ADAMS FAMILY VALUES

WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS Roll up, roll up for Total Film’s FrightFest Best Film winner…

The Adams Family write, star in and direct their films, including latest Where the Devil Roams

It’s the balance of fun and danger, and a little bit of seediness as well,’ says Toby Poser when asked about the enduring appeal of carnivals. ‘I like the seedy carnivals. John and I got engaged at Coney Island.’ John Adams grins. ‘The county fair where we’re from [the Catskills] is super-big, but it’s also super-dirty and the characters working it are super-shifty, but wonderful. That’s great soil for a storyteller.’

Indeed it is, as evidenced by the likes of Freaks, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Nightmare Alley. And now the Adams Family – husband and wife John Adams and Poser, along with daughters Zelda and Lulu Adams – are peddling an eye-widening attraction, Where the Devil Roams. Set in 30s America, it tracks the Axon Family (Poser, John Adams and Zulu Adams), sideshow performers travelling on the dying carnival circuit. Teasers is not about to offer a peek until you pay your entry fee, but we promise home invasions, serial killings and black magic galore.

Deliriously idiosyncratic and rhapsodically hand-crafted (the Adams Family write, direct, shoot, edit and score all of their movies, as well as performing), Where the Devil Roams is hard to categorise. ‘A dark morality play?’ ponders John. ‘A dark poem – there’s a lot of [actual] poetry in it, and there’s spirituality weaved into the storyline,’ says Zelda. ‘For me, it’s its own little theatre piece within a film piece,’ muses Poser. Teasers, meanwhile, suggest it’s also a musical, of sorts, with killer tunes provided by the Adams Family’s grungy lo-fi metal band, H6LLB6ND6R. John nods. ‘We think of all of our films as musicals. I don’t like musicals, but we laugh that we secretly make musicals!’

Shot in muted colours with stretches of monochrome that actually look like a 30s picture, Where the Devil Roams is as beautiful as it is grisly, and oddly touching. It’s also contains, if you desire it, social commentary on today’s broken America. But here’s the big question: do the Adams Family pour their own lives into their work? This and their two previous films are about families.

‘We make documentaries,’ laughs John. ‘The Deeper You Dig was our first foray into horror, and it was our worry about this kid [indicates Zelda] getting hurt, or losing her. Then Hellbender was about her turning into a woman. This one, she wanted to make a movie that was more reflective of her looking at her parents. It’s about us getting older, and her finding her voice.’ Zelda smiles pensively. ‘We made this film when I had one year left of high school before I went off to college,’ she nods. ‘It was one last thing we could hold on to, to throw us together a little bit longer.’

WHERE THE DEVILS ROAMS IS AWAITING A RELEASE DATE.