The Adams family members are some of the favourite guests at the Fantasia festival. After visiting us with The Deeper You Dig in 2019 and Hellbender in 2021, Toby Poser, John Adams and Zelda Adams are back with their new horror film: Where the Devil Roams.
Maggie, Seven and Eve (Toby Poser, John Adams, Zelda Adams) are a family of showmen working in a traveling circus during the Great Depression. To stand out in their shows, they turn to occultism to create macabre acts. But making a deal with the devil comes with a price. To continue making a living in the circus, they must kill in order to stay in one piece as the show must go on.
One thing is for sure, the Adams family had a lot of fun making this movie and they put a lot of love into it. They like minimalist films with small crew. We feel that the whole team is some kind of family too. The tone is dark and depressed but on occasion, dark humour comes along which de-dramatizes the atmosphere. Between the drama, the macabre scenes and the humour, there is no length.
To succeed in their horror numbers, the characters do not perform special effects on stage. When they dismember themselves, it’s for real, but after that they have to use pieces of corpses that they sew up after their bodies. It’s as if Dr. Frankenstein was experimenting on himself. The gory effects are pretty effective without any CGI. As the film progresses, the colorization changes. As the family deteriorates the image also deteriorates, going from color to black and white. There are even scratches to mimic the aging of the reel. It’s like a tragedy. The Adams did a wonderful job in every department of their movie. If you liked their precedent titles you should definitely try this one too
3.5/5
