‘Mother of Flies’ Review: Occult Atmosphere, Dramatic Anemia

No person makes dwelling motion pictures just like the Adams household, with proud mother and father Toby Poser and John Adams cranking out low-budget horror movies that they write, direct, and star in (amongst different behind-the-camera duties) alongside their daughters. If 2024’s Hell Gap, a Serbia-set creature function, was one thing of a departure for the Catskills-based filmmaking collective, their newest, Mom of Flies, finds them again in acquainted, occult-themed territory.

On the heart of the movie is cancer-stricken Mickey (Zelda Adams), a university child whose chemotherapy is not conserving her in remission. Realizing that she doesn’t have a lot time left, Mickey turns to a peculiar healer named Solveig (Toby Poser), who lives in an overgrown home deep within the woods. Mickey’s father, Jake (John Adams), tags alongside for what he wryly phrases “witch camp,” and he’s nearly immediately skeptical of Solveig, what with their being no working water on her property. When he says “amen” in jest, Solveig hurriedly implores him to “take it again” by spitting, robbing the phrase of its energy.

We’re meant to marvel about Solveig, although not the way in which Jake does. By way of the girl’s rhyming narration, Mom of Flies channels the occult for atmospheric impact, with flashbacks establishing that she’s fairly outdated. Making use of spectacular sensible results, one scene set centuries prior depicts her utilizing a spiky twig to slice right into a pregnant girl’s abdomen and pull out a stillborn little one. No, fairly than questioning whether or not Solveig is the actual deal, we’re purported to query what her intentions is likely to be for Mickey, as she’s doing all this free of charge.

Between the varied ritual scenes, although, Mom of Flies provides us minimal drama. The movie abounds in fairly muted monologues in regards to the nature of dying and Mickey’s willpower to not give in, none of which is particularly profound and even profitable at advancing what passes for characterizations right here. The viewers wouldn’t know that there are ties of historical past between Mickey and her father all through their conversations. The truth is, after they talk about the younger girl’s mortality, it’s as in the event that they’re doing so for the very first time.

All of the whereas, the movie struggles to create a way of battle or thriller, and that’s largely as a result of it’s reluctant to painting Solveig as overtly sinister. Regardless of the affinity the Adams clan has displayed for spooky, goopy imagery prior to now, Mom of Flies finds them reluctant to totally train these skills for concern of tipping their hand. Whilst Solveig slips Jake tea that makes him vomit and hallucinate, she comes off as eccentric but earnest, as all the things that occurs to Mickey is plausibly in service of therapeutic. You retain ready for the movie to lastly lower free, and by the point it does, it’s dawdling as much as that time successfully undercuts the supposed pressure.