Silas (Dave Purcell), a mad scientist, or goofy scientist at least, is always mixing up new chemical compounds in his lab, in the basement of his mom & dad's house.

As for mom & dad (Loretta & Edward Wascavage), they kind of wish their beloved son would get his own place.

So begins safe-for-children Fungicide (2002), a Wascavage family project. Filmed in 2002, it seems not to have found anyone other than the director himself willing to distribute it until 2005, so it sometimes carries that date.

It was released as a budget-dvd for $7 on dvd from the director, & later turned up in discount packages like the four-pack Drenched in Blood (Fungicide together with Goregoyles, Devil's Moon & Tales of Terror) averaging out at about $2 per film, or micro-independent fifty-pack Catacomb of Creepshows with a per-film average of around fifty cents each.

To get Silas out of the basement for a while, his parents arrange a get-away to a bed & breakfast out in the toolies, run by Jade Moon (Mary Wascavage).

When Silas spills his latest experiment, mushrooms are transformed into violent sentient lifeforms, & that's when the killing begins.

Fuzzy, faded, out of focus videography perfectly suits the equally horrible acting, hoky script, & general mood of ineptitude. But is it at least a fun movie? Well, yeah. And I was pleased to see critics at places like Rotten Tomatoes who did detect its charms, even if most critics blasted it for its lack of technical achievement.

The killer mushrooms start out as very amusing puppets shaken about a bit for "action" including one that pops up out of the toilet.

When they reach maturity they are sometimes piss-poor CGI (perhaps the worst you'll ever see) which explode into vanishing globs when shot or knifed.

Elsetimes the mushrooms are performers wearing very foolish-looking mushroom suits with big mushroom caps, sometimes taking samurai stances while they battle humans. Eventually they are defeated by making a vinegar-bomb (consisting of vinegar with a fuse in it).

There's very little attempt to make any of it sensible or convincing, but I'm assuming it is at least funny on purpose, though it's not so much comedic as it is simply silly.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl