[Editorial] Mayhem Festival: Interview with Toby Poser and John Adams on Where the Devil Roams (2023)

I can’t help feeling that it’s only natural that my kid should love films as much as I do; and I guess it may have been a similar experience when John Adams and Toby Poser raised Lulu and Zelda, offspring who have collaborated with their filmmaker parents since adolescence. The Adams family’s latest film, Where the Devil Roams, was a smash at Fantasia and FrightFest (where it won three major awards), and is now heading into the UK regional festivals, including my favourite, Mayhem Film Festival in Nottingham.

Fern and I had interviewed John, Toby and Zelda a couple of years ago, when Hellbender was about to start a similar circuit; this time, Zelda was unavailable (getting stuck into college), but the rest of us had plenty to talk about, starting with a comment I think I’ve only ever spoken out loud once before in my life: last time I saw you, you were on my TV screen, naked! (And as icebreakers go, there aren’t many better.) Toby laughed and John nearly took me into spoiler territory---way too soon!---so I dropped that in favour of a more sensible topic. Where the Devil Roams opens with a poem, and I asked my guests where that had come from.

“We just kind of jumped off from the story of the fallen angel, Abaddon,” said Toby, “and we like writing poetry, and it was a joy to write, and our way to establish the mythology; the mythological undercurrent of the story that led to that ending.”

So, was it based on existing religious writings, or utterly made up? “Utterly made up,” Toby said. Fern had assumed there was some Christian influence, because the poem had made clear reference to devils and similar. “Oh, you’re right,” confirmed John, “not completely made up; Toby’s myth was made up, but it borrowed characters from classic religious texts.”

Toby expanded: “I looked up fallen angels and somehow it came to the story of Abaddon; I looked up what that meant, and it meant the abyss and destruction in Hebrew. And we were like ‘that sounds really cool’, and we just started from there. That word alone was a dynamite for our imagination.”

You could say your stories come from the abyss, suggested my kid. “Without a doubt, this is about the abyss,” said John, “with the idea in mind that the abyss is life on Earth, you know, and how brutal it can be. So, it is a story about people who are surviving brutality.”

I had found it interesting that devils and heavens were referenced several times in contrast with Hellbender, which was thoroughly pagan in its visuals and ideas. And there was another notable contrast too, in the use of colours: I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something different, less sharp in the palette and I asked whether John or Toby could explain what they had done.

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“We wanted to have this be super-stark, super-contrast,” said John, “with the saturation drained out and kind of cold; all the colours we had were cold. Hellbender was very green and warm, and we chose to shoot this one in fall and winter to give it the sparse, high contrast; and we wanted to feed the brutal coldness of the story. It was super-important to us that it should be like an old fairy tale: if you open an old book, it’s drained of colours.”

The black and white scenes, especially near the start of the film, had reminded Fern of films from a hundred years ago or so, like Nosferatu; she asked whether the Adams had got any inspiration from early spooky films. “You’ve nailed it right on the head,” said John. “Just the fact that you know Nosferatu, even though you’re just sixteen… and one of the great things about the horror community is that they appreciate old black and white films: they can enjoy it.”

“There were some other influences there too,” said Toby. “I love German expressionism; my favourite film on Earth is a Murnau film called Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, not a horror, but more like a thriller, and it’s just so beautiful. We also love Vampyr and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari of course. And Frankenstein, from the same era that we were trying to shoot, 1931: we had a nod to the preface from that film, when the guy comes out and says, ‘you’re going to watch something that might scare those who are faint of heart’. And we need to mention our special effects guy, Trey Lindsay, who made that effect just wonderful.”

I was aware he had been involved with Hellbender as well; interesting to note other names than just family who moved forward through the Adams filmography. I asked John and Toby in terms of their style and skills, what it had been like to progress through three genre films; The Deeper You Dig being the first that brought the Adams to the attention of the horror audience.

“Super fun!” said John. “We’ve had such a great time working together. We all strive to get better; we want to make the films we want to make but we do want to entertain people. We understand that we’re not going to entertain everybody: we’re not trying to make a soft-edged film. We are going to attract a certain type of horror fan, but we do want to make them a real piece of art, so we’re all trying to improve relentlessly, and also leave behind the things we’re not as good at.”

I wondered if he was referring to the films that came before these recent three; I don’t see the earlier ones mentioned much (even in email signatures, the list starts with Dig).

“Those were pretty much drama films,” said Toby, “so not that we don’t love and respect them equally, but right now we really enjoy making genre films. It was kind of like meeting your lover.”

