Hellbender, the latest horror film from the upstate New York self-taught filmmaking family, The Adams is all set to premiere exclusively on Shudder tomorrow, February 24.
Penned, directed, produced, scored, and edited by Toby Poser, John Adams, and Zelda Adams (The Deeper You Dig) – who also star, alongside Lulu Adams, Hellbender is the sixth feature released under the Wonder Wheel Productions banner, the family-run company founded by Poser and Adams and their children. And as if those weren’t enough super skills already, the family also produced the music for the film providing tracks from their experimental punk band H6LLB6ND6R.
The film tells the coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Izzy (Adams), who suffers from a rare disease that has kept her cooped up in the confines of a mountaintop home with her mother (Poser) since birth. Hitting adolescence, Izzy’s inquisitive mind starts to question her condition, prompting her to rebel against her confinement and secretly befriend Amber (Lulu Adams), another girl living on the mountain. But Izzy’s newfound happiness is short-lived when she eats a live worm as part of a game that triggers an insatiable and violent craving inside her. In order to make sense of her new urges, Izzy will have to learn the dark secrets of her family’s past and the ancient power of her lineage.
In anticipation of Hellbender releasing on Shudder this week, CinemaChords sat down with John Adams, Toby Poser, and Zelda Adams to discover who wears which hats to ensure too many cooks don’t spoil the broth, the musical creativity involved in all of their endeavors, and how they feel about sharing certain intimacies of their family life on the screen despite their films being of a purely fictional nature.
