Shrooms film review

certificate_18

SHROOMS

The best thing about Shrooms is its title, which may well give it some appeal to its presumed target market of students and the like looking for their next horror fix. Most audiences are likely to head for the door with a sense of relief however, as this is one very bad trip indeed.

A group of American college friends travel to Ireland with the express intention of camping out and getting high on some fabled magic mushrooms they have been told about by their drug guru Jake (Jack Huston, grandson of the legendary Hollywood director).

But instead of reaching a new dimension, they have the bejaysus scared out of them by a combination of taking the wrong mushrooms, some Deliverance-style locals, and the gradually-revealed secret of a nearby haunted building.

Instead of adding anything to the genre this is a non-horrific horror that relies on cheap shocks and set-ups to meander through its slim running time. Characterisation is one-dimensional with a story and plot that is formulaic and increasingly incredible.

Director Paddy Breathnach has had some success in the past making Irish comedy dramas but here he is clearly out of his comfort zone. Instead of wasting your money on this latest feeble effort, you would be much better off hunting down a DVD of his 1997 comedy drama I Went Down starring Brendan Gleeson.

Paul Hurley