Where the Devil Roams

And this one is out there. In my best estimate, it is as though they have pureed Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre with Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and distilled that into a feature-long Dresden Dolls music video.

Set during the Great Depression, it's a tale of ukeleles, dronecore, baby shoes, shell shock and side-show extremity regeneration. As with most of their previous offerings, the Adamses have done a lot of lore and world-crafting but leave a good deal of it unexplained. Weird things just happen in their films as if all is normal.

And I am totally fine with that.

They are making films they want to make - which is admirable in its own right.

Is it shot on a budget? Sure.

Is the acting oddly stilted? Absolutely.

But that is the charm. Like John Waters carefree guerilla cinema style. They're just making quirky horror in upstate NY with anachronistic scoring with no fear of taking things in odd directions. And that is what makes their movies interesting and different.

This one maintains that trend.

Apparently, this family production has its followers, but I am not rating this as someone who has seen their other movies. They are carnival performers, set likely during the depression, and the carnival features many grotesque performers. We find them at a performance, and follow them to their next performance, racking up some gruesome body counts, all of which are photographed by their daughter, Eve. Seven is the father, and his act is cutting off his fingers, and then sewing them back on. Maggie, the mother, simply likes to kill. The stay in a barn, and the farmer comes out and invites them in. Maggie kills him, saying considering what the Germans did to Seven, he deserved it. The farmer had a Norwegian flag, and when Maggie asks if that is German. After the answer she says close enough. There are some flashback WWI scenes setting context. It is one of some horrific scenes, and some really darkness by the family. The story will be off-putting for many, and hard to take. Others will appreciate the horror of the story. There really is no remorse about the killings. This really is a movie for the fans of their family films.

The filmmaking Adams family make low budget,chilly horrors that are several cuts above the usual stalk and slash horrors that populate the market. They have a keen eye for character and atmosphere that make for a more subtle horror, with well drawn characters that add to a rather brave whole.

Unfortunately here the plot is bogged down with tedious hallucinationary scenes, an overlong opening that doesn't excite or grab the audience but is daring nonetheless, and a music video that plays weirdly at the end- It adds nothing really.

The piercings and tattoos on the carnival workers,seem too modernistic out of place , like Lucy Osbourne appeared,minus her sodding phone!

The CGI on the WW1 scenes are a little too unsubtle.

Nonetheless, I applaud this family of filmmakers for trying to appeal to the more adult of horror fans. The designs and cinematography effectively evoke the back roads of 30s Catskills, the chilly look got to my bones and they look of the time and place.

After a couple of predictable' found footage' films of late at least these guys know there is room for low budget horror to develop interesting ideas rather than cliched use of the camera and lines of dialogue.

It could have been better but overall a memorable little chiller.

Well, this is a first time for me.... never before have I finished a movie and immediately rewound it and watched it again. I was so intrigued, but felt like I missed out on so much of the story for various reasons and was not content with that haha.

The first thing you're likely to notice after the opening scene is the quality and style of the picture. It's so lovely and unique, it gives the entire film a very specific aesthetic vibe that I found very visually pleasing. Along with the picture, you are hit with disorienting music, wild imagery, and jarring characters that make you feel as if you're almost in a daze while viewing. 93% of the frames throughout this movie are so striking you could take a still at any given moment and frame it. There were also some shockingly successful practical effects in this. Tons of really awesome real to life and jarring gore. Unfortunately, the few green screen effects were not as successful. There are also plenty of Easter eggs and fun running themes throughout such as the shoes and the Frankensteined dolls and such. This is one to pay attention to so you can catch everything.

The acting here was really quite interesting. It was almost as if they were putting on this cultivated, stilted delivery that begged this almost dark, fanciful, dazed, story book atmosphere. Throughout the film I really enjoyed their odd family dynamic. They were presenting this almost "3 Wise Monkeys" theme that I found quite intriguing. The three of them did an excellent job. The entire experience was certainly on the thematically dark side, while being chock-full of symbolism, metaphors, allegories and nuanced messages... yet somehow, still managed to have an oddly lighthearted sensibility to it. It never felt like it was taking itself too seriously, despite the art house nature of it all.

As stated, I watched it a second time because I was a tad confused throughout and felt like I missed out on parts of the story that I wanted to partake in. I got much more out of it and enjoyed it even more the second go around. Unfortunately, you can guess the majority of people are not going to invest double the time into this, so I feel it won't reach as many people as it could. I do think there was a slight disconnect with the storytelling within the script that could've been addressed in the way of improving the viewer's accessibility and understanding of the plot.

Small example - a man says "They already took it" whereas, if he were to say "They already took it, the fat SOB came by today and made me sign it over"... it's not super spoonfed but makes me go "oh, that's who he is talking about". Little allusions such as this make it easier for the viewer to draw parallels and connections from scene to scene and character to character. I feel as though different occurrences of this were part of the reason I was confused during my first viewing. However, there is certainly something to be said for a sense of confusion and what that evokes. Not everything is meant to be explained or fully understood and I think this film is a good example of that. Even my second time there were things that went over my head and I could not decipher.

I have been a fan of this family and their work for quite some time now. I'm so pleased to see their success through bigger productions and quality work. I think they are innovative, original and creating truly unique work. As an indie actor, these are the kinds of productions I love to see and would kill to be in. This isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but if it's not... go read a book lol. 6.5 rounding down to a 6, would recommend.

Short review: 'Where the Devil Roams' made me really happy. To see a family making independent horror movies is terrific, but these are anything but your average home movies. This one is made with a lot of class. It's extremely dark in the early going, but it isn't afraid to throw in some moments of humour. And it's absolutely funny stuff, but the tone is so dark you can almost feel bad for laughing.

This one was described to me before going in as a slow-burn, but I'm not sure I'd agree with that assessment. There's a hell of a lot of violence and mayhem for a 'Slow-burn". Then the twisted ending is the cherry on top. I enjoyed this movie. 7/10.