USA
2023 93 mins
OV English
“While the body rots to dust and bones, there’s a tear in the heart, where the devil roams.” Maggie, Seven and Eve (Toby Poser, John Adams, Zelda Adams) are a travelling family of performers, driving town-to-town through the tough, dying carnival circuit of Depression-era America. It’s a time of desperation in a climate steeped in superstition and distrust. And engulfed, for better or worse, in actual occult magic. The family’s creative collaborations bond them in special ways. As do their crimes, and the mounting bodies left in their wake. One day, an ominous carny, Mr. Tibbs (Sam Rodd), catches young Eve’s attention with a sensationally gruesome act that can only be performed with assistance from the shadow realm. Eve can’t resist but to steal his magic. Darkest prayers will be answered, in sawdust and sacrilege, as a damning devil’s dance is set in motion.
The astonishing new feature from one-of-a-kind indie favourites the Adams Family, WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS is a sense-shaking genre blessing with a perspective and style that only they can bring. As in THE DEEPER YOU DIG and HELLBENDER, both previous Fantasia World Premieres, the gifted filmmaking family’s latest creation continues their inspired explorations of familial power dynamics and particularly in this case, the core meanings of togetherness, through the prism of horror storytelling. Working from a premise that first materialized in Zelda’s nightmares, the family drove across the U.S. collecting inspirations and artifacts for the film as the story took focus into a work that speaks to their performative histories together as storytellers, actors and musicians. Cast alongside them are an assortment of charismatic carnies, clowns, magicians, and artists that they connected with along previous journeys. While they’ve never worked with such expansive a cast before (nearly 80 characters!) behind the camera, and largely in front, it was nonetheless still the three of them doing just about everything. Haunting, poetic, and macabre, sometimes funny, frequently freakish, and always told with conviction through a deeply personal lens, WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS is another vivid standalone from a genius pack of true originals. – Mitch Davis