“They were just good practice, great practice in filmmaking,” said John, “but once we made our first horror movie---which actually isn’t mentioned either in Toby’s email---called The Hatred, we realised this is where we’re comfortable; this is where we get to make the art that we like to do, talk about deeper subjects in a more fun, artistic way. We love our old films, but definitely understand they were a learning process for us.”

Fern also has a creative mind, and they had recently been contemplating how one finds an audience or demographic as a writer. I asked the Adams how they went about it.

“That’s a great question,” said John, and asked Toby what she thought.

“I think it’s more that the audience found us,” she said. “We put something out there that we loved, first with The Hatred and The Deeper You Dig, within this genre, and people just started to appreciate our films and we felt that we were part of a community. Then more so with Hellbender: we started having conversations with people about what they’re doing and what they appreciate, and their thoughts about what we are doing. We got to meet people like you and had these incredible conversations and realised that wow: we are in this fog of thoughtful appreciation! So, we just kind of found each other, it’s like finding your mate; I can’t help using that.”

So, I guess you found your fandom and your fandom said “welcome home.”

“It’s great because it’s more like we found friends, rather than fans,” said John. “We find that a lot of people want to talk to us about issues, about things in their lives or our lives. It’s less like fans and more like we’re part of a group that wants to talk about life: it’s pretty cool. It’s very cool.”

Talking of life… Where the Devil Roams includes traumatic back stories for John and Toby’s characters, Maggie and Seven; there was nothing like that in relation to Zelda’s character, Eve. I couldn’t help wondering whether her apparent situational mutism was the result of some trauma.

“Sure,” Toby nodded, “I think it does. I think because she’s younger than Seven and Maggie, we’re witnessing the kind of environment she’s grown up within, and that has affected her. There are a couple of reasons why we wanted her to have a voice on stage. I always thought that was a place that was hers: when she’s on stage, her parents kind of back her up, and it’s where she really shines and has a voice. If you look at the lyrics, too, often what she’s saying is her own narration of what’s going on in the story at that time. Also, at first, we were trying to figure out why she, an eighteen-year-old girl, would stay with a family; and we thought perhaps she needs them. But by the end, she certainly finds her agency and you could question whether she needs her parents or is using them to meet her desires. She certainly comes to an age and finds her true purpose.”

Fern had a question next, having seen a family at the centre of both Hellbender and now Where the Devil Roams; she asked our guests whether their family had influenced the fictional families in those films.

“One hundred percent,” said John. “That’s a great question. All of our films are documentaries about where we are in life. The Deeper You Dig was about me and Toby with a twelve-year-old girl, and you worry about them: you worry that something bad is going to happen to them, it’s a strange age. That’s what that film is all about: if something did happen, how would you reach out spiritually to them? How would you find them? The next movie, Hellbender, was about Zelda becoming a woman. And then finally, this one is about Zelda becoming a successful, creative person all on her own, while her parents are getting older; and we’re all trying to figure out how do we all function now? She’s going off as her own person, how do we function as a family, as a creative family?”

And how to manage some of the elderly decay at the same time, I nervously wondered.

“Yeah, that’s true too,” John agreed. Pushing past a minor argument about whether us grown-ups are old, he went on “we did want to address the subject of getting older, yes.”

Old or not, there can certainly be a fear of it when we see our teenagers emerging through their own development. Fern looked to the future in another way, asking if Zelda (or one of the Adams’ other children) had children of her own, might there be an artistic legacy to continue? Maybe there would be talk one day of grandchildren becoming filmmakers, just like grandparents!

“That would be great,” John said, “but it would be their choice. If Zelda’s kids or Lulu’s kids want to make movies, we would be so excited, because we could share in their experience. It would be beautiful. But just like our kids, we don’t believe in trying to make someone do something: they need to say that’s what they want to do.”

Fern was still musing about the question of time, and asked whether the Adams had set Where the Devil Roams far in the past as a reflection of aging. She commented that by this present of 2023, the people from back then would be no more, and even their children would be in their old age.

“That’s such a cool observation,” said Toby. “We loved the idea of setting it in the Depression because it’s sort of going back to that word abyss and the darkness of that time: it’s right for a story about people who are struggling. We wanted to correlate that with the Devil, who exists on Earth as a pauper; the story is about those who ‘go unseen under the eyes of God’. So, the Depression was the perfect time for that, and it was also that liminal time between the wars, which was an important factor for Seven’s character, with his trauma.”

Going back to the topic of the family dynamic, my perspective is that the inclusion of the family in the Adams’ films works so well because their family itself works. Considering the way I’ve seen family breakdown reflected in other filmmakers’ works, I’d hate to see what might come out of the Adams’ imagination if their family came apart.

