Bloodtype Online

  

      From here the story moves on thankfully, and the group begins to go shroom hunting. On the way to the mushroom field Jake mentioned that everyone should be very distrustful in the Death Head Fungi. Instead the group just planned on getting a hold of the Liberty Cap mushroom in order to make a tea out of it. They were all supposed to take it at the same time. While going astray from the group, Tara notices shrooms and being inexperienced and without the resident shroom expert she digests the poisonous deathcap mushroom. Instantly she begins to seizure and during her uncontrollable shaking she goes through trances that give her foresight into the future. Surprisingly she survives the poisonous shrooms but the side effect is the gift of premonition. This is very early in the story and throughout the story the group believes she is just out of her mind. 

      While Tara remained isolated in her tent the group sat around a campfire telling stories with their leader Jake in the lead of course. Jake tells the group a disturbing story about two escapees from the Glengarritt Offender Center that are rumored to lurk the woods and kill visitors. The lead monk called the Black Brother put a three inch blade on a blade and beat kids relentlessly back in the day. When he hung a twin of a youngster of the home, the other twin (that he burned and put a bag with one eye hole of his head) swore revenge. He christened the twin the lonely twin. He proceeded to put pounds of shrooms in the Black Brother’s tea. From here the Black Brother goes on a killing spree and he and the lonely twin were never found. 

      Hearing this story trips Tara out further as she has visions of her friends dying and they do. Nothing is graphically shown in the film as far as violence either because the scenes at night were too dark or the gruesome events were cut short to focus on Tara waking up from her premonition. 
 

      What to expect from this movie after the camp story is a lot of random events and suspicion that all shown on screen may not be real. The film goes through a lot of horror film conventions such as a number of slasher cliché’s, J-Horror imagery and the before mentioned ghost legend camp fire story that I rather enjoyed. Still I feel the film failed in delivering when dealing with the Shrooms. There is one fun scene involving a talking cow but that was too over the top to take serious. The rest of the film was watching the group deal with the fucked up situation of being offed one by one. The focus was more on Tara’s third eye that could see future events. The concept was decent but visually it ruined the potential this movie had.  Because of these visions the film was blind on the gore side of things. This gets redeemed in the end and for good reason it was cool that nothing was shown. By the time I saw some of the still non graphic kills it was too late and the suspense was gone. I think this film showing the kills earlier would have benefited the entire product. In a film called “Shrooms” less shouldn’t be more. The J-Horror style nearly ruined the all too dark cock bite scene. I imagine that scene will make a lot of people squeamish due to the implied cock chewing. The set up and story that sets up this scene are both quite hilarious.

      Ultimately this film is all about a twist. To be honest I enjoyed the twist and when watching this film a second time I feel like quite the gullible horror fan. I imagine this film is easily predictable for those that try to figure out the movie around the half way mark. I am not that kind of movie viewer but I can imagine people picking the ending. The backwoods guys being in the mix of hallucinating teens and two tortured souls make this film a mess. I don’t mean to pick on this film but its all over the place. J-Horror Style, Slasher like characters and atmosphere in the woods, and abandoned juvenile center, drugs, premonitions and a final act plot twist. Too much went on but I can’t say that the film is empty in charms. The acting is fine especially by Lindsey Haun’s performance. I can just tell she had to be worn by the number of times she shakes from her seizures and trances. 

      It was strange that the character Holly was given armpit hair (super hairy at that) to enhance her hippiness. Also Bluto rocked some awful rings that said “Death” on one fist and “Coma” on another. These were very LL Cool J circa 1987 and just took me out of the film for a second. The character Jake kept the story flowing as he gave the back story for the Glengarritt Offender Center murders a nice touch and the viewer a much needed mythology for the deathcap mushroom. Max Kasch did a good job as the Karate expert Troy and made some of the end fun for me.  
 

      The film is all about what’s real and what’s fake or at least that's what it was supposed to be about. The group is no doubt the target of a killer as they all couldn’t possibly have had the same trip. The problem is the “you name it” amount of subgenres being tossed in a blender and given to the audience like there is no problem. The biggest problem with a genre movie is that directors are over inspired. I think Paddy Breathnach showed off some visual style and captured some beautiful atmosphere, especially in the water scenes towards the end. Still he was over inspired by J-horror. Call me crazy but why would an Irish filmmaker want to emulate J-Horror in a film about college grads getting massacred while high on shrooms. Basically without spoiling the end I will mention that I think the film was very inspired by a French foreign film that is very popular in America. I just mean that the style ending this movie has totally emulated the movie I am speaking about. I recommend a rental at least so you can make up your own mind. 

** 

-Russ Rutter