A group of American friends holiday in Ireland to trip on (magic) mushrooms, in this interesting Euro-style horror film.
The girl, Tara (Lindsey Haun), cute but frail, looks a little like Kristen Bell. Tara leads the charge, she’s keen to hook up with Irish tripper guru, Jake (Jack Huston).
The sturdy band of travellers find some retarded ‘indigenous’ people, who are hunting roadkill for dinner.
The cinematography feels Euro-minimalist, yet not quite Blair Witch Project. We get polished sequences. The film is shot in found hilly and heavily forested locations and much of the time it feels like natural lighting is used. They travel in a beat-up van.
However, we are treated to proper establishing shots and the basic framing expected from a several million dollar production – dolly tracking, etc. And beautiful close-ups. Rather than what is usually expected from the European Independent – mostly point of view and handhelds. The conclusion to draw is that this is most likely a mid-level budget picture with a European low budget theme.
Try not to recognise Sean McGinley (Braveheart) as one of the Euro-rednecks. Loving the Buddhist hipster wannabe, Troy (Max Kasch) and the jock mongoloid, Bluto (Robert Hoffman.) Jake and the girls are far more interesting as characters. But in a horror flick, you need the shitty characters as worthy victims – or so the mainstream (wannabe) writers seem to think. It is an established convention, which is often followed, almost a cliché.
Don’t eat the dreaded death-cap fungi – your heart will explode. It’s also a portal to another dimension and it can give you powers.
It really sucks when you’re the one who can’t move, and everyone else is dancing, having fun, getting into trouble, and you feel like you’re missing out. Because you’re blasted.
Tara feels resentment and fury building at the same time her premonitions grow stronger.
Outside the tent, Jake tells scary stories, but true stories. About the Black Brothers and the local massacre. This guy is a born horror storyteller.
The bickering is hilarious. Tara’s waking nightmares are evolving into something terrible. Ill-advised, many of the boys take the shrooms alone, before the time they agreed to take them as a group – due to impatience.
After that it almost feels like a Jason Voorhees movie. The gore is frightening and epic with echoes of Silent Hill. A walking dream gives way to youthful energetic lust. Horny, in between vomiting fits. Lust which meets with only slashing violence – steel and blood.
Who or what is this mystery monster? Is it the Black Brother or the Lonely Twin?
And can Tara prevent these viscious events from happening? No.
You can all be having the same trip, if somebody is influencing you.
Feel sorry for the cute hippy girl, Holly (Alice Greczyn) and her naïve pairing with the wannabe-zen idiot, Troy.
It’s a really fun idea, bringing American characters out of their comfort zone and into an overseas experience which in this instance ends violently. And what makes it better is to include the suggestion of premonitions and supernatural evil forces – slashing psychotic monsters combined with the rebellious fun of recreational hallucinogens – contrasted with the truth of what’s really going on. Reminds me of an EU Loaded (1994) aka Bloody Weekend, but without the filmmaking theme.
As a concept it’s great. The images in the story are also effective. The talking cow is cool and the hooded man-creature with the axe is scary. However, for depth of story, dialogue, style and character the writing is weak – the majority of male characters are morons, the girls are catty and we barely get to see a human side to them, the dialogue is expected and ordinary (except Jake’s story, also his delivery is perfect.)
This is a movie that takes itself seriously, so there aren’t a lot of laughs, either. Despite this, it’s a fun, gory, silly movie about drugs.
The whole concept of the death cap causing a psychotic break, and the ideology behind the lonely twin – these are ideas that could have been executed better. Overall I loved the experience, but it's far from perfect.
3.5 stars
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