SHROOMS

  2007/18/81m

“Get ready to get wasted.”

Director: Paddy Breathnach / Writer: Pearse Elliott / Cast: Lindsey Haun, Jack Huston, Max Kasch, Maya Hazen, Alice Greczyn, Robert Hoffman, Don Wycherley, Sean McGinley.

Body Count: 6

Laughter Lines: “You can’t fuck up what’s already fucked.”

Ireland supplied this disappointing comic horror in which five American college kids join a local on a camping trip into the woods for Shroom Season, where mind-trips galore await those who dare to sample to delicacies the forest floor has to offer.

Good girl Tara (Kirsten Dunst-a-like Haun) accidentally scoffs a forbidden Devil’s Head mushroom, which is reported to cause a variety of mind-bending affects including violent outbursts and foresight.

Tara begins to experience the latter and hosts visions of her friends’ murders during their respective trips, at the hands of a feral creature – the possible survivor of a massacre at the closed-down young offenders home they share the locus with.

Things kick off amusingly with a talking cow, dogging, and cold-blooded murder. The midriff of the project is consumed almost entirely by the three female characters running through the trees and shrieking like banshees, not too dissimilar to The Blair Witch Project, but not nearly as innovative.

Ultimately, the groan-worthy twist is too understated and pointless to save a film that is neither funny enough nor scary enough to warrant any kind of recommendation. The performances and photography are acceptable but lacklustre, and come the credits it feels like you’ve just wasted an hour and a half on nothing – but maybe that’s the ironic underlying message of this regrettable trip?