Fantasia Film Festival: Interview with the Writing/Directing family: John Adams, Zelda Adams & Toby Poser, creators of HELLBENDER

The Adams’, John Adams, Zelda Adams & Toby Poser, are a dynamic filmmaking family whose creativity truly comes through in their newest, which just screened at Fantasia Film Festival, Hellbender. In this intriguing horror- coming of age story, a young girl finds out the truth about her past, who she is, and what she’s capable of.

I was able to speak with the three, John Adams, Zelda Adams and Toby Poser about their shared love for film, how they collaborate, where the idea from Hellbender came from, and much more!

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

I’m Kristy Strouse with Film Inquiry. I really loved the film! And I just love that you’re a filmmaking family! Very cool. So, how did you all get started?

Toby Poser: Well, in 2010 we were living in Los Angeles, and I had an acting career that kind of waned when I hit 40. And John had been doing this reality TV show that had brought us out there. And we just kind of got an itch to do it for ourselves. We were like, you know what, I want to act! I like to write! John likes to shoot, and we had little girls, then Zelda was six, and Lula was 11, who thought it’d be cool to act. And we just said, Let’s buy this crickety old RV, and we hit the road! We learned the ropes in that first film. And now seven features later, we are just so hooked!

John Adams: And we also had really great advice from people in the industry out in Los Angeles, because technology just changed at that time. Because people like us could afford to buy cameras that actually looked really good. And we also, editing software was coming out that people just like us could use where it used to cost 10s of 1000s of dollars to edit, and to process film, suddenly, all those costs went away. So it was something that people like us suddenly could do.

I think it’s really inspirational too because I think you’re really the picture of Do It Yourself filmmakers. When you see the credits and how much you guys do. It’s just very impressive! So I’m just curious, before I get into Hellbender, specifically, is there are certain part of the creation of the filmmaking or acting that you each love? One hat you each wear most? 

Zelda Adams: Yeah, I mean, I think each of us has their special little quirks and what they’re like best at, but personally, I really enjoy cinematography. I just love being behind the camera and getting all those visuals. How about you? [Looks at Toby]

Toby Poser: I really love writing. And I love working with actors, too.

John Adams: Yeah, and I love doing the soundtrack. The soundtrack is just really fun for me.

Love it! And we’ll definitely get to the soundtracks for this! Alright, so, Hellbender, where did this idea come from?

John Adams: It’s kind of like, it came… from a couple of different things. So I’ll answer one of the things, which is, we learned a lot from The Deeper You Dig, which was a movie that we had made about two years ago. We learned a lot from reviews, and people like you, and going to a lot of festivals. And a lot of people seem to imply that they really would have liked to have seen the mother and daughter relationship developed a little more. So coming off of The Deeper You Dig, I knew one thing I felt would be really smart was to develop this relationship, which is a really fun relationship for me to watch. And if we could capture that in our next movie, it would be really cool.

Toby Poser: And then story-wise, I had found out two years ago that I was donor-conceived. And I didn’t know who my biological father was. And so we started really kind of wondering… wouldn’t it be crazy if your dad was like an ax murderer, you know? [Laughs] And we just went there.

Zelda Adams: Yeah, like it started off being like, oh, what if like, her parent was the devil? And then we were like, We should make a movie about a mother and daughter and the daughter finds out that her mom is the devil. And then we’re like… I don’t know if we have the production size to make a movie with hell and the devil. So, why don’t we make our own more accessible mythological creature? Then we started thinking about our own mythological creature and that’s how we came up with hellbenders.

Amazing! I think the mother-daughter relationship is one of the strongest elements in the film! Where did the mythology come from? Did you do any research?

Toby Poser: Yeah, I just love reading about you know, mythology and and and I was doing some research on Lilith and Eve and serpent goddesses. And it kind of led to the idea of the Hellbenders. And we thought, well, we live in a really rural, mountainous community, and they were just consumed by nature. There’s just death everywhere, as, from The Deeper You Dig, we always have roadkill in our movies. In this case, it was the deer carcass we found. And, and we thought, this is a great opportunity to kind of tie in nature, the brutality of nature, and the brutality of these mythological creatures, and then also to tie in historically how people think about women.

John Adams: Yeah, we had to throw in that little fun joke, that basically they feed on the fear. Because, you know, why were witches burned? Fear of women. And so it’s fun to kind of flip that on its head and make that the source of their power.

I thought that was really interesting! So, how does it work with three people working on a script and directing? Do you all kind of sit around and collaborate on a script? Or do you each add to it? Yell at each other across the room? [Laughs]

Zelda Adams: [Laughs] Well, we normally one of us comes up with an idea. And then we all like, add some meat to it like. As we’re family, we spend a lot of time together. So when we’re on long car drives, we’re just talking about movie ideas, and we will come up with an idea for a scene. And Toby is really good at putting our ideas on paper.

Toby Poser: Thanks! But, it’s really just a template, because everyone takes anything I’ve written or I’ve taken what they’ve written, and slap it down on paper. And we just run with that. It’s always very loose, and we were coming from a loose place. And often, we really just figure out what a scene is about once we’re doing it. Because we’re the three of us, we have the luxury of going back to do it again and get it right.

John Adams: We also have the luxury of that when we shoot. We can watch our movie grow. And if there’s a piece missing or something missing, we can fill it in, because it’s just the three of us. So it’s always an organic process until the very end. And in fact, with Hellbender. We didn’t even know what the end of the movie was. Was it going to be sad, was it going to be brutal? Was it going to be funny? We didn’t know the end of the movie until the night we shot it. So there is that advantage to not having just a solid script that you know, you have to do. It’s an organic process for us.

I think the ending is brutal, sad, and funny!

