A group of American college students – Tara, Troy, Lisa, Holly and Bluto – travel to rural Ireland to meet up with their English friend, Jake (Jack Huston), an expert on local folklore and drugs.
He promises them a legendary camping trip collecting psilocybin (magic) mushrooms.
Jake warns the group about a highly toxic local fungus called the “Death’s Head” mushroom, which causes either instant death or a total psychological break that enables you to talk to the dead.
Tara (Lindsey Haun) accidentally eats a Death’s Head mushroom. She survives but experiences a terrifying seizure and a series of violent, prophetic hallucinations.
As the group gets high on standard mushrooms, they encounter aggressive backwoods locals and realise they are camped near an abandoned, haunted orphanage run by sadistic monks.
One by one, the teenagers are stalked and brutally slaughtered by a hooded serial killer. Because everyone is heavily hallucinating, nobody can tell what is real and what is just a bad trip.
Tara is eventually revealed to be the killer.
The Death’s Head mushroom completely fractured her mind, and she murdered her entire group of friends while hallucinating that a ghostly monk was doing it.
She is last seen being rescued by an ambulance, still trapped in her psychosis.
Shot entirely on location in rural Ireland, the production leveraged the naturally eerie, overcast landscapes to build atmospheric dread without relying on expensive special effects.
The film grossed approximately $5 million worldwide, but received mostly negative reviews from critics who found its plot and “twist” ending highly predictable and derivative.
Tara
Lindsey Haun Jake
Jack Huston Troy
Max Kasch Lisa
Maya Hazen Holly
Alice Greczyn Bluto
Robert Hoffman Ernie
Don Wycherley Bernie
Sean McGinley Black Brother
Toby Sedgwick The Dog
André Pollack Lonely Twin
Jack Gleeson Lonely Twin’s Brother
Berry Murphy Young Lonely Twin
Joe Phelan Mysterious Woman 1
Anna Tikhonova Mysterious Woman 2
Goranna McDonald Feral Boy
Joe Murphy Paramedic
Mike Carbery
Director
Paddy Breathnach
Video
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Jake warns the group about a highly toxic local fungus called the “Death’s Head” mushroom, which causes either instant death or a total psychological break that enables you to talk to the dead.
Tara is eventually revealed to be the killer.
