‘Mother of Flies’ Review: The Adams Family’s Dramatically Anemic Return to Occult Horror

Nobody makes home movies like the Adams family, with proud parents Toby Poser and John Adams cranking out low-budget horror films that they write, direct, and star in (among other behind-the-camera duties) alongside their daughters. If 2024’s Hell Hole, a Serbia-set creature feature, was something of a departure for the Catskills-based filmmaking collective, their latest, Mother of Flies, finds them back in familiar, occult-themed territory.

At the center of the film is cancer-stricken Mickey (Zelda Adams), a college kid whose chemotherapy is no longer keeping her in remission. Knowing that she doesn’t have much time left, Mickey turns to a peculiar healer named Solveig (Toby Poser), who lives in an overgrown house deep in the woods. Mickey’s father, Jake (John Adams), tags along for what he wryly terms “witch camp,” and he’s almost instantly skeptical of Solveig, what with their being no running water on her property. When he says “amen” in jest, Solveig hurriedly implores him to “take it back” by spitting, robbing the word of its power.

We’re meant to wonder about Solveig, though not the way Jake does. Through the woman’s rhyming narration, Mother of Flies channels the occult for atmospheric effect, with flashbacks establishing that she’s quite old. Making use of impressive practical effects, one scene set centuries prior depicts her using a spiky twig to slice into a pregnant woman’s stomach and pull out a stillborn child. No, rather than wondering whether Solveig is the real deal, we’re supposed to question what her intentions might be for Mickey, as she’s doing all this for free.

Between the various ritual scenes, though, Mother of Flies gives us minimal drama. The film abounds in rather muted monologues about the nature of death and Mickey’s determination to not give in, none of which is especially profound or even successful at advancing what passes for characterizations here. The audience wouldn’t know that there are ties of history between Mickey and her father throughout their conversations. In fact, when they discuss the young woman’s mortality, it’s as if they’re doing so for the very first time.

All the while, the film struggles to create a sense of conflict or mystery, and that’s largely because it’s reluctant to portray Solveig as overtly sinister. Despite the affinity the Adams clan has displayed for spooky, goopy imagery in the past, Mother of Flies finds them reluctant to fully exercise those talents for fear of tipping their hand. Even as Solveig slips Jake tea that makes him vomit and hallucinate, she comes off as eccentric yet earnest, as everything that happens to Mickey is plausibly in service of healing. You keep waiting for the film to finally cut loose, and by the time it does, it’s dawdling up to that point effectively undercuts the intended tension.