Customer Reviews

Shrooms

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have seen nothing but derogatory comments about this film, but I found Shrooms to be a pretty fun little horror movie. Sure, you don't have to have eaten a Deaths Head mushroom to see prophetic visions of how the film will end, and the story doesn't exactly break new ground in terms of character development, but Shrooms does have a suspenseful moment or two and I happen to believe that the look and feel of the film (which some have decried as hopelessly bland) creates the appropriate atmosphere for the setting and the events that take place there. It's Ireland, people, not the bright and sunny beaches of Rio de Janeiro.

Forget about the whole potato business. Apparently, Ireland is all about psychedelic mushrooms. In the film, five dumb Americans have just spent tons of money to fly across the Atlantic in order to camp out deep in the woods and indulge in the hallucinogenic visions wrought by the local "magic mushrooms." Well, one of them, Tara (Lindsey Haun, who happens to bear a strong resemblance to Kirsten Dunst) came in hopes of hooking up with host Jake (Jack Huston); her four annoying friends (two stuck-up girls and their annoying boyfriends, one of whom looks like the skinny guy from Jay and Silent Bob while the other one is dumb frat boy material) tagged along for the psychedelic adventure.

Already bummed over the fact that Jake isn't paying her much attention, Tara decides to eat one of the mushrooms she finds - unfortunately, it's a Deaths Head mushroom. Supposedly, anyone who eats one of these particular shrooms - assuming he/she actually survives - gains several dark attributes, such as the ability to predict the future. Being the main character in the film, Tara naturally survives, waking up in time to hear Jake tell the others about the dark monk who terrorized and murdered a number of the kids under his charge, including a shrouded boy who poisoned him, and is said to still roam those very woods looking to kill those who would enter his domain. As you can probably guess, Tara soon begins having terrifying premonitions of her friends' violent deaths - just before those deaths actually happen. Soon all of the characters are scrambling around the woods in search of help and answers as they are picked off one by one. Tara begins seeing the dark monk seemingly stalking her, the boy in the shroud pops up a time or two, and a family of inbred hillbillies stops by to make things even more interesting.

There are some obvious parallels between Shrooms and another recent film which shall remain nameless; I only mention this because I raked that other movie over the coals for the absurdity of its ending and, in retrospect, overall approach to the entire story. A case can certainly be made that Shrooms borrows heavily from this other film - yet here, the story actually works reasonably well (aside from its predictability and lack of originality). With the characters all befuddling their minds with psychedelic mushroom delights, one can never be sure if what you are seeing is real or a hallucination. With so much wriggle room to work with, Shrooms actually turns out to be a pretty effective little horror movie, in my opinion. Did I mention there's a talking cow?

This was an interesting little morsel of gore and ickiness. At times whacky and crazy, over the top and sometimes unbelievable and bit weird, it wasn't the best horror movie I've seen in a while but I enjoyed it for what it had to offer. Basically a group of friends takes a trip to Ireland where they are meeting up with some guy named Jake that has bespelled Tara, our heroine. Their whole purpose of going there is to take magic mushrooms and have an experience while camping out in the middle of dark, scary woods. Everything is going all right until they settle by the camp fire and the guide spills the beans about an abandoned orphanage where mysterious hooded monks tortured bad kids and how the grounds are still haunted. Not exactly a place one wants to be with no cell phones, help out of the way, crazies living in the woods in hand made shacks and while intoxicated on fungus of all things.

The fun part of the movie was watching the mood decline and the chill take over. The haunting and the scary stores suddenly don't seem so made up anymore and when intoxicated from taking the wrong mushroom, Tara starts to see the future; her visions are nothing short of dark and horrific. At the end it's a lot of running around, screaming, trying to escape the wrath of the mysterious black shape that is keen on having them meet the maker and trying to figure out what is real and what is simply the worst trip of their whole lives. Are people dying or is it all in their imagination, you won't know until the end! There is gore and blood and strange disturbing things, but I won't spoil them, it was more fun watching it all unravel on my own.

I liked the ending; it came to a stunning conclusion although it did remind me of a certain French film I saw last year, overall not bad and mildly entertaining for a rainy afternoon. I had my likes and dislikes about it but I'm glad I got to see it.

