Halloween 2013: Guilty Pleasures Week ~ Shrooms & Freddy VS. Jason

Christine's pick: 
 SHROOMS

While I have already written about Shrooms many years ago, I don't think I ever touched on the fact that it is most certainly a guilty pleasure. I mean, a film about a group of people going to Ireland to find a mushroom that will provide them with hours of psychedelic fun doesn't exactly seem like it could function as a horror movie, does it?
But in this particular case, it does.

Tara and her friends are taking a break from college and travel to Ireland to hang out with Jake, a local who knows just where to find the right kind of mushroom to pick and have fun with later. He takes them foraging through the dark Irish woodlands, and (of course) they split up to do some shroom-searching! Even though Jake has explained the difference between good and bad fungi, Tara mistakes a deathcap mushroom for an edible one and consumes it.  She has very bad reaction (natch) and it culminates with the ability to have frightening, violent premonitions that appear to predict the future.

To make matters worse, the group ends up camping near the ruins of an old orphanage, which naturally boasts a very dark past. Jake knows the ghastly legend and scares the shit out of the group as they hang out in the evening around the campfire. Combine this with the psychedelic tea they made with their mushroom stash and what you get is a bunch of college kinds who are high as kites and scared to death. Wonderful combination. When they start dying one by one, it's as confusing for the audience as it is the movie characters.

What works about this film is that you can't be sure if the mushrooms are causing bad dreams and visions or if the violence that we are seeing is actually happening.  Add to that the whole horrific legend of the children's home, and you've got a lot to be scared by.  The lines between reality and the imagined are blurred here, and though I think that is what the director was trying to achieve, in the process it can be a befuddling mess, and I therefore understand the disdain the film has acquired.
But the imagery here is really astounding. The creepiness of the dark woods, made even more unsettling by throwing in the ominous legend of the children's home, and the fact that it is a foreign country for most of the students - it just feels tense and disconcerting.  And hey, any film with a talking cow is alright by me!

And Marie's pick:
FREDDY VS. JASON

My siblings are all 10+ years older than me, so while I should have been watching Disney and Pixar flicks I was climbing up on the couch with them to watch slasher films. Essentially, I have them to thank for this unhealthy horror obsession I have today. I was introduced to a variety of unsavory characters at a young, impressionable age but two stuck with me. Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. Put them in a movie together, how am I NOT supposed to like it?

In 2003 it had been 9 years since the last Freddy Krueger film; needless to say the people of Elm Street had just about forgotten about that weird guy who kills people. Meanwhile, Freddy’s getting super bored in Hell and wants to come back and terrorize the town. The best plan he can come up with is to awaken Jason Voorhees and convince him to get the party started and then he can return once they remember ol’ Freddy.
“Versus” movies are extremely cheesy, and most of the time they are fucking awful. I’m not saying Freddy vs. Jason is an exception to that, but I am obviously partial to it given my blood-splattered childhood. At the same time I also genuinely, unabashedly enjoy this piece of shit.

Freddy Krueger is known for his laughably bad dialogue, and it didn’t get any better in 2003. A kill in a Nightmare on Elm Street film isn’t complete without a one-liner from Freddy. As I mention in my article on Urban Legend, if a movie has Robert Englund in it, I’m pretty much sold. He came back to play his iconic role at age 56!! How awesome is that?!

Freddy vs. Jason is riddled with flat characters, gratuitous sex and unnecessary violence but sometimes it is okay to indulge in something awful. It is also perfectly okay to enjoy yourself while doing so, as long as you know what you’re doing is wrong. I know that watching this movie is almost like committing a crime against humanity, but Freddy vs. Jason is so awesome that I just don’t care.

magic muSHROOMS

I'm actually rather shocked no one thought of this concept before for a horror movie.

(If anyone did, let me know - I'm not aware of it)

Shrooms (2007), which in itself is a silly title, is an interesting little piece of film.
I cannot say I didn't like it. But I really wouldn't recommend it for an Oscar (or even a Chainsaw Award!)...
I do like the movie poster though - it rocks.

