Rating: 2/5
Oh My Horror 2025 | 12/52 | Spring Fever
'Tis a blessed relief to have been forgotten.
Screams, shouts, bombs explode — the English Civil War is underway. A frenzied man named Whitehead pushes through the dense foliage, the voice of Commander Trower snarling for him. A soldier named Cutler approaches. Trower spots Cutler, only for a spear to penetrate his chest from behind. Culter puts a pistol bullet through Trower, killing him. Whitehead looks behind him and sees the outline of two men. It seems as though Culter cannot see them.
A bomb explodes, stabbing Whitehead’s ears with a painful ringing. Culter saws off Trower’s finger to take a ring off it, seemingly unbothered by the blast. He walks to another body, robs it, and uses it as a place to rest. A man named Jacob emerges from the fog and starts strangling Whitefield, claiming to have seen Whitefield fighting for the other side. Culter calms the man with the promise of ale. The body on which Culter rested comes to at the word “ale.” He demonstrates that he’s supposed to be the comedic relief, and the four of them desert the battle and cross the field to find said ale.
In the whatever of them crossing the field, Whitehead reveals that he is the assistant to an alchemist and astrologer. I’m only mentioning it because they keep hammering it, so it must be important. They camp in a part of the field where mushrooms grow. Culter picks some and cooks a soup with them. All eat except for Whitehead, who is fasting. They continue marching, arriving at a wooden post with unusual carvings. Friend cannot pull himself away from it. They tie a rope around the stump to try and pull it out. After much time and effort, they pulled out a man—the Wizard O’Neill, whom Whitehead had been seeking.
What strange magic is happening? Or did those mushrooms have more to them than they suspected?
The filmmaking pushes the limits of comprehensibility, with disorienting cuts and framing that make it difficult to track who is who or where they’ve gone. The 2010s shakey-cam does the film no favors, which the film cannot avoid doing, even in the most banal scenes. The film also has its share of more surreal shots, such as everyone pausing, pretending at a photo while the camera rolls, people’s limbs tremor, and the wind tossing their clothes. Or when they pull the rope, the camera swoops through them like a recursive loop.
At first, I wasn’t having a good time with this movie, but then I decided to smonk when the boys eat their mushrooms and see what happens. 100% would recommend.
The movie wins points with me for being obstinant—the weirder it got, the more on-board I became. Like, a human divining rod? I’m in.
I totally get why folks don’t like this—the plot is downright tedious. I get why people love it, too. I’m leaning more towards not liking it, but because I only really liked the aesthetics.