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Review #616 of 365
Movie Review of Shrooms (2008) [NR] 84 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $7.00
Where Viewed: Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, Denver, CO
When Seen: 8 February 2008
Time: 5:00 pm
DVD Release Date: 25 March 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
Soundtrack: order the CD below
Directed by: Paddy Breathnach (Man About Dog)
Screenplay by: Pearse Elliott (The Mighty Celt )
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Lindsey Haun (Broken Bridges) • Robert Hoffman (She's the Man) • Jack Huston (Factory Girl) • Max Kasch (The Greatest Game Ever Played) • Maya Hazen (Lucky You) • Alice Greczyn (The Dukes of Hazzard) • Don Wycherley (Bachelors Walk) • Sean McGinley (The Wind That Shakes the Barley)
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Click to read the spoiler points for Shrooms
Irish director, Paddy Breathnach's cult horror film, Shrooms, has actually been around for a while but is finally enjoying a limited run in the USA at art house theatres and the like. Featuring a young cast of mostly USAers who travel to Ireland to escape their lives and mental pressures by exploring the famous mushrooms of the countryside. Their guide, local Jake (Jack Huston), picks them up at the airport in his minibus and then transports them to a huge park for camping and 'shroom' harvesting. In explaining the choice of mushrooms to pick, he makes a very big mistake.
MUSHROOM PICKING IS NOT FOR NOVICES AS THERE ARE COUNTLESS FATALLY POISONESS MUSHROOMS MIXED IN WITH EDIBLE ONES. He shows them the one mushroom they are after in a book but fails to note a similar cousin that, ultimately, is one of the most fatally dangerous. As they make camp, Bluto (Robert Hoffman) and Lisa (Maya Hazen) get frisky, Troy (Max Kasch) seems smitten with Holly (Al.ice Greczyn), and Tara (Lindsey Haun) lusts longingly after Jake whom she's really come to see most of all. In the late afternoon, they play, search for mushrooms; and Tara, who goes off by herself, observes Bluto hitting on Holly. Disgusted, she decides to eat a mushroom she finds not having gotten the message that there is a poisonous cousin of the one they seek that is generally fatal upon consumption. She quickly falls into a seizure and coma only to be found by Jake. He rushes her to camp and resuscitates her. He explains that few people ever survive this mushroom and those that do often report premonitions and other strange cognitive alterations. The group, having been quite worries about her, gathers around the fire pit to eat and listen to ghost stories. Jake tells something worse, a true story about a malevolent children's home in the area where all sorts of evil and bad things went on. He freaks out everyone in the group save Troy who seems to love being scare and Bluto who thinks himself too macho to be scared of anything including the damages of steroid use.
That night, weird things start happening and Tara starts to have horrible dreams about her friends being killed by strange and shadowy figures from Jakes story. As is predictable for teen horror flicks, the cycle of death begins and who lives becomes a game of cat and mouse. Tara keeps having visions of death.
…modestly effective horror…too bogged down in the mystery…
A scare and amorous advances get Bluto kicked out of his tent, and he decides to get a jump on drinking the simmering shroom tea. He immediately trips and ventures into the woods and disappears. In the morning, everyone in the group drinks the tea and then does incredibly dumb things as they venture into the woods looking for the missing Bluto. One by one, of course, they start to end up dead according to Tara's visions.
Modestly scary, modestly original, the real key to the story is that, unlike most teen horror films, in this one the characters never know if what they are seeing is real or shroom-induced which adds to their paranoia and fear. Paddy Breathnach uses some interesting camera effects to show the world through their eyes. There is a good twist at the end and a set up for Shrooms 2 should there be one. Most fans of this genre will find Shrooms to be a bit better than average on some levels, but a bit derivative on most others right down to the mental institution for children as being a key scary place in the film. The acting is frightfully bad, however, turning many of the more horrifying scenes a bit campy. Lindsey Haun tries to hold it all together via Tara, but she fails to really shine until the end. Robert Hoffman plays the high school jock to the T while Max Kasch plays the more moody, long-haired Troy. The other two co-eds, brought to life by Maya Hazen and Alice Greczyn couldn't have been written generically. The resulting film is modestly effective horror that gets too bogged down in the mystery of what's going on in the woods to be as effective as it could have been, and more of the 'trippy' scare angle, like the talking cow, would have tipped the balance favorably.
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Other Projects Featuring Shrooms (2008)
Cast Members
Lindsey Haun • Robert Hoffman • Jack Huston
Max Kasch • Maya Hazen • Alice Greczyn
Don Wycherley • Sean McGinley
Director
Paddy Breathnach
Writer
Pearse Elliott
Review-lite
Shrooms (2008) [max of 150 words]
Director Paddy Breathnach delivers a modestly scary, modestly original, teen horror film with the key difference being that the characters never know if what they are seeing is real or shroom-induced adding to their paranoia and fear. Some interesting camera effects are used to show the world through the tripping co-ed's views of the world. There is a good twist at the end and a set up for Shrooms 2 should there be one. Most fans of this genre will find Shrooms to be a bit better than average on some levels, but a bit derivative on most others right down to the mental institution for children as being a key scary place in the film. The acting is frightfully bad, however, turning many of the more horrifying scenes a bit campy. More of the 'trippy' scare angle, like the talking cow, would have tipped the balance favorably.
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