Shrooms involves a group of college students (of course!) who are off on a trip to Ireland (because all students have money lying around for intercontinental flights and vacations!) to meet up with a mutual friend of theirs who lives there (how convienient!) and knows all the 'good places' where psychedelic mushrooms grow.

Yeah, like I'd fly to Ireland to eat mushrooms. Right.

So.... the heroine (?) of the film is Tara (Lindsey Haun), who looks alot like that Veronica Mars chick whose name escapes me at the moment. She has the hots for Irishman Jake (Jack Huston), and I do too!

Looks like a younger Johnny Depp... yummy.
Ok, I might fly to Ireland to eat mushrooms...

Forgive me, I digress...

Tara and her friends (two guys, two gals - how sweet!) meet up with Jake and begin their adventure to the realms of the unknown. They head off a dark forest path (is there any other kind?) and set up camp.

While carelessly exploring the forest for hallucinogenic fungus, they stupidly split up.

Yeah, like I'd wander off in a remote forest area in a foreign country. Anyway...

Tara is kinda down and out because though she flew thousands of miles to see Jake, he really hasn't made much of a fuss over her.. so, unbelieveably, she eats a mushroom she thinks is the kind they are looking for. I guess she thinks if she is tripped out enough, Jake will want to have sex with her. I'm thinkin' she should have just straight-out asked him. Duh.

But while she was off galavanting on her own, Jake was warning the others again to make sure they differentiate between the safe fungi and the 'deathcap mushroom', which looks frighteningly similar. I think you can see where this is going.

Simply put, Tara eats the wrong one.

A side note -
Deathcap mushrooms are an actual poisonous mushroom:

It is native to Europe, and is at least found in Ireland, so that part of the story rings true.
Half of a mushroom cap is enough to kill you.
Apparently they taste fairly decent - probably why people die from eating them, they cannot tell there is anything wrong. At first. Till all your body systems start failing...

However, the shroom she ate in the movie looked like this:

Now, if you're thinking this is just a medical mystery-type of horror movie, you'd be mistaken. There is alot more going on.

After Tara ingests the mushroom but AMAZINGLY does not perish, she begins to have delusions, funky dreams, and can apparently see the future in frightening visions.
She is resting in her tent while the others sit around the campfire and Jake tells a story (now there'd have to be a story, wouldn't there?) about the abandoned children's home nearby in which a sadistic monk caretaker ate a stew with the deadly shrooms (that would kill anyone else)and proceeds to murder all the children in a ghastly manner - all but one child, a boy who was banished to the dog pen for unruly acts. Supposedly, the monk and this boy are still roaming the forest.
Tara progresses on with her freaky trip and sees all of her friends being slaughtered, one by one.

So there is alot of tripping out going on, weird visuals and the movie itself is just dark. I mean the lighting is nearly non-existent. But that didn't really bother me, it added to the creepy atmosphere of the film. There is also what one would call a surprise ending, but it left me a little flat, like I'd seen it somewhere before. Perhaps because I have.

Like it's vacation-oriented bedfellows, Turistas and The Ruins, Shrooms is rather a poster-child for 'what not to do on vacation'. The fact that these idiots actually don't take their cell phones into the forest with them (in case someone is tripping really bad and imagines things that aren't there and calls the cops or their parents, etc...) is pure lunacy. It would have been much more likely for them to take the phones but not get any damn service deep in the woods.

I should add that in addition to the over-used 'abandoned house on the hill' concept, they have thrown in a few freaky inbred people and a talking cow (seriously!) in this movie. Make what you will of that.

So I guess I would recommend Shrooms, as I have to admit I did enjoy it - if for no other reason than Jack Huston! I suppose guys would like the female stars and their cleavage.
It is a "watch instantly" movie on Netflix, so if you have that service, take advantage of it.

*In all honesty, even though I like mushrooms, I feel they are much too representative of the phallic symbol, and I would not be able to pick them anywhere without laughing.