Review of Shrooms (2007) by Trine K — 10 May 2009

American backpackers in Europe seem to be the bread and butter of the horror world these days. Get a bunch of college students, give em a back pack, buy them a one way ticket to Europe (a return would just be waste of money) and watch the body count pile up.

Shrooms, featuring the latest batch of gore fodder to cross the pond, starts very badly. A bunch of idiots (this may seem harsh but they really are!!) travel to Ireland in search of the greatest magic mushroom trip of all time, and one of them is looking for love too.

Mainly, it's all about the mushrooms though. The first 20 minutes of character introduction are really quite painful. Campfire tales of escaped mental patients and super-power inducing mushrooms ensue and it's here where Shrooms does do something a little different.

A series of bizarre trippy scenes leading to a blood soaked ending for one character is strangely entertaining, particularly as the rest of the group search for their missing friend afterwards, amid seeing weird stuff in the forest.

The play on whether or not they are really seeing anything is intriguing and does sustain the middle part of the movie well. Unfortunately the last act lets the film down as the death scenes become uninspired and the shocks repetitive.

Plus the twist, as neat as it is, is incredibly obvious to anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention as it really is the only explanation. Shrooms is a good idea but tremendously flawed in it's execution, scripting and characters.