Mother Of Flies

Few independent filmmakers deserve the label as much as the Adamses, for whom filmmaking is a family business, and who do practically everything themselves, from directing and starring to set-building and costuming. They have carved out a space in the horror genre that is uniquely their own, already ready to explore something different within it, to learn and to develop their talents. Every year, this has resulted in something interesting. This year, as Fantasia and Frightfest audiences already know, they have produced something extraordinary.

If there were any justice in the world, Toby Poser would be in the running for major awards for her performance as Solveig, the self-identified witch who reaches out to young Mickey (Zelda Adams) and offers to take away the cancer that is killing her. The reality is that, even backed as it is by IFC Films, this small production is unlikely to be able to put together a marketing campaign big enough to let it compete, especially as many critics avoid the horror genre, dismissing it out of hand. Poser’s work illustrates the folly of this. Yes, she is playing an unusual character, but her quiet, intelligent, intensely focused work would stand out in any context, and the emotional force that she conjures up over the course of the film will remain with you for a long, long time.

Mickey is a student, an ambitious young woman whose life is at risk of being cut short far too soon. She’s already had chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Her father (John Adams) is determined that science can resolve the situation somehow, and begs her to try more experimental treatments, but realistically, they’re highly unlikely to save her. At this stage, Solveig’s approach is something she finds easier to believe in. It comforts her, and if nothing is going to work, she might at least make her choice on that basis. What’s more, it’s free.

This is what makes her father most suspicious of all. Nothing, he stresses, is free.

When one is living with a probably terminal disease, one sees and experiences the world in a different way from other people. This isn’t always negative, but it can be very lonely. Mickey’s father has steeled himself for enduring a world without her physical presence, but he finds it harder to adjust to the realisation that he’s already losing her, that they are rapidly growing apart. Though he stumbles and says the wrong thing from time to time, his decision to accompany her on her visit to Solveig is partly motivated by a desire to bridge this gap. Solveig clearly recognises this and cuts him some slack, but it’s not always clear when she’s trying to help and when she just wants him out of the way. Some of the things she wants to do with Mickey are not things that a parent can easily watch.

The same is true, as Mickey points out, of the nastier forms of standard therapy. It may well be the case that if it doesn’t hurt, it can’t do the job. Still, we are invited to wonder if Solveig is a scammer, if she truly believes in something which has no hope of working, or if she has some genuine secret. It’s clear that she’s keenly intelligent and well versed in the natural lore of the woods that surround her fantastic, Baba Yaga-style home. She easily dismantles the worried father’s arguments, but often smart people have their own blind spots, and end up using their rhetorical skills to talk themselves into unreasonable things.

Solveig’s experiences come through bit by bit in what might be dreams or visions, perhaps flashbacks to a distant past. Just as the cancer is eating away at Mickey, something seems to be tearing at her from the inside. The gentle pace at which this aspect of the story is built gives her plenty of time to layer in emotion before we begin to understand. Still, the film keeps us guessing right up to the end, and not just to keep us watching. All of its structural devices are there for a reason. Her reasons cut right to the bone – because as viewers will guess early on, this is as much about her as it is about Mickey.

This tale is woven together with a delicate matrix of lore invented specially for the film, in a world of leaves and flowers and roots all of which have very specific uses. Most notably, there are the long thorns which Solveig uses to pierce and tear through flesh, including her own. In accepting her methods, father and daughter find themselves ever more closely bound to the living world, even as Mickey moves closer to death. The film explores the tension between individual and ecosystem, fraying the edges of discrete human identity. In doing so, it also explores our connections to one another, and the distorting effect on everything that stems from a parent’s inability to let go.

With career best performances from all three leads, Mother Of Flies feels like the triumph that all the family’s work has been building towards. Here is the intense bond of The Deeper You Dig, the forest witchery of Hellbender, the fatedness of Where The Devil Roams. Everything comes together in just the right way, at the right time, as if the production were itself under a spell. Go and see it, regardless of your usual cinematic preferences. Don’t miss out on the magic.

Reviewed on: 28 Aug 2025