On the box in the video store, Shrooms had a critic from Zoo Magazine raving “Blair Witch on acid!” After some extensive research (read: Google and Wikipedia) I discovered that this is in fact a real magazine, but it’s German so I have no idea if the review is real. I just can’t imagine anyone watching Shrooms and thinking it was in any way similar to The Blair Witch Project, let alone Blair Witch on acid. I’m guessing the reviewer has never done acid, or shrooms for that matter. I’d also venture to guess that the reviewer figured that a horror movie set in the woods makes it similar to Blair Witch. And finally, I’m guessing said reviewer knew that if she said something nice about Shrooms she’d finally get her words on a movie box, because there’s not much nice to say about it.

I’m not saying this is the worst of the worst. There were a select few things I enjoyed in the movie, and I’ll start with them. The camera work is pretty slick. The color and style is different than most low budget horror, and I’m guessing most of their money went to this. The movie doesn’t look low budget at first glance. The acting is pretty decent, but nothing to write home about. There’s a scene with a talking cow that I enjoyed. And finally, the premise of the movie is pretty awesome. When you go out in the woods and do shrooms with your friends and bad things start happening, what do you do? Is it the trip or is it real?

So yeah, the premise is pretty cool, but the execution is terrible. Absolutely horrible. First of all, besides maybe referencing the fact that they’re tripping once or twice, the movie seems to forget that they are. None of the characters, save the first one to get axed, acts like they are in an altered state. I’ve never been chased by a killer whilst shrooming, but I figure I’d probably behave differently than if I were sober. While it says they do in the description of the movie, none of the characters seem to question whether their peril is real. Well, except for the main character who, after eating deadly mushrooms she had been warned heavily not to ever eat ONE MINUTE PREVIOUSLY, starts to have visions of her friends’ deaths before they happen. There’s no reason for this, though, because she does nothing to stop her visions from happening besides acting freaked out. She doesn’t even warn her friends of what could happen to them.

Also, while the acting doesn’t suck, the characters do. These people are morons. They all happily give up their cell phones at the beginning, because what could be worse than trying to call someone while tripping? Besides, you know, being in the middle of nowhere without a phone and a psychopath hunting you down. Also, they decide to start their trip when one of them is missing. They all deserved what they got, I just with I could have seen it.

Maybe the death scenes could have saved what pretty much sucks so far, except there aren’t any. Almost every character that dies gets killed off screen. Even in the premonitions the film cuts away right before the axe strikes. I kept expecting some gore, figuring that they were saving their blood budget on some awesome final kill, but it never happened. And then, after suffering through an hour and a half of crap redeemed only by the camera work, we’re treated to a cheap twist ending that you can see coming from a mile away. And the twist ruined the only fun part of the movie, the talking cow.

So please don’t be tricked into renting this movie. The box looks cool, the blurbs enticing, and how can they fuck up such a cool concept? Easily, believe me.

1 out of 10 times I wish I hadn’t been sober watching this movie