Toby Poser and John Adams, along with their daughters Zelda and Lulu, are filmmakers, actors, writers, and musicians known as the Adams family. They’ve gained both critical acclaim and a devoted following for their low-budget, independent films for which they handle all aspects of the filmmaking process. Films like The Deeper You Dig and Hellbender have cemented the Adams’ as a unique voice in indie horror. Their most recent film Where the Devil Roams has been similarly well received at many festivals worldwide. We spoke to Toby and John about the film, making movies as a family, and their advice for aspiring filmmakers.

Can you tell us a bit about Where the Devil Roams?

Toby: Where the Devil Roams is about a family of sideshow performers who have a murderous bent. And there’s an underlying story about the devil who’s also trying to rekindle a relationship with his long lost human lover.

Watching the film brings to mind  so much of the culture that deals with the Depression era. What is it about that era that resonated with you?

John: We kind of felt like America right now is very similar to 1930s America. And one of the fun things about film is you can talk about things that are on your mind. And one of the really fun things about horror, you can disguise things you want to talk about in horror and in terror and in blood. And so we just felt like setting the story in the 1930s was a great way to talk about America right now. And the fact that it’s tough. There’s a huge gap between the highs and the lows, and we kind of wanted to make a statement that, even when you’re living with your feet in the mud, and life is tough and brutal, you can find a way to have love.

Usually, depictions of that era tend to be of the Dust Bowl, more in the South, but this feels much sparser and snowy. It’s an interesting visual take on on that era.

Toby: Yeah, everything around us is pretty old. In fact, [gestures to their room] if you recognise the wallpaper, this is from the scene that we shot in the film where [Toby’s character] Maggie plays the ukulele to the man she’s just ended. And this is John sister’s house and John’s parents house across the way is from the 1860s. We’re lucky that where we live, it just comes with everything that’s old and fits perfectly into that era, including the 1931 Chevy that the characters drive, which is John’s Dad’s.

John: Yeah, that’s actually passed down from my grandfather to my dad. And you know, it’s like a lot of other things; a lot hasn’t changed where we’re from here in the Catskills. The roads are still one lane country roads. The furniture in the house that we grew up in is still original from when my parents bought the house from an old farmer. Another thing that’s kind of informed this movie is we grew up with pictures [on the walls] from 100 years ago or 130 years ago of people in the cold in their cars. This was a very tough place to live in, not just in the 30s but since that time because it’s not super hospitable.

Did you have any particular sort of influences when you were you were making the film, or any cultural touchstones?

Toby: We looked at pictures of old carnivals. I love German expressionism. So the scenes that are very dark and black I think just subconsciously are a nod to that era of film. I also come from theatre and I love black box theatre. So strangely, in this film a lot of my theatre past crept up and just influenced how we shot some things here.

John: And we watched a lot of black and white movies. We love horror and we watch a movie every night, and we got down into a black and white horror hole. Things like Frankenstein and Vampyr, and [Toby] likes a movie called The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Just a lot of them. And then also Ryan O’Neal and his daughter Tatum O’Neal‘s movie Paper Moon; so all those things influenced. Also, one of the things we love about the horror community is that they’re open to taking artistic chances. And movies like Frankenstein or Vampyr are still relevant to the horror crowd today. So it kind of gave gave us permission to do a black and white movie. So that was really fun.

And where did you find the actors that played your fellow sideshow performers?

Toby: Some of these we’ve known for a long time. Hitomi [Nakamura] was the drummer in John’s band Statues of Liberty and she’s just incredible, and we’ll probably work with her for a very long time. And then others we met when we were beginning to conjure up this film through friends on the on the internet, like Razor [De Rockefeller] who plays Rocky, and who has such a big, golden heart. And then she brought her friend Adam, who’s the terror tent barker, and then others are friends of ours from the acting or music world,

John: Almost everybody’s a performer in their own right. We’re celebrating performers that we know and all of them are artists in real life.

Toby: And Justin [Julio] who plays the MC in the beginning [of the film] we met just before we were shooting and he was just perfect.

Did you feel any pressure while making the film because Hellbender has become such a beloved film in the horror community in such a short space of time? Because Where the Devil Roams is a more experimental film and less dialogue driven, was that a conscious choice to go to do something completely different?

