Over the past 13 years, the Adams Family has made 8 movies together. Comprised of Toby Poser, John Adams, and their daughters Lulu and Zelda Adams, each member of the Adams family is involved in every part of the filmmaking process.
In 2018, they made their first genre film, The Hatred, which tells the story of a young girl who brings a soldier back from the dead, and they realized they enjoyed making horror movies. By the time they released their second horror movie, The Deeper You Dig, in 2019, genre fans were discovering their unique DIY style of filmmaking and their talent for dark storytelling.
Filmmakers Tina Grapenthin (When God Sleeps), Katie Green (The Family I Had), and Carlye Rubin (The Family I Had) realized the wildly artistic Adams family would be the perfect subject for their documentary Blood and Guts, which provides a fascinating, intimate glimpse into the family’s personal and professional lives. Premiering at the Cucalorus Film Festival in North Carolina in the fall of 2025, Blood and Guts is making the rounds of the festival circuit in 2026 and is playing this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival.
Featuring moody songs from the family’s band H6llb6nd6r as the score for the documentary, Blood and Guts skillfully weaves together candid interviews with John, Toby, Zelda, and Lulu, with the Adams’ personal as well as behind-the-scenes footage of the family making horror movies together.
John’s father shares that his son was an artist at a young age who had a preference for darker art. A painter, a punk rock musician, and eventually a successful high fashion model, John was hit with a cancer diagnosis at a young age, which caused him to reassess what was most important in life. After earning a BFA, Toby was a regular on the soap opera Guiding Light until she met John, got pregnant with Lulu, and was fired from the show. The couple eventually built their extraordinary house in the Catskills, with random skeletons and body parts littering the front yard and porch and showcasing John’s artwork on every inch of the interior walls. Everyone in the small town they call home knows the Adams family; locals frequently ask if they can be killed in their next horror movie, and the Adams sometimes happily oblige.
Despite finding success as indie horror filmmakers and becoming regulars at film festivals, there is nothing pretentious about the Adams family. Blood and Guts confirms John, Toby, Zelda, and Lulu are all outgoing, outspoken, and humble, while being fueled by the need to create new art. John and Toby talk about raising their daughters to be independent, artistic, and fearless, and after Lulu moves away and Zelda goes off to college, the couple fields potential projects. Partially because they love making movies, but according to John, also to avoid the emptiness of the house in the Catskills when their daughters are away.
John and Toby ultimately decide to travel to Serbia to make their first creature feature, Hell Hole, which required them both to work outside of their comfort zones. John details how he initially thought he would be acting as cinematographer on the film, as he has on all the movies they’ve made, only to later discover he would have a camera crew, something that he says was a difficult adjustment for him at first.
From the coming-of-age story Hellbender to their recent film Mother of Flies, it’s evident the Adams family has a flair for witchy storytelling that captures the darker side of femininity. With more than one member of the family being touched by cancer, which particularly manifested in Mother of Flies, they describe their work as a reflection of their life experiences and sometimes also the inverse of their family dynamic.
If you think you know everything there is to know about the Adams family, Blood and Guts will probably prove you wrong. This bewitching documentary is an expertly edited, up close and personal portrait of an endlessly interesting family who excel at macabre storytelling, and yes, even at making their own blood and guts.
Blood and Guts premiered at Chattanooga Film Festival 2026. Release info TBD.
