Padd Solutions

Shrooms is a 2007 film by Paddy Breathnatch; it’s a Horror/Thriller about a group of American students who travel to Ireland in search of hallucinogens. They travel to a forest in search of psilocybin mushrooms referred to as ‘Shrooms’, with their Irish tour guide, who from the opening sequence we learn is the main characters love interest. The film opens with a camera following a girl running through some foggy woods; the camera follows the girl at pace creating a feeling of panic. There is diegetic sound of the girl breathing heavily as she runs, but it is combined with non-diegetic music of chords which enhance the feeling of suspense and panic. The scene then cuts to a view of a ruined house, the following shots show blood over walls and what appears to be a dead human hand next to a pool of blood. The music continues as you see a hooded character and a character with a sack over their head, this creates a plot device for the audience because they don’t know who these characters are.

As the non-diegetic music goes into a dimuendo, the scene slowly fades to black. You are then shown the names for the two production companies in a blood red colour font, as this fades out you are then met with a change of setting. You see a ‘fasten your seatbelt’ sign and you can instantly recognise that this setting is a plane. As the shot focuses in on two girls (Tara & Lisa) sitting in their seats you see Tara looking through what appears to be a diary, there is a picture of her with a man. Lisa looks over and says she likes him, which the Tara denies. It becomes apparent to the audience very quickly that there is a love interest involved with this story, and you soon learn they are not just going to Ireland in search of Shrooms, but also pursuing Tara’s love interest. From the conversation between the girls you also establish some character traits of each one, Tara is more the nice girl type whereas Lisa comes off as the slightly more arrogant and malicious type.

From these first two minutes of the film we are given a fair amount of information. We are provided with plot device in the respect of the ‘scary house’ as well as the girl running in the forest, these two aspects of the opening sequence give us a indication as to the genre and type of film that is going to follow. We are then introduced to the two main characters; we are given a insight into their personalities and also the reasoning behind them going to the setting of the film. For the first two minutes of a film a lot of information is revealed compared to many other films that try to leave the audience questioning what is going to happen. This still happens in Shrooms but slightly more information is introduced than usual and this could be criticised because it doesn’t allow for much tension to be built and those types of factors are pivotal for a horror/thriller film. So in some respects the opening of Shrooms isn’t stereotypical because you are shown a lot in the initial sequence, but it doesn’t give away too much. I personally feel the opening is lacking because it doesn’t create enough tension because your shown the main ‘evil’ character in the first part and it ruins it to a degree although this underwhelming feeling is constant throughout the whole film.