- Kasia S.

Six attractive twenty-somethings decide to visit Ireland for a weekend of drug-induced fun. During the first day of foraging, Tara accidentally ingests a bad mushroom and does not get bigger or get an extra life; she's a heroine on heroin. She makes the same mistake as the guy from Into the Wild: she ate something bad. Hey, Vanilla Ice tried to warn her; it's a poisonous mushroom. She bit into a "Death's Head Fungi", a heart-exploding portal to another dimension that is purported to cause uncontrollable ferocity, and the ability of premonition and communication with the dead. How was she supposed to know? What's the difference between the bad one and the good one? A black dot. Good luck finding the speck after you've already taken hits that have you thinking you're a badger who can see singing snakes.

After the hallucinations begin, Jake tells the story of a sadistic monk who terrorized and beat children. A few feral kids didn't like his brutal ways, and decided to get back at him by putting a bunch of Death's Head mushrooms into his soup. The result, of course, was a homicidal maniac who executed everyone in sight. Undeterred by the story, the rest get higher than a kite. Soon thereafter, people go missing and the viewer doesn't know where to separate reality from insanity. Keeping with horror movie tradition, while being chased by silhouettes in the forest the kids continue tripping. Two characters get hit in the head with rocks - stoned. Ba-dum-cha!

As for the characters, I'd say one "actor" udders the best line of the entire film: "You know you're fu*#ed. Dead fu*&ed." It's hilariously unnecessary, and foreshadowing for a movie that's easier to predict than a sunrise.

Overall, this movie is a bit half-baked. The actors are somewhat convincing in their terror, but the visions seemed too similar to "The Ring" for my tastes. Although, there were definite hallucinations and paranoia happening. At one point I could swear I saw some massive cleavage and good acting. Oh, wait, I saw both. It's worthwhile for some interesting visuals and a fresh angle, but it's not ground-breaking by any means.

Man, I don't know what all these bad reviews are all about. If you want to talk about garbage, watch "Haunted Boat." This movie blows doors over that rubbish. There are constant jump-out-of-your seat moments, the filming was done with tact, and it was easy to see a lot of thought was put behind it in order to create a claustrophobic atmosphere out of doors. That isn't the easiest thing to do. I found myself wondering what was to the left or the right of the camera many times and being frustrated that I couldn't. The suspense was entrancing and the story addicting. For an obvious low-budget flick, this one gives every penny's worth. Lindsey Haun was just as good here as she was in a much more subtle role in "Broken Bridges." Don't miss it. If you have a pension for horror, this one will not let down.
One more thing: The twist-ending was a bit predictable but still done very well.

I'm just a dumb horror film fan so you might not want to take my word for it but I think "Shrooms" is a very solid horror movie. It's original, but not so original (if you know what I mean), a little predictable and absurd but it's loaded with atmosphere, plenty of frightening visuals and jumpy scares. I say absurd because throughout the movie there will be times when you'll find yourself wondering whether or not the filmmakers ever actually had any real prior experience with Hallucinogens, let's just say that it has it's unrealistc moments. Do not let that last comment stare you away from adding this one to your collection though. I was a little unsure myself about picking this one up after reading all these mixed reviews both here at amazon and eleswhere. I'm very glad I did though 'cause "Shrooms" is a fun and creepy goodtime.

Really, if you can't figure out the "twist" ending in the first 20 minutes then it's time to turn in your movie watching privileges. I deleted a horror movie review website from my bookmarks simply because this movie got 4 stars on it. This movie is terrible... but then most PG-13 "horror" movies are. It fails on every level. Be ready to use your fast forward button.

