was going to unfold. So I think organically a lot of stuff just happens off the cuff.

Toby Poser: Speaking of elements, often the nature of where we’re shooting informs what our story is. The more we were steeped in nature (and we live in a very rural area too in the mountains), we realised, ‘oh, Hellbenders are just a beautiful parallel to what nature is’. It’s brutal, it’s beautiful, there’s life, there’s death. It was really informing our mythology. Nature was like: ‘Let me give you a hint.’

Is it similar when it comes to the editing process? Or are there still surprises at that point?

John Adams: Oh editing always gives you surprises. Editing always seems to edit itself. The three of us will sit, I’ll push the buttons but they’re over my shoulder, and each scene edits itself.

Zelda Adams: It’s also really nice working as a family because we can shoot that scene, go edit it, see how it looks on the computer and if we don’t like it, we’ll just go shoot it again right there in that moment!

What would you say are the main themes in the film?

John Adams: It’s a story of a mother who is watching her daughter become an adult. And that is exactly what’s happening in our family. It’s beautiful and it’s painful, and one of the great things about horror movies is you can take just a regular drama, something as simple as a mother watching her daughter become an adult, and you can dress it up with blood and witchcraft and it just explodes with fun!

Zelda Adams: It’s also a story of nature versus nurture because the mother is raising Izzy to be like a human, but that’s not her nature. Izzy’s nature is to be a Hellbender and is that okay? Is that okay to live out her nature like that? So I think that’s one of the things that we cover.

Toby Poser: I would just say that life is just rough, whether you’re a Hellbender or a human, and we wanted to show what it means to be a family, but within this strange supernatural lens. For me it was about nature and it was about families and we were just hoping that we could fuse them.

Why did you decide to focus the film on a mother/daughter relationship?

John Adams: We noticed a lot of reviews from The Deeper You Dig had said, ‘oh, I really would have loved to seen, the mother/daughter relationship get filled out a little more’, so it seemed like a nice piece of advice to us as moviemakers. Ot’s something that we enjoy doing so we got to fill out that relationship, we got to build up those two characters.

It’s [also] kind of a celebration of Toby and Zelda. We’ll be able to look back as a family and look at Toby and Zelda together on screen, and it’s kind of like a family album!

Zelda Adams: Toby and I are mother and daughter so it’s really nice just getting to naturally play out our relationship on screen.

What is it about horror that appeals to you and audiences?

Toby Poser: Horror is just so much fun and it’s just an endless candy shop of possibilities. I think we’re very happy people and so I think [with] horror, it’s just natural sometimes to gravitate towards the opposite of what you are. I mean if you’re happy all the time it gets a little boring writing movie about happy people! It’s like, ‘now let’s play on our deepest fears’ and we’ll be happy doing it!

John Adams: We’ve also noticed the horror community is really accepting of taking chances as a filmmaker. They want you to take chances. They want to see more art. A wonderful thing about making horror films is that acceptance to push the boundaries.

There are two ways to get through life, you can cry or you can laugh, and horror fans have chosen to laugh. I love the horror community because mostly they’re laughing. Now, occasionally some of them slip and are really dark and mean, but generally we’re all laughing at Friday The 13th, in a sense. We love being scared and it’s a terrifically joyous community I think.

Toby Poser: I have great trust in people who love horror! A lot of people say, ‘I don’t do horror’ but horror people just go there. They’re in touch with their most primal fears and they can laugh.

 Zelda Adams: Yeah, and fear is fun, like that’s why we go on roller coasters, it’s exhilarating. So I think horror films are another way to get that exhilarating feeling!

Without going into spoilers, the ending of Hellbender certainly stays with you after the credits roll, was this always the plan?

Zelda Adams: We definitely didn’t know how the film was going to end actually [haha]! It could have gone so many different ways, and we came up with that line, right as we were shooting it. That was pretty much improvised right on spot. Then when we were going through the editing process we were like, ‘that’s it, that’s the line, that’s how this movie has to end’. It’s fun because it really loops back to a beginning scene, and they really tie together well.

What would you like for audiences to take away from Hellbender?

John Adams: I think we all have different goals and we started out with different goals. My main goal with Hellbender was I wanted people to walk out and look at each other and say, ‘that was fun’.

Toby Poser: I think I’d like people to feel that there was a balance between escape and familiarity, which is something that I really appreciate. I’d like to think that people got to escape into this witchy world but also recognise something about the humaneness of their own families.

Zelda Adams: Yeah, I really hope that people can relate to it because I think that there’s a lot of things that the audience can relate to in the film, whether it be parent-kid relationships, coming to terms with your identity and isolation, especially during COVID, I think they can relate to Izzy’s character.

Hellbender was seen at Fantasia Festival. Audiences will be able to watch Hellbender when it is released on Shudder in early 2022.

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