Forgotten in '08: 'Shrooms'

Happy New Year!

In my research for the best (and worst) films of 2008, I came across this little emerald from the land of Leprechauns and whiskey, Ireland. Relative new-comer to the states, Paddy Breathnach directs Pearse Elliott's swan-song of drug use. "Shrooms" tries to combine the usually fraternal "stoner crowd," and "cheezy horror flick crowd" by creating a horror movie centered around the search and consumption of psilocybin mushrooms. 

Rundown of fodder characters:

Tara - Lindsey Haun: The heroine, whose ingestion of an ordinarily toxic mushroom gives her the power to see the future in her dreams. (Most people go to Ireland to kiss the Blarney stone and get the gift of gab, but I think this is a fair trade off.)

Jake - Jack Huston: The dreamy, dark, mysterious, "in the know" character, who rescues Tara from her deadly trip with mouth to mouth, which, when you're dealing with poisoning, is a really REALLY bad idea.

Troy - Max Kasch: A Jay (of "Jay and Silent Bob" fame) lookalike, who astoundingly makes all the other bobble-heads look intelligent by comparison.

Lisa - Maya Hazen: The slightly-hotter-than-the-others chick who contributes nothing to the plot but an endless hatred for anything less pretty than she.

Holly - Alice Greczyn: To call this one the ditz would be like calling Sarah Jessica Parker "the ugly one" in "Sex and the City."

Bluto - Robert Hoffman: See above.

The film centers around a cabal of brainless American brats who travel to the backwoods of Ireland (the mecca of consciousness-expansion) for the sole purpose of "tripping" on "shrooms." Jack, er, I mean, Jake warns the group not to eat Death Cap Shrooms, which look similar to the "magic" variety, but, apparently, Tara was thinking about her hair during that speech, wanders off on her own, and eats one anyway. Now, I wouldn't know anything about Amanita phalloides, but I do know that poisonous mushrooms do a lot of things besides "giving you the gift of foresight." When Tara ingests the cap, she is miraculously able to see the future; when, in reality, she would have jaundice, hypoglycemia, and massive organ failure before erupting in explosive diarrhea, and dying. But that doesn't make for a very attractive film. (Or does it?)

Also, A. phalloides doesn't look anything like in the movie.

Before the halfway point, the entire cast hates one another, and everyone is totally suspicious of each other peeping on their bedroom escapades (or, rather, back-of-a-truck escapades.) Then, Bluto (neither Popeye's arch-nemisis, nor John Belushi in Animal House,) in a funk, drinks an elixir of the stuff, wanders through the woods, where he sees a talking cow, then, inexplicably sticks his manhood into the window of a dilapidated car. And, to make matters worse, while cavorting around in his undershorts, apparently, he had possession of ALL of their cell-phones! Oh no! Good idea alert #1: Give your only means of communication to the dumbest member of the group!

Despite all I might say, this film has THE best depiction of a talking cow EVER in film history.

This is the point at which the film's plot takes off like a truant truck driver, pepped up on goofenthal, with a full tank of gas and a dead hooker in the trunk, as the horror from the film doesn't stem (yuk) from anything relating to the characters, but rather, on situations which could happen, were one to be under the influence of psychedelic drugs. To reiterate: nothing scary actually happens; it's all, "is he/she tripping, or is this actually happening?" Well, put down your hash-pipe, Sgt. Pepper, and light a stick of incense, 'cuz you just described everything in this movie.

So, in their incapacitated states, rather than sitting tight until they sober up and resuming the search with level heads (you know, like sane people would do,) Tara leads a G.I. Joe platoon of buxom ladies into the woods to rescue their dear friend.

Then, of course, Holly comes across a "Blair Witch Project" shelter, which she, of course, runs up to and inquires of the "Deliverance" hill-people for help. They direct her to a phone with the brilliant line: "You asked 'did we have a phone?' You didn't ask 'does it work?'" And, of COURSE! She is mercilessly slaughtered.

Tall, Dark, and Stupid leads Jason Mewes to go find the girls, when they start tripping and slip away with an elegant, "fuck this!" Lisa pushes Tara into a swamp, where she foresees their companion's death… previously… Hey, wait a minute! I thought foresight only worked FORwards! Oh man, somebody sold me some bad A. phalloides.

Anyway, it is then that Tara opens up to her companion about her new skills, to which, Lisa responds by screaming and running into the swamp. Good idea alert #2, when on  mind altering substances in the open, separate from your only companion! And, as if that wasn't good enough, after Lisa has a run in with whatever evil meanie is killing everybody, Tara wanders right in after her!

Somehow, the three remaining survivors meet up in the same dilapitated shack, and are systematically hunted down by the film's villain: A GUY IN A BURLAP SACK WITH A REALLY BIG HUNTING KNIFE. That's it. That's scary. I mean, that's scary? Well, sure, if you're unarmed and on drugs, but, seriously?

The one point this film misses more than anything is, it's always a bad idea to presuppose the audience will be on drugs. First, anything when viewed under the influence of drugs will automatically be "awesome." (Case in point: The "Harold and Kumar" franchise.) Second, anything which is supposed to be viewed while on drugs will be HEINOUS when viewed sober. (Case in point: "HELP!") Third, and finally, if you're going to make a movie about drugs, you'd better be ready to shell out some real dough for trippy special effects. The "tripping" effects in this film were scaled way down (not that I would know, cough, cough,) to little more than a fish-eye lens. (In contrast to say, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.")

On top of having a plot with the consistency of swiss cheese, this film is home to some dialogue gems such as:

Tara: "Something really shitty could've happened to Bluto!"

To which Troy replies: "Shit happens."

Tara: "I overdosed on the heroin of shrooms!" (Krosman: What does that even mean? Does she need more shrooms to survive?)

Deliverance guy 1

"Lovely tongue on a bull calf."

"Fuck reality." (I think this should have been the tagline.)

T: "I've got a feeling!" (A feeling deep inside, oh yeah!)

L: "The feeling has us in shit creek!" She then pushes Tara into the mud.

Special thanks to Krosman for creative input.

Schrader out.

P.S. While the imdb page lists 2006 as the release date, "Shrooms" was released in the States in '08, so kick yourself for not going to see it in theaters last year.