It actually took me awhile to finally watch shrooms even though i had the movie for a few months, from the previews i thought it looked pretty good but never got around to i suppose. Well finally last night i turned it on to see what was in store. Right off the bat i could tell it seemed interesting enough to hold my attention and the acting was actually very good. Basically the story was pretty basic, kids go out in search of shrooms to have a weekend of tripping out and have some fun, and thats it. Well turns out the story got a lot more complicated as it went along, so much so it was really confusing and a bit jumbled throughout the film. The main character who is a Johnny Depp look alike was a fine actor, and while i don't know the names of the other real actors the parts they played were quite good. He spins off a story of this very abusive dark teacher at a school who keep kids in line very violently, and spooks the group until they finally head off to bed for the night. Well before this they pick the shrooms and one girl picks one of the bad dark tipped kind which were said to give you premontions, and pretty much see anything bad or good that would happen. After here initial "trip" she finds out this is true and pretty much through the whole film sees various things happen that don't really make a whole lot of sense. If you pay attention very very closely it kind of does. So while its hard to follow it is very enjoyable. Actually what makes the film work is its undeniable creepy dark dreary forest atmosphere which is spooky in itself, let alone when your out of your element. So not to give to much away but throughout the film various people die, or do they? The end is someone like the film The Uninvited but perhaps even a bit more surprising and actually better. So while Shrooms won't win an awards from fans as the best horror flick out there it definitely has its place in the cult film classics and is just as good as some of the more popular scarey films out there today. So take a trip.

When Sid ponders a horror film set in Ireland automatically the mind goes to the Leprechaun series. It made us believe we'd found Ireland's #1 cause of death. Well our little friend the Leprechaun has some competition coming in the way of fungi. However these are not your average mushroom you'd find on a nice chicken marsala. These are magic mushrooms in their most potent form. And naturally when you're ingesting the world's most potent shrooms the best place to be is not on your couch in peace but a haunted forest.

We start out with a group of 5 as they take a trip to Ireland exclusively to camp out and eat some shrooms. They probably could've just done that in the states, but hey we're not asking questions. The main character Tara took the flight hoping she'd land her summer flame Jake to further things along. Jake lives in Ireland and set this whole trip up for them. He appears to be the world's ultimate authority on the shroom. After they get to the camp ground and set up shop Jake orders the crew not to eat the black tipped mushrooms which usually cause death or worse if you survive after eating it. It will bring on very dark visions and communications with spirit world. Yikes! Tara happened to trail off before she heard the warning and eats one of the black tip shrooms causing her to have some insane hallucinogenic visions. She begins to see the hooded ghost that lurks the woods and one bu one see's how all her friends will die. From here on out it's pretty choatic and creepy. You get a lot of trippy visions, some inbred hillbillies, and a talking cow. You really can't go wrong in any sense with a combo like that.

The film appears to get a bad rap from most reviewers but it's pretty good. The film has a very dark creepy vibe which is perfect for the whole shroom trip experience. It's not something you're going to be terrified while watching, but you will have a few jumps. Also the ending finishes up the flick with a very nice twist which is so rare to find in the horror of today. The real message this one shows is to keep you a** at home if you plan on trippin balls.

What happens when a group of college kids take a trip to Ireland to partake in some psychidelic mushroom eating? They get slashed to bits by an insane killer that's what! Shrooms doesn't try to do anything new, but for its brisk running time, it manages to deliver some great atmosphere (thanks to the genuinely creepy Irish woods) and some surprisingly decent acting (the gorgeous Lindsey Haun is the lead screamer here, and Step Up 2's Robert Hoffman is here as the over-sexed jock) to boot. Where Shrooms disappoints is in terms of its gore, of which the film actually comes up pretty light. What little blood there is is fairly done, but gorehounds and slasher addicts will be disappointed. Still, there manages to be some good psychidelic film tricks, and a twist ending that you'll either dig or hate, depending on your degree of jadedness with the genre. All in all, Shrooms isn't a bad trip (seriously, no pun intended), and is worth checking out for slasher fans.

I saw the trailer for this film on HD NET and it looked promising. I was happy to hear that I was going to get a free sneak peak showing opening night in my home on HD NET! The movie is about a group of campers who go to Ireland to do "shrooms" or "magic mushrooms"(what they were called in my day)in the woods. Having dabbled in many things in my youth, I know this is a bad, BAD idea! The films starts off like so many other horror movies going to unfamiliar surroundings to party and have sex, then tell a scary story to freak everyone out before going to bed. Lots of cliché's fill this watch-able but, ultimately forgettable horror film. I did like the ending a little, as it seemed to make this all seem possible. If you see it coming on cable you might want to give it a look but, it's nothing special just a time waster.