Movie Review: MOTHER OF FLIES

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: January 23rd, 2026 / 01:02 AM

MOTHER OF FLIES movie poster | ©2026 Shudder

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Zelda Adams, Toby Poser, John Adams
Writers: John Adams & Zelda Adams & Toby Poser
Directors: John Adams & Zelda Adams & Toby Poser
Distributor: Shudder
Release Date: January 23, 2026 (Shudder)

John Adams & Toby Poser have already demonstrated with previous joint works that they are accomplished writers/directors/actors. Now they’ve collaborated to strong effect on all three fronts with their daughter Zelda Adams to bring forth MOTHER OF FLIES.

MOTHER OF FLIES begins with a woman talking calmly in voiceover about death. Onscreen, we see a naked, blood-covered woman communing with gory, skinned human corpses.

We then meet Mickey (Zelda Adams), a college student who has beaten cancer once only to have it return. She has been given an estimated six months to live by her doctors, but she is determined to live.

This means Mickey is open to the possibility of an unconventional cure. With her supportive widowed dad Jake (John Adams) as driver and escort, Mickey heads into the woods outside a small rural town to meet up with Solveig (Poser).

Mickey explains to Jake that Solveig reached out to her (we learn the specifics of this later). Everything about Solveig informs us – and Mickey and Jake – that the woman is a witch, from her clothing to her manner of speech to her dwelling.

There’s an enormous cairn of stones in front of Solveig’s home. Then there’s the house itself, which is built around a huge tree that grows up through the center of the two-story building, with massive, exposed roots as its foundation.

Solveig has no indoor plumbing and no running water. When she shows Mickey to her room, the bed is made of actual moss. (Jake’s room at least has a bed with a tarp.) Solveig seems certain that she can remove Mickey’s cancer if the young woman is willing to endure the three-day process.

Mickey is up for it, but Jake thinks Solveig is a fraud. We’d be sure he’s wrong about this, even if we weren’t shown some flashbacks indicating that Solveig is a lot older than she appears.

We do, however, share Jake’s concerns as to what Solveig gets out of all this. When Mickey says Solveig has offered to cure her for free, Jake replies, “Nothing is for free.”

While other characters appear and impact the plot in large and small ways, MOTHER OF FLIES is essentially a three-hander. Zelda Adams makes Mickey a vital, sympathetic focal point. John Adams has great, convincing rapport with the younger actor. Poser is eerily persuasive, blending a sense of timelessness with modern humor, as a powerful practitioner of the occult.

MOTHER OF FLIES is literally earthy, with plenty of shots of remains half-buried in the ground and maggots squirming in the dirt. The woods are beautiful and the exterior design of the house is extraordinary, with a magic of its own.

The filmmakers succeed in keeping us guessing as to exactly what Solveig is after and whether or not it imperils Mickey right up through the climax. They also present the making of spells in a way that feels organic. The level of gore is commensurate with the focus on death and life.

While the deliberate pace makes sense in terms of what’s happening, there are moments when we wish MOTHER OF FLIES would cut a few images simply to move events more swiftly. Mostly, though, it’s potent folklore.

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