Five American college students experience a particularly bad trip while vacationing in Ireland and partaking of the local hallucinogenic fungi in director Paddy Breathnach's tripped-out tale of sex, drugs, and slashers. Upon arriving in Ireland to go camping with their old college buddy Jake, Americans Tara, Troy, Holly, Bluto, and Lisa and their host eagerly set out into the wilderness in search of some magic mushrooms. As the trip starts to take hold and the group gathers around the campfire,
Tara begins to wonder if she took too strong of a dose after Bluto goes missing, and she feels as if she's somehow witnessed his death. When other members of the group go missing as well, it begins to appear that someone is stalking the group and taking murderous advantage of their altered state. Could it be that this is just a simple case of hallucinogenic panic, or is there an element of truth to Jake's troubling stories of mutilated bodies and unsolved murders in the Irish countryside? The only way to be certain is for Tara to fight for her life and try to maintain her sanity until the morning sun rises and the reality returns. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
As perhaps befits a film so concerned with being 'under the influence', Breathnach's hallucinogen-driven giallo turns its very derivativeness into a virtue, confounding viewers with a gleeful overdose of cinematic references.
Shrooms may seem great while you're under its spell, but once the drugs wear off and you wake up, it fades pretty quickly ... Still, it's not a bad trip while it lasts.
From the distorting lens used randomly to suggest unreality, to the twist ending lifted verbatim from the superior High Tension, it's about as imaginative as a portobello steak with onions.
There are some fleetingly beautiful scenic shots and the odd atmospheric moment, but scissorhands editing destroys any suspense as it attempts to hide a very obvious plot twist; this is as boring as listening to anyone's drug story.
Not just unoriginal, dull and as scary as the adventures of Noddy, Shrooms makes you want to plant a tombstone in the earth and mourn the death of horror.
Every element of Paddy Breathnach's Irish slasher movie is so familiar that it feels like a dog-eared horror anthology found down the back of the sofa.
There are a few effective jump scares but the dodgy acting and an appalling ending marks this out as an interesting first try rather than an indie breakaway hit.
Couldn't finish it because I had a good idea where the film was going.... I've seen it all before- bad acting, young unlikable/shallow college kid characters, stupid jump scares, camping in the woods, etc. Usually I watch movies like this despite how tragically awful they are, but this time I stopped myself and watched
something better. It felt good.
No quotes approved yet for Shrooms. Logged in users can submit quotes.
Submit a Quote from 'Shrooms'
A quote can be a single line from one character or a memorable dialog between several characters. Please make your quotes accurate. Quotes will be submitted for approval by the RT staff.
Example:
Luke: Alright. I'll give it a try. Yoda: No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
Top Critic
