When a band of American friends travel to Ireland to engage in hallucinatory trips on the famed local produce of magic mushrooms, they
are treated to an outdoor camping holiday.

But when one of the group Tara eats the wrong kind of 'shrooms', she beings to have premonitions of horrible deaths inflicted on them by
shadowy figures from a nearby derelict house of correction.
Hopped up on drugs and scared out of their minds, can the group survive long enough to find help?

Riddled with stolen aspects from a plethora of horror classics like House On Haunted Hill, Friday the 13th Part Two and even Deliverance, on paper it sounds like Shrooms simply could not fail.

The key elements are there: a spooky, isolated setting; a band of disposable teens who are all ripe for the slaughter; an established
mythology that showcases a deranged cleric with a big stick and a bag-faced boy as potential stalkers; and to top it all off, a hefty dose
of psychedelic drugs to ensure the murders come thick and fast with minimal resistance in order to live up to its hefty 18 rating.

But even with all these factors combined, the result is 86 minutes of repetitious camera shots primarily made up of a muddy confused blond looking scared in the woods.

After diving straight into the film with all the subtlety of a sledge-hammer to the face it soon becomes clear that the potential of the
film was too much for both director Paddy Breathnach and writer Pearse Eliott to digest.

Had it fallen in the hands of Eli Roth or Alexandre Aja it could have lived up to it's hype as the next Blair Witch Project.

But with it being the horror genre, quality can often by bludgeoned to death and left by the wayside, as scares are the only essential quality.

Despite clumsy attempts to ramp the tension coming across as tiresome, the odd 'jump' will more than make up for the film's many short-
comings – even if they can be seen coming from miles away.

In usual horror style, expect a subsequently inferior sequel in the next few years.

4/10 – Mush-room for improvement.