Shrooms was a nifty little gem I found amongst a list on new independent horror and to feed the insatiable appetite I have been having lately, I got my hands on a copy. To start off, I must say that the premise is ingenious. Five college students meet up with a friend and their guide Jake in Ireland. The whole purpose of the trip is to, well…trip.
They will be camping in the words for a couple of days having an extended psychedelic trip but don’t realize the terror quite at hands. Jake is an expert of Psilocybin mushrooms and a sleazy guy at that. After briefly explaining the identifiable marks on the mushrooms, his eyes wander and he notices a death cap mushroom. This is a very big problem because apparently if you eat it, your hearts and lung will explode. Before the students got a chance to get too creeped out he explains in Irish folklore, that if you do not die, it is said to grant you foresight and intense ferocity.
Tara is the ringleader of this event, and is the stupid one in the beginning of the movie. She is the one who wanders off and trips. She is the one who finds a pretty mushroom, and she is the one who decides to eat it. Upon ingesting it she suddenly starts to have a massive seizure, if it were not for Jake, who knows what might have happened. She is then carried back to the camp muttering, “I saw you save me”. They then begin to collect the shrooms to brew some tea. Bluto (Dumb jock who is on Steroids, stereotype what?) gets denied from sleeping in his tent by his cock tease girlfriend so instead drinks some tea. He is now wandering through the woods talking to cows which is a truly hilarious scene.
Tara has a dream where Bluto gets massacred, wakes up, finds him and forces him to go to sleep again. In the morning, she wakes up and finds he is missing. From this point on, Tara begins to see a hooded black figure that is described as a Black Butcher from folklore that killed many people. With a boom in independent horror, it is hard to find a diamond in the rough. The director is some Irish guy named Paddy Breathnach who has made a couple other unnoticeable films. The films premise is the main treasure, that and a couple of really memorable creepy scenes which owes a lot to the eerie soundtrack playing all the while. Excellent cinematography mixed in with clever camera work.
One thing that made this movie all the more enjoyable is the fact that the death cap mushrooms do exist but i know nothing about the folklore surrounding them. The actual term for the shroom is Amanita phalloides and no antidote is available for this. The best part of the film is the fucking ending. It seems over played at first but when it happens it is shocking, merciless, and brutal to the core. The ending also sets up a lot of layers to this film and could create multiple endings. Not only that but they also managed to capture the feeling of paranoia and the actual trip.
The film seems like the most terrifying anti-drug advertisement ever made. "Don't do drugs or you will get brutally murdered!" and it just might work. After watching this i am truly terrified of doing Shrooms just in case i happen to remember the Cloaked figure. This film might touch down more with someone with personal drug history. This film does come recommended even if it has uninspired characters with inconsistent dialogue. If you are in the right setting, this film could chill you to the bones.
They will be camping in the words for a couple of days having an extended psychedelic trip but don’t realize the terror quite at hands. Jake is an expert of Psilocybin mushrooms and a sleazy guy at that. After briefly explaining the identifiable marks on the mushrooms, his eyes wander and he notices a death cap mushroom. This is a very big problem because apparently if you eat it, your hearts and lung will explode. Before the students got a chance to get too creeped out he explains in Irish folklore, that if you do not die, it is said to grant you foresight and intense ferocity.
Tara is the ringleader of this event, and is the stupid one in the beginning of the movie. She is the one who wanders off and trips. She is the one who finds a pretty mushroom, and she is the one who decides to eat it. Upon ingesting it she suddenly starts to have a massive seizure, if it were not for Jake, who knows what might have happened. She is then carried back to the camp muttering, “I saw you save me”. They then begin to collect the shrooms to brew some tea. Bluto (Dumb jock who is on Steroids, stereotype what?) gets denied from sleeping in his tent by his cock tease girlfriend so instead drinks some tea. He is now wandering through the woods talking to cows which is a truly hilarious scene.
Tara has a dream where Bluto gets massacred, wakes up, finds him and forces him to go to sleep again. In the morning, she wakes up and finds he is missing. From this point on, Tara begins to see a hooded black figure that is described as a Black Butcher from folklore that killed many people. With a boom in independent horror, it is hard to find a diamond in the rough. The director is some Irish guy named Paddy Breathnach who has made a couple other unnoticeable films. The films premise is the main treasure, that and a couple of really memorable creepy scenes which owes a lot to the eerie soundtrack playing all the while. Excellent cinematography mixed in with clever camera work.
One thing that made this movie all the more enjoyable is the fact that the death cap mushrooms do exist but i know nothing about the folklore surrounding them. The actual term for the shroom is Amanita phalloides and no antidote is available for this. The best part of the film is the fucking ending. It seems over played at first but when it happens it is shocking, merciless, and brutal to the core. The ending also sets up a lot of layers to this film and could create multiple endings. Not only that but they also managed to capture the feeling of paranoia and the actual trip.
The film seems like the most terrifying anti-drug advertisement ever made. "Don't do drugs or you will get brutally murdered!" and it just might work. After watching this i am truly terrified of doing Shrooms just in case i happen to remember the Cloaked figure. This film might touch down more with someone with personal drug history. This film does come recommended even if it has uninspired characters with inconsistent dialogue. If you are in the right setting, this film could chill you to the bones.
-Maq
I want to see this
ReplyDeleteLindsey Haun was much more sexy and desirable at the age of 10 (in John Carpenters ludicrously under-rated 1995 remake of "Village Of The Damned") than she was as a 22 year-old in this film.
ReplyDelete