John Adams: Great!

Do you feel that, because you’re doing so many of the jobs, that a lot happens on the cusp? Do you try to keep it improvisational? 

John Adams: Well, we know what we want to say. And I think we know the tone like we knew what the tone was in the movie. I think the details and how the two of them delivered their lines or stuff like that. We played around with it because we could come and edit it and look at it, and if they didn’t feel like they were natural, or we wanted to get something else or we forgot to say something we can always go back to that exact same spot and grab it.

And do you think there’s an advantage with you playing mother and daughter in the film? Do you feed off real life?

Zelda Adams: Yeah, I think that we were just acting like ourselves pretty much on-screen because you know we are mother and daughter. Don’t you agree?

Toby Poser: Yeah. Um, I mean, I like to think perhaps I’m a little looser than this mom. [Laughs] You know, I mean, I don’t keep as many secrets.

John Adams: She’s more like the mom that vomited blood on the kid’s face. [Laughs] More like that, that was actually like Toby.

Toby Poser:  Yeah, but I think it is it is a great boost for us we can play off of what we have and then just different textures.

Yeah, you can really tell how much fun you’re both having! I love that. Watching you play in the band together is so such a blast. So I was just wondering where that came from? Is that something you guys do?

Zelda Adams: We have a band called Hellbender, which was made before the movie. And then we’re like, well, we have to turn this band into a movie! But we had made a bunch of music videos. So it was kind of fun just getting to do that in a feature film. But also, we wanted to use, the band scenes to bring some fun into the movie because we want our audience to have fun when they’re watching it. And I also think that they’re good dividers between acts. So like, they’re good transitions. In the beginning, there’s a band scene when you know, she’s in isolation. And then there’s a band scene when she’s first going out into society. And then a band scene when she’s like… screw this, I want to get out into society! So I think it’s really good at splitting up the different acts of the movie.

John Adams: And there’s also fun for shadowing in their makeup like their makeup is, is a symbol for where they are at that point in their life. In the beginning, she has tears coming out of her eyes. She doesn’t know she’s missing out on a lot of things. She’s kind of sad. And by the end, the last video, they’re both wearing tribal. They’re very tribal. And they’re kind of getting back to their tribe, you know, so it’s, it’s fun. We had a lot of fun with that whole thing!
Toby Poser: Yeah. And it’s also fun to see…women kick ass in a band scene

Yeah, I love that. Especially the first time you show in the very beginning after this initial scene where someone is being hung, and then you’re playing the music, I thought that was jarring in the best possible way. It’s a lot of fun! So, I love that the whole soundtrack is done by you too. I feel like it’s easier to say what you didn’t do. Did you also cook for the everyone? [Laughs]

John Adams: Toby cooked vegetables and I cooked us meat, but they don’t eat meat. So I cooked for me? [Laughs] Zelda Adams: Well, a lot of credit goes to our special effects guy, Trey Lindsay. He’s amazing. And we always go to him saying, Hey, can you make this lady, you know, fly and breathe fire? And you know, and he does it. And he’s just so great.
John Adams: He really is a family member. And he’s wonderful to talk to you. Like when you’re doing art with somebody you want to work with people that say yes. And that laugh a lot. And that’s what Trey Lindsay is…we laugh a lot. We say yes. And so does he. Even if you can’t really do something, you’re like, sure I can do that. And that you know, and then it comes up with something that’s better than we could have imagined.

So everyone that works with you is family!

John Adams: Yeah, absolutely. 

I said it before, but I really feel like it, you know, what you’re doing is very inspirational for people that want to do this themselves. Was there any films that you pulled from? That inspired you? 

John Adams: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first, I’ll say that we watch films all the time together. And we always talk about them. So what do you say which films do you love? [Look at Zelda]

Zelda Adams. Well, I love Midsommar, Hereditary, and Parasite. And something I really love about Parasite is that there always there’s a lot of symbolism, just like on-screen about hierarchy. And if someone is higher up in the social class system, there’ll be, you know, up above the stairs, so we wanted to recreate that a lot in our movie. Like there’s a scene where Toby starts out at the top of the stairs when I’ve come home from eating the worm. And but then she comes to the bottom of the stairs and I’m above her. So I love that. What’s it called, that device? [Looks to John]

John Adams: Yeah, yeah. A device or a metaphor for this change of power. Yeah. Or a symbol? I don’t know, Toby would know. Toby use big words, make us look smart! [Laughs]

Toby Poser: I love The Witch. I’m a big fan of the movie, The Witch, but also in Midsommar. I love the dynamic of the women. I mean, we don’t have anything against men. But I think we really wanted to highlight some female dynamics in this film, and there’s that’s something I love about those movies, is that there’s something powerful about the bond of women and the complexities.

John Adams: I love The Thing because of its isolation and loneliness. And I also love Valhalla Rising because of its celebration of the beauty of nature and the power of it.

Those are all terrific choices. So I guess Lastly, do you have anything you’re working on now? I’m sure you are, I feel like you probably are all always working. 

John Adams: We are! We are working hard on something that’s really fun. My father has a 1930’s Chevy, that just got taken away, and our next movie is going to center around a family of gangsters that also are kind of serial killers run by their daughter. So, what happens is the parents get mortally wounded and the child has to deal with dark magic to save them. So once again, it’s kind of like we always do things about family. But whereas Hellbender was a movie about a mother, kind of letting her daughter go and becoming a woman, this one’s going to be about a child, basically seeing the mortality of her parents and trying to stop it to no avail.

Intriguing! I can’t wait to see it. Thank you so much and congratulations again!

Film Inquiry would like to thank Zelda Adams, John Adams and Toby Poser for taking the time to speak with us.

To read our review of the film, click here.