SHROOMS - DVD review

Most likely by sheer coincidence, Irish-born director Paddy Breathnach hooked up with another Paddy, producer Paddy McDonald to be precise, for the 2007 horror film, "Shrooms." One might say the movie itself has a mild aura of cheesiness at times and the actresses do have some nice buns, so when you factor in the two Paddies and the mushroom-theme, all we really need is Kevin Bacon and we'd have the fixings for a hearty burger.

Hey, it could have been worse. I could have opened with the one about the mushroom that was the life of the party since he was such a fungi. Groan.

Anyway, in "Shrooms," five twentysomething college friends--Tara (Lindsey Haun), Bluto (Robert Hoffman), Lisa (Maya Hazen), Troy (Max Kasch), and Holly (Alice Greczyn), all want to party in style during their school break vacation. Instead of getting wasted like normal college kids in popular sunny destinations like Cancún or Fort Lauderdale, though, they decide to forgo the beach altogether and head to Ireland. The plan is to visit their friend, Jake (Jack Huston), a local who is going to take them camping, but more importantly, use his knowledge of where wild magic mushrooms grow to make the outing one psychedelic trip of a lifetime.

Once they meet up with Jake, the six take a long drive out into the green Irish countryside. Just before reaching the area for their campsite, their vehicle accidentally smacks into a woodland creature (which ends up being a goat) creating instant roadkill. It produces a brief and awkward encounter with the goat's owners, two creepy inbred-looking brothers named Ernie (Don Wycherley) and Bernie (Sean McGinley) who live in a nearby ramshackle cabin. Personally, I've seen movies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Deliverance" enough times to know that backwoods folk with poor hygiene generally are a very bad omen usually leading to cannibalistic murder or "squealing like a pig," but our adventurous travelers don't even seem to notice. All they have on their minds is shrooms, or kinky sex and shrooms in some of their cases.

Eventually they make it to their site and as they begin exploring their surroundings, Jake points out which are the good shrooms, and which are the bad ones. Jake warns the group to especially stay away from the deathcaps, since they have been known to induce hallucinatory premonitions according to folklore, but are most often fatal. Apparently Tara misses this memo and gives one of the deathcaps a taste, sending her into a violent series of convulsions. After being revived via CPR from Jake, her condition stabilizes, although she finds herself slipping in and out of reality.

Later that night while telling ghost stories around the campfire, Jake shares sort of an urban legend with the group. It involves a mass murder that occurred long ago at a now abandoned old children's home located somewhere close to their camp, and the story features colorful characters like the "Black Brother" and the "Lonely Twin." Of course, legend has it that the woods still are haunted by these sadistic ghosts of the past, putting the others on edge. Tara also begins having premonitions, thanks to ingesting the deathcap, about her friends becoming the next victims on the chopping block. At first everyone just thinks she's still totally tripping and laugh it off, but soon they discover that her ability to see glimpses future is no laughing matter.

In terms of a slasher film or even a ghost story film, "Shrooms" probably ranks somewhere in the range of mediocrity. I don't really have any complaints with the actors and actresses, and each is already building up an extensive filmography according to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), so their experience comes through in "Shrooms." Even Breathnach has a few notches on his directorial belt, and as a result the cinematography is top-notch. There are fantastic shots in the reeds and through the trees of the forest, plus the hallucination effects from the shrooms are pretty impressive. In fact, the camerawork is so well done that it didn't even feel like it was a low-budget production filmed over the course of seven weeks.

Where it falls short, I'd have to say, is in Pearse Elliott's script. The story just felt rough, like it was still in the early stages of draft form that didn't get fleshed out enough for the final product. It also seemed to be tugged into two different directions simultaneously, one being the attempt at a humorous angle with some of the drug references and the hillbillies, while the rest of the movie has a completely serious tone. It made it hard to adjust to what was happening on camera, so it really would have been better if it were either a fun dark comedy or focused on being a no-nonsense frightfest, but not both.

It also didn't help the way that the characters were portrayed as extreme stereotypical caricatures. The aptly named Bluto is the steroid-pumping jock and bully of the group. Holly is the nature-loving hippie that wears bandannas and has a nest of furry squirrels living in her armpits. The worst was the druggie, Troy, who I started calling Jay, because I assumed Silent Bob was going to show up somewhere down the road to stand by his side. The cartoony character designs just didn't mesh well at all with the seriousness of the story.

Video:
"Shrooms" is presented in widescreen with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The colors are intentionally soft and have a faded look for a gloomy and ghostly feel. The black levels could have been a little sharper and deeper, but for the most part the overall picture quality was actually quite good for a standard DVD release.

Audio:
The disc contains two audio formats: Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0, and there's the option for Spanish subtitles. It would have been nice if English subtitles were also included, since sometimes the accents of Ernie and Bernie were hard to decipher. That's my only real complaint here since I thought that the sound was otherwise well balanced throughout the picture.

Extras:
The main bonus feature on the disc is an audio commentary with director Paddy Breathnach, producer Paddy McDonald, and writer Pearse Elliott. It's an average commentary with the usual production insights, and Elliott explains how he came up with the premise from his personal experiences doing shrooms.

There is also a fair amount of deleted or alternate material included on the disc. First is five deleted scenes: "Stuck in the Mud," "Lisa Cuts Bluto's Hair," "Bigfoot," "Halo of Piranhas," and "Laughing Scene" (5:28). Then there's six alternate scenes: "He Can Stand on One Leg," "Bluto's Demise," "Bernie and Holly's Death," "Tara Takes Shrooms for a Second Time," "Black Brother in the Hallway," and "Feeding Jake Shrooms (10:03). Finally, there are two alternate endings (4:22).

Rounding out the extras are two bloopers: "Funny Kiss" and "Bloody Crotch" (0:56). Actually I would have liked and expected to see more here, but maybe the rest just weren't worthwhile putting on the disc.

If you count the startup trailers as bonuses, there's also a string of those: "The Life Before Her Eyes," "The Signal," "Outlaw," "Quid Pro Quo," and "HDNet."

The Final Cut:
Up here in Canada, we have a television station devoted entirely to thrillers and horrors called "Scream." It's one of my favorite channels even though they do play a lot of terrible movies, many of which I'm guilty of sitting through late at night on Fridays and Saturdays. From that perspective, I can honestly say that I've seen plenty worse than "Shrooms," and although the film most certainly doesn't qualify as a must-see, it's still not a bad way for fans of the genre to kill some time. It just would have been a lot better if the script had a little more imagination.