Shrooms (2007)

I watched Shrooms this week, having been aware of the film for many years now I thought I'd finally give it a go. Well, it is a pretty standard mid-budget horror set in some woodland in Ireland. To be honest, it could have been set anywhere. A group of obnoxious American students are on holiday to collect and eat some magic mushrooms. They have a young good looking male guide who seems to be connected romantically with one of the American girls but not in a very clear way. The plot is fairly standard and one by one the Americans meet their fate. The blonde girl eats a mushroom she shouldn't and has a fit. The guide tells them not to eat the type of mushroom she ate and says that victims have been known to see the future. Well sure enough, she seems to be able to predict the demise of them all. This is also connected to a scary campfire story that the guide tells them about. An old borstal school property nearby had a bad reputation, one particular teacher their used to torture the boys before he killed them. This gets interwoven into the blonde girls hallucinations. None of this is scary in the least by the way, so don't expect this to be an exhilarating thrill ride. It isn't. Not a film I can easily recommend, if you're not feeling well and its raining with nothing else to see or do but eat mushroom soup, this one might be for you. The ending is supposed to be a twist but it was all quite predictable.

Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema

I've been a Mark Kermode fan for a good many years now, first encountered him on radio 2 in the evenings during the 90s when Mark Radcliffe had an evening show before John Peel's programme. There are 5 programmes in this series: the romcom, the heist, coming of age, science fiction and horror. He has interesting things to say about each genre and his wide knowledge of films references a lot of films I have not seen or heard of but want to now explore. Very well worth a watch if this link to the iplayer programme information still works.

Unintentional blog break

I've had an unintentional break from blogging. I don't seem to have watched many films recently - although I did manage to see Ant Man and The Wasp last week at the cinema. My main sources of entertainment for the summer months has been videogames, books and photography. The latter has been a growing source of entertainment and education for me for a while now. It is taking over my other hobbies and is getting me out and about a fair bit.