John: Yeah, but it wasn’t a choice. We love Hellbender and we loved making Hellbender. But also we love doing what we want to do, and this was an idea that Zelda came up with. And it was a great idea. And it was a movie that was just a thrill to make. So our art isn’t so much driven by business as it is the joy of us making art together. And that year that we made Where the Devil Roams was a beautiful year and we loved Zelda’s idea. And so I don’t think it was a conscious choice to break from Hellbender. It was a conscious choice to continue having fun.

Toby: I think as well, we had only made one other film in all of our eight pictures where the three of us [had played characters that were] in the same family and I think we really wanted to do that with this one. Zelda was poised to go off to college and we thought this might be the last of its kind. And so we wanted to set out to have the three of us be in this as a biological family. But I do think too, though, that there was part of us that that did want to try something new stylistically. I mean, we didn’t set out to say, ‘Let’s do something really different’. But as we were going along, I think we were feeling like this is very different from anything else we’ve done.

Typically when you make a film what’s the division of labour in terms of the filmmaking process, and at what age did Lulu and Zelda start getting really involved in the creative side?

Toby: They were six and 11 when we made our first film in 2010. And you know, our film shared a lot of the same DNA. John and I were just saying this morning that if we look at all of them, not a lot has changed in terms of how we shoot. It’s a real democracy. Zelda in particular when she became 14, I think when we were shooting The Deeper You Dig, she really started to become involved thematically. She’d always been holding the camera and getting better and better at that. But by then she was co-directing, and now she’s helping to write and she’s very she’s very keen behind the camera and as director.

It’s no surprise that your films tend to be very family driven, but it’s the it’s habitually families who are sort of outsiders or exists on the peripheries of society. What attracts you to those kinds of narratives? Does some of it come from living in a quite a remote location?

John: Oh, definitely. I mean, where we’re from is remote. It is a particular slice of America. It’s not the hip, cool part, but to us it’s really special. So I think we kind of celebrate where we’re from, which is a small town and a small area that’s a little bit remote and it’s got a particular rough around the edges community.

What advice would you have to anyone wanting to make your own films? Presumably, making use of the resources available to you would be a big one?

Toby: I would. I think a lot of people put a lot of weight into budgets and money. A lot of people think, ‘Well, I can’t do that until I have this amount of money.’ I think you can make a great film without a lot of money. I think people have great stories in their heads and their hearts and that’s the crux, I think. You need a good story. You need to make it look good, obviously, but you don’t need a super expensive camera to do that. And we’ve we’ve been using the same camera in different iterations since we started in 2010. And we love who we’re working with.

John: I would say don’t follow the rules. There’s too many rules out there that people think they have to follow, and usually the rules kind of inhibit you from making movies. Make up your own rules that allow you to create something immediately. So, if you don’t have a good camera, then the rule should be you can’t use a good camera for this movie. Make it a dirty, badly filmed movie, you know, that’s going to be the tone of the movie. Make up your own rules so you can make the movie now.

Are there any other independent filmmakers out there that you admire? Presumably you get to meet quite a few on when you’re doing the festival circuit?

John: So many. [Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews‘] Hundreds of Beavers.  What those guys did with their art is incredible. Talk about high quality and tonnes of work to create this beautiful film. And their first one too, which is called Lake Michigan Monster.

Toby: I got to meet and do a panel with two directors I really like this past month. Damián Rugna. When Evil Lurks, and Terrified too was amazing. And then Prano Bailey-Bond. I really can’t wait to see what she does next. We got to kind of all talk together and I was like, ‘Oh my God, these guys are smart!’ There’s husband and wife couple who I think have really good stuff up their sleeve. Emily Bennett and Justin Brooks that did a film called Alone with You. In 2021 or 22 it came out, and they’re shooting something right now; American Nightmare. That’s great. And we’ve been on the circuit with them and they’re very promising filmmakers. And there’s a film that’s shot in Yorkshire called The Moor that’s not out yet but it premiered at FrightFest. It’s fantastic and the writer is super talented.

Are you working on anything new at the moment? Or are you just enjoying doing the festival circuit for Where the Devil Roams?

John: We’re always working on something new. There’s always four cookers on our stove and we’re gonna shoot something this Summer. We have an idea we love and it’s very pertinent. We’re going to go back towards exploring the idea of a witch and dealing with asking a witch to do something for you. And whenever you ask for something they deliver, but there’s a penalty or at least a price to pay. So we’re gonna have fun and it’s gonna be cool because I get to be Zelda’s dad, and Toby’s gonna be the witch so there’ll be a fun dynamic to it that we’re very excited for.

Where the Devil Roams had it’s UK Premiere at FrightFest. It awaits an official UK release date,