I've about had it with youngsters putting themselves in danger of gory death stories. I
had relatively high hopes for this film because it was produced by the Irish Film Association
(not the exact name, but you understand what I mean), the same group who gave us the
very interesting and entertaining monster movie, Isolation. Well, they're batting one for two
now.
A half dozen twenny somethings (5 Americans, one Irish or British guide) travel to backcountry
Ireland to have sex while harvesting, boiling, and drinking the resulting hallucenogenic brew made
from local hallucinogenic 'shrooms. Of course, they have to avoid the very similar looking
Deathshead 'shroom that will either kill you or cause a prolonged reality disconnect coupled with
the possibility of clairvoyance. Of course, the least likely of the bunch, the meekest and mildest of the six
is the cute little blonde played pretty well (for a while) by TV vet Lindsey Haun, promptly snarfs
down a Deathshead, goes into spasms and survives with accompanying visions that play off a ghost
story told by the Irish/British guide. It's a pretty good story (for a while), about an experimental
hospital for out of control young men where a set of twins runs amok and kills 78 of the inhabitants.
The surviving killer is know as the Lonely Twin, now haunting the wooded area where the dopers
are camping out (without their cell phones, 'cause all good trippers give up their cell phones or else
they might call someone in authority and create bummers for everyone else).
As viewers might expect, visions of the Lonely Twin occur, and they're pretty darn creepy (at first).
Then a couple of unintelligble inbred Irish hillbillies are encountered. Then the group starts getting
killed. Or do they? Is the mayhem real or just part of the hallucination? We have to wait around
86 minutes to find out. While the kids are slogging their way through the Great Irish Outdoors, the
film has some decent scenery (unfortunately filmed in flat, washed out color that seems to be the rage
among these kinds of films and filmmakers. Then the film goes inside the building, and the action turns
boring. We don't really care about any of the players, but the sequences with the Lonely Twin keep
a smidgen of interest going. The finale is supposed to be a twist, but has been done many times before.
The one good thing, in my opinion, is that the storyline looked like a Wolf Creek/Hostel clone for a short
time, but wisely stayed away from that particular motif.
It's not a very good movie, unfortunately. The characters do stupid things like putting their eye directly
up a to a hole in a wall where potentially nasty things are waiting on the other side. Guess what happens.
There are some good concepts here, but they're not developed well enough to save the production.
... Reed
had relatively high hopes for this film because it was produced by the Irish Film Association
(not the exact name, but you understand what I mean), the same group who gave us the
very interesting and entertaining monster movie, Isolation. Well, they're batting one for two
now.
A half dozen twenny somethings (5 Americans, one Irish or British guide) travel to backcountry
Ireland to have sex while harvesting, boiling, and drinking the resulting hallucenogenic brew made
from local hallucinogenic 'shrooms. Of course, they have to avoid the very similar looking
Deathshead 'shroom that will either kill you or cause a prolonged reality disconnect coupled with
the possibility of clairvoyance. Of course, the least likely of the bunch, the meekest and mildest of the six
is the cute little blonde played pretty well (for a while) by TV vet Lindsey Haun, promptly snarfs
down a Deathshead, goes into spasms and survives with accompanying visions that play off a ghost
story told by the Irish/British guide. It's a pretty good story (for a while), about an experimental
hospital for out of control young men where a set of twins runs amok and kills 78 of the inhabitants.
The surviving killer is know as the Lonely Twin, now haunting the wooded area where the dopers
are camping out (without their cell phones, 'cause all good trippers give up their cell phones or else
they might call someone in authority and create bummers for everyone else).
As viewers might expect, visions of the Lonely Twin occur, and they're pretty darn creepy (at first).
Then a couple of unintelligble inbred Irish hillbillies are encountered. Then the group starts getting
killed. Or do they? Is the mayhem real or just part of the hallucination? We have to wait around
86 minutes to find out. While the kids are slogging their way through the Great Irish Outdoors, the
film has some decent scenery (unfortunately filmed in flat, washed out color that seems to be the rage
among these kinds of films and filmmakers. Then the film goes inside the building, and the action turns
boring. We don't really care about any of the players, but the sequences with the Lonely Twin keep
a smidgen of interest going. The finale is supposed to be a twist, but has been done many times before.
The one good thing, in my opinion, is that the storyline looked like a Wolf Creek/Hostel clone for a short
time, but wisely stayed away from that particular motif.
It's not a very good movie, unfortunately. The characters do stupid things like putting their eye directly
up a to a hole in a wall where potentially nasty things are waiting on the other side. Guess what happens.
There are some good concepts here, but they're not developed well enough to save the production.
... Reed
