Cast:
Lindsey Haun as Tara
Jack Huston as Jake
Max Kasche as Troy
Maya Hazen as Lisa
Alice Greczyn as Holly
Robert Hoffman as Bluto
You've probably seen this film in many guises a hundred times. There's literally nothing new or innovative about the plot of this film. Five twenty-somethings travel to Ireland to meet someone who looks like Captain Jack Sparrow and Kurt Cobain somehow had a child to pick some shrooms and get hiiiiiiiiiiiiigh (Jake).
They arrive somewhere in Ireland and Jake picks them up in a less than reliable looking mini van and they head out into the woods. While they're driving we get a glimpse into the characters. Not that there's much to glimpse, they consist of a somewhat predictable yet bizarre mix of nerds, jocks and hot chicks and a guy that's obsessed with martial arts and looks a bit like Jason Mewes. The acting is nothing to write home about.
As they're driving through ominous looking woods, they hit something and blood splatters over the windscreen. The gang get out to investigate and it turns out they hit a goat (at least I'm pretty sure that's what the SFX team were going for). As Bluto puts the dying creature out of its misery, two creepy guys come out of the forest. These two look like rejects from The Hills Have Eyes; missing teeth, gross hair, probably smelled terrible. Jake throws the carcass to them and they eye it up "food, good, good" they say and retreat into the trees.
Pretty much all of the rest of this film takes part in what looks like endless woods in an ever shifting layout. The gang set out to pick some shrooms while
With the shrooms collected and fermenting they gather around the fire for some spooky time before bed. Once there was local boarding school with a bloody history and definite signs of child neglect, where naughty boys were sent to be corrected. Bluto (who is a steroid junkie) laughs this off as bull and tries for the 5th time to get into his GFs undies with little success.
By this point I was more than ready to see Bluto get it. The guy was pushy and needy and was basically ready to shove his man parts into anything, willing or not. When it's clear his GF Lisa isn't putting out he has a Trump-esque meltdown and drinks the entire kettle of fermenting shroom tea. Earlier, Jake was telling the rest of the gang about dogging (if you don't know what it is, I refer you to the previous search engine) and so, when a really grim looking car flashes its lights, Bluto was too busy following his junk to notice and gets it ripped right off by whatever is in the car.
He tries to run but this thing stalks him for a while before burying an axe in his skull. No big loss there, but thanks to the black nipple shrooms of death, Tara sees it in her dream/trip/premonitory powers and basically freaks everyone out. Lisa wakes up to find half her hair cut off by Banjo and declares "I want his balls" whilst brandishing a pair of scissors. It's around this time they discover Banjo drank enough tea for six people and so they take what's left and go looking for him.
For some unfathomable reason, they split up AGAIN and one by one, they get picked off by some creepy child with a bag over its head and some other creepy man in a hooded cape. First Holly, who took off alone when the three girls were running. She bumps into the two creepy forest hobos' shack. A rather bizarre conversation ensues and she eventually escapes them before running into creepy bag child and actually trying to befriend it.
Naturally, bag-child isn't really up for making friends. It attacks and then Tara sees her die and tells Lisa to look in the water. First she finds an axe which ends up in Tara's hands and then Holly's corpse. Apparently this is where Lisa has a minor breakdown and runs off into the reeds to her untimely demise. It was the hooded man, with a rock, in the watery reeds. Bye bitch.
Troy and Jake spot Tara across a really wide river and yell at her to go to the house Jake talked about just a few hours earlier. Ahh the good old days where everyone wasn't tripping balls on shrooms. Some time passes as the remaining three head for the mortuary for evil children and begin to stalk each other through the decrepit looking rooms while seemingly being stalked by bag-child and hooded-cape person themselves. Unfortunately, his love of martial arts can't save him from bag-child, and Troy gets it from the bag-child. The local mortuary will be busy after this mess.
Seeing something spooky, Jake runs towards a balcony and throws himself off it, breaking his leg as he lands just as Tara turns the corner. It's obvious that he isn't going to make it, as they hobble down through the forest. Someone with a broken leg is only going to get you killed that much quicker. Luckily fate is on her side and a rock comes flying out of nowhere and oof, Jake's down. He doesn't get up again.
Tara is distraught and wails before we're treated to a jump cut of her being airlifted to safety.
While being tended to in the back of an Ambulance, Tara's sees the two forest hobos being arrested though she knows they weren't responsible. Since this film came out in 2007 and it's now 2018 I think it's pretty safe to say we won't be tortured by a sequel so don't look out for 'Shrooms 2: Hobos Revenge' any time soon). Bitch was never going to tell the police that it was a scary bag-child and hooded-cape person, likely because she was convinced it was all part of a really nasty trip
Just as we see the paramedic tending to a nasty gash on her forehead a phone starts ringing.
In one last terrifying hallucination the truth is revealed. There was never a bag-child or hooded-cape person, it was Tara all along, she killed all her friends while under the influence of black nipple death shrooms. Ooops. I'm not entirely sure who was calling her, I was too busy admiring the nostalgia of a Motorola Razr. Anyway, clearly still a bit mental she stabs the paramedic and the closing scene is of her bloody hands, a pair of blood stained scissors and her wide eyes looking out of the rear window as the ambulance drives away.
The message here is don't eat shrooms without doing your research. Also, don't bloody do it in a creepy forest after meeting some less than articulate gentlemen on the road. Finally, don't watch this film unless you want to know how NOT to do shrooms.
A sketchy 4/10, poor acting, poor dialogue, predictable and likelihood of rewatch? 0%
Until next time film fans.
