FANTASTIC FEST 2023 - "MUSHROOMS"
It’s one of the most wonderful times of the year for genre festival fans, and MACABRE DAILY is your source for Fantastic Fest 2023 coverage! This year, a ghastly selection of our staff have been invited to participate in a series of virtual screenings premiering at Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. This year’s selection of films ranges from the darkly comic to the dreadfully dire and all things fantastic in between. Check out the review below for Mushrooms!
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
While collecting mushrooms and herbs in the forest, an old lady stumbles upon a young couple who have gotten lost. They beg her to help them escape the woods, but the old lady quickly senses that something isn’t right with the couple.
HOW IS IT?
“Mushrooms” is not the movie you think it is. From the ambiguous description of the plot to the somewhat obtuse title, “Mushrooms” is the kind of film fungus that grows on you incrementally as any good slow-burn style story should. What “Mushrooms” does so well, however, is playing coy with the plot while engaging you with beautiful locations, mysterious situations, and some interesting characters that are almost impossible to look away from. In fact, “Mushrooms” may just be a masterclass in character-driven tension that has echoes of Hitchcock’s Rope alongside the lush landscape of the Polish countryside.
The first 10 minutes of “Mushrooms” could easily be mistaken for a BBC documentary on foraging without the dialogue. There are brilliant shots of lush, green forests and close-ups of various fungi and flora that occupy the wooded parts of Poland. In fact, one of the most impressive things about “Mushrooms” is the cinematography and location. The colors and ambient nature sounds really immerse you in a sense of peaceful tranquility, and alongside the performance from the old woman it is hands-down the best thing about “Mushrooms”. This is not to say that the rest of the film is lesser than, instead, it elevates the material in a way most thrillers simply do not by immersing you in the beauty of the location and using that to drive a lot of the tension.
Speaking of tension, “Mushrooms” is absolutely covered in it. From the very second our characters are introduced to each other there is an immediate sense of weariness which fluctuates throughout the relatively short, but perfect 75-minute runtime. Much of this is derived from the dialogue, which sees both sides trying to sus out the other to determine just how much to trust the other, but it also comes from the way the pacing is managed. With almost no action sequences one might find it hard to create this kind of tension, but that isn’t a problem for Paweł Borowski who carefully shows the cracks in the stories and finds clever ways to illustrate with just subtle glances how on-edge everyone is. If there is one minor issue in the film, it would have to do with the ending. It is hard to talk about this in detail without ruining certain story elements, but suffice to say there is a lot of exposition that is both interesting and overdone. The allusions made about the basis for the story and the potentiality of its truthfulness delivered as text on the screen seem to undermine the powerful and subtle ending that preceded it. The reveal at the end may not be grandiose, but it is certainly impactful and hits you like a delayed reaction because of how carefully crafted it is. That said, while we could’ve done without the ending text explaining the story, that shouldn’t diminish just how powerful of a gut punch is delivered.
LAST RITES
“Mushrooms” is a beautifully crafted film that evokes the masters of suspense through the slow and intentional release of information, while still managing to withhold one grand reveal at the end that you surely won’t see coming and definitely won’t forget.
THE GORY DETAILS
Directed By
Where can you watch it?
“Mushrooms” played at FANTASTIC FEST 2023.
Stay up to date with “The Dark Side Of Pop Culture” by following MacabreDaily on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