“Well, I think we could circle back to what you said before about Zelda’s trauma,” John said. “This whole movie is about the scars of life and how you deal with them, no matter how deep they are. Seven used to have a family before he went to the war and terrible things happened to him, and now he’s with Maggie; and you have to ask why is he with her? Is he with her because she can forgive him? This family, in a sense, is Frankensteined together. You asked about Eve’s trauma: her mother is a homicidal maniac! But filled with love. What we want to do here is say that families are filled with histories made up of good and bad memories; each one has received trauma and they’ve dealt a lot of trauma too. No matter how deep that pain is, they are always forgiving and accepting of who they are: it’s a Frankenstein family, a metaphor that we use quite a bit.”

Where The Devil Roams has a noticeably larger cast than the Adams’ previous films: I asked what it was like to adjust to the change in scale.

“It was pretty smooth,” Toby said, “because we live in such a small hamlet in upstate New York, so by now, a lot of people know that we’re this kooky family that makes horror films. And they’re often asking if they can be killed or whatever, so this was the time to take them up on that.”

Of course, my kid now wants to be killed too! “Yes!” they both said.

“We shot a lot in this room,” Toby pointed behind her. “This is where Maggie uses the saw and the ukelele with that person who wouldn’t help them, right in this room. We use everything around us, whether it’s our house or our friends. The houses are really old around here, we’re very lucky in that sense.”

The age of the environment reminded me about something: in preparing for this interview, Fern and I looked back at our last interview with the Adams, from about two years ago. When we interviewed them about Hellbender, they were starting to make what is now their new film; the topic of a period-appropriate soundtrack had arisen then, and it’s interesting to be able to see (or indeed hear) the end result on film. I asked how they actually arrived at their decision about contemporary music and contemporary visuals against the period story.

“We talked a lot about it,” John said, “and we actually wrote some period music, about three songs, and we really didn’t think it looked very honest: we weren’t good enough to write those songs honestly. So then, we talked a lot about it and listened to lots of types of songs, and came to the decision that we wanted something as heavy as we could that our band could do, a heavy soundtrack. And we wanted it to be homogenous, to sound like a real sound, an album: so, we worked really hard at coming up with the songs you finally hear.”

“In the end we felt pretty good about having a contemporary sound within a period piece,” Toby continued. “Just like some of our actors have tattoos that you wouldn’t find back then, we were OK with that: we wanted this film to have a universality or timelessness. Kind of going back to what you said before, Fern; it’s almost about modern day carnies, or the essence of what the carny is: someone wild, or living close to the earth. That certainly exists today, so in the end, we felt OK with it.”

Heading towards the end of our time with John and Toby, I checked with Fern whether she had any more questions ready to ask. At first, said yes, but none that were relevant (how typical!) but then thought of one: she asked whether our guests had any advice for aspiring writers like herself.

“My advice is that people want to hear what you have to say,” said John, “so you should say it and you will sometimes succeed, and you will sometimes fail: that’s the learning process, but you cannot stop.”

“I would add to that to always honour your voice,” said Toby. “It’s important not to try to make something like someone else, or to please someone. You obviously have a very rich imagination and interior world, so that’s what I want to see, read and hear: sticking to what is originally you is a good idea.”

“Do you write?” John asked my kid.

“I’ve got a silly story about space frogs,” she said.

“Space frogs sound great,” said John. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“They’re just frogs in space,” said Fern.

“I’ve got to tell you,” said Toby, “right outside our window, there are frogs in a pond, and in the springtime, what they do is science fiction: it’s pretty cool. A genre film right outside our window.”

They went on a fabulous tangent about dragons and dinosaurs and Middle Earth and language, until it seemed I was the only one who wanted to get the conversation back to Where the Devil Roams… but get it back I did! The film’s world premiere had been a big hit at Fantasia Film Festival, and more recently won three awards at FrightFest, which hosted its UK premiere. After featuring in such prestigious events, I had to wonder what drew the Adams to Mayhem Film Festival.

“We always hear that Mayhem has a great pulse,” Toby said. I told them about how Mayhem had felt like home when I first attended (similarly to the mood Toby had spoken about earlier) and the rich breadth of their programming.

“We can’t wait, we love the small festivals,” said Toby. “We’ve never been to that part of England, and we’re really excited about it.” 

Where the Devil Roams will be screening at Mayhem Film Festival on Saturday 14 October, followed by a Q and A; individual tickets are available online, and full festival passes can be purchased by phoning the box office directly on 0115 952 6611.

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