A Film is only as good as the sum of its parts. So what do we have here?
No Money. Bad Acting. A dumb Story. Even dumber F/X.
Oh boy.
This is Fungicide, a 2002 Film by the man behind Suburban Sasquatch. Oh boy.
The Film is about giant, killer Mushrooms. I wish I had some to make this more tolerable. Thankfully, Rifftrax helped.
Let's just get this one over with...
They worry about him (in their one Scene) and sign him up for a Relaxation Weekend in the Woods.
Joining him is a motley crew of random characters.
A Pro-Wrestler. A Real Estate Agent. A Soldier in a Reality Show (who appears later).
The Wrestler, by the way, is relaxing to help him deal with his problem- Spontaneous Combustion. He's taking pills for that...
The Scientist shows up and spills his ONE BEAKER OF FORMULA by the door.
It ends up on some Mushrooms- why not?- and he doesn't tell anyone.
Why did this shot require changing the Aspect Ratio? *shrugs*
This formula made the mushrooms grow...and also get teeth...and the desire to eat human flesh.
So what was the formula supposed to do to 'help mankind' exactly?!?
After a bit of bollocks that I'm glossing over (including the Host pointing out a caterpillar that's not on-screen), it and the other Mushrooms start killing the random people around the House.
I can mine some Poor Bastards of Cinema out of this, can't I?
If you thought that the VFX couldn't get worse than the Hand Puppet Mushroom, you'd...be sadly-wrong.
The Mushroom Army is growing and...boy, do they look bad.
I mean...why are they all different colors and patterns?!?
The 'Lead' Mushrooms are guys in drapes with a mushroom 'head' on top...so kind of phallic. I'm not sure if that's intentional or just a 'happy accident' in this case.
He can also summon the CGI Mushrooms, which explode into CG Glass Particles when shot...or hit...or slashed...or slammed.
Also the tiny puppet ones are still around, as are even smaller stationary ones.
Confused, yet?!?
It all comes to a head with a big battle on the lawn. It'd be funny if, you know, it didn't suck so much.
The fungi are stopped by the Wrestler letting himself blow up (really!) and then our remaining Heroes blowing up a barrel of Balsamic Vinegar (which they pronounce as Balsam-ic)...which is in the basement of the B&B.
In the aftermath, they write a totally real Book and sign copies in a totally-real Book Store...until the Scientist shows up to Sequel Bait...I guess.
The (merciful) end.
This is bad. This is really bad. You know that though, right?
I only watched this Film due to it being riffed by Rifftrax, which is not a good start. I'm glad I didn't watch it on its own. It's one of those Bad Movies that is partly-trying to be bad and stupid.
In case you don't know, if the Director is in on the joke, it's not funny. It's usually quite painful.
The main Monsters are a guy in a drape with an umbrella covering him and a hand puppet. That's still not the worst puppet, of course. The CGI ones were going to be bad, but they're confusingly-bad too.
Seriously, why are they all different colors? Why do they explode? Why did they think that the CG glass shattering effect was the best one? WHY?!?!?
As a 10 minute Short Film- skipping all of the Filler that gets it to just over an hour-, it could be dumb fun. It's why people remember the Coat Hanger Scene in Birdemic, but gloss over the 40 minute Romance part.
Just make that Film or, dare I say it, try to make a good Film that you could afford. Also don't reuse an Actor in successive shots and think that people won't notice.
Next time, I go from a dumb story to a True story. Will this '80s Film hold up? Stay tuned...
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