When a carnivorous fungus breaks out at a rundown roadside attraction, it is up to a teen scout to rescue his new grunge girlfriend and his newly discovered family. It’s a trippy “Tremors.”

SYNOPSIS:

Allow me to share a trippy and grungy feature called “Mistry Cavern” which is similar in humor to “Tremors” with the scares of “Ruins” set in the Pacific Northwest. The script was selected in The Austin After Dark Festival in horror/comedy.

If Roger Corman listened to grunge and tripped on shrooms, he would have imagined Mistry Cavern. Like The Blob, it has the thrills and chills of a classic creature feature. Like a teen summer camp romance, there is a growing love affair between two polar opposite teens, one a Boy Scout and the other a miniature Courtney Love. Unlike most tourist traps, Mistry Cavern is truly a cool, funny and scary attraction. The script was selected in The Austin After Dark Festival for horror/comedy.

It’s a story about a 16-year-old Boy Scout named Armondo who is sent to live with his grandmother, Bernie, after his father is deported. Bernie lives in an abandon roadside attraction with her father. Along the way Armondo befriends a local grunge teen, Ganji whose father was just arrested on drug charges. The recently orphaned pair bond and fall in love as they discover Mistry Cavern holds a deadly mystery. They find themselves captive in a fairy ring of mushrooms. The rabid fungus tries to decompose them alive with their snaking mycelia. Before they become human cocoons, they are saved by Armondo’s great grandfather, Harpo, who douses the mycelia with fungi killing secret sauce.

Understand, Bernie is a mad mycologist and the once popular tourist trap is a secret military research facility. It no longer houses Bigfoot, but the Countess, a carnivorous fungus. In a secret lab deep in the cavern, the Countess has been engineered and held captive.

The local sheriff who arrested Ganji’s father tracks her down to the cavern . However, Armondo saves her by pushing the sheriff into the cavern where Countess’s children consume him. Armondo and Ganji make the treacherous trek into the bioluminescent (glow in the dark) mushroom cavern to collect the sheriff’s phone to hide his death. However, they become trapped and entwined in mycelia. At the same time, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is performing their annual review of the facility. The army general and the scientist discover the program is too dangerous to continue when they discover the trapped teens.

However, Bernie won’t allow her work and her fungi baby to be euthanized. In the laboratory, a gun battle ensues and shots crack the glass to which the Countess is captive. From a small bullet hole, the Countess’s stringy mycelia is released. The creature is far faster and voracious than her children and she is hunting any warm blooded human which cause vibration. The Mistry Cavern grounds become a war zone where mycelia ravage soldiers. Not only do Armondo and his girlfriend need to escape the Countess’s tentacles, but soldiers too. After a frenzied battle, Armondo and Ganji escape with his great grandfather. Through the bloody decomposing battle of Mistry Cavern, the Countess is free to hunt and grow.

The escapist and grunge infused "Mistry Cavern” is a Pacific Northwest trip. It’s visually vibrant, funny, and scary like a psilocybin (hallucinogenic) mushroom trip. Thanks for allowing me to share this original and timely horror.

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todbronson@embarqmail.com

MISTRY CAVERN