Inbred bits UK cinemas on September 21st, and arrives on DVD/Blu-ray on October 15th
Inbred seems to be aiming to do for the English North/South divide what The Innocence of Muslims has done for American/Middle East relations. It tells the story of a bunch of Southern teenage delinquents sent to perform community service in an isolated Yorkshire community that definitely doesn’t want to be serviced. Its slack-jawed, snaggle-toothed inhabitants prefer to spend their time burning live goats, sticking ferrets down their trousers and singing a merry tune the chorus of which is, I kid you not, “Ee-by-gum. Oh, and they also like publicly slaughtering outsiders.
Offensive stereotypes aside, Inbred is a queasy mix of grotesque humour that’s clearly been inspired by The League of Gentlemen (but isn’t nearly as funny or clever), and sadistically nasty torture porn. It seems to want to make you believe in and care about its protagonists before killing them off in insanely over-the-top and unbelievable ways. It’s tonally all over the place and it also seems like the actors playing the murderous locals are having a hell of a lot more fun than the kids who have to take it all seriously and pretend to be genuinely scared of actors mugging in bad wigs and false teeth.
This split personality also applies to the photography; it feels like you’re watching an old exploitation slasher movie, but it’s filmed on shiny digital and sometimes looks like a cheap tourism advert, albeit one for somewhere no one in their right mind would want to visit. Inbred would make a lot more sense as a movie if it was shot on grainy 16mm, in the 70s.
Writer/director Alex Chandon cut his teeth directing music videos for the likes of Cradle of Filth and you get the impression he probably didn’t have a lot of friends as a child and spent a lot of time watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It also becomes clear towards the end that he’s on the side of the psychotic hillbillies rather than the punk kids and it’s at this point the film drops all pretence of trying to be scary and starts concentrating on the twisted humour. It starts to become so deranged and, to use an expression I absolutely hate, “random, that it’s hard not to start enjoying yourself. It’s the kind of movie you’d be happy to stumble upon at 3am on the Horror Channel after you’ve had a few drinks.
There’ve been a lot of low-budget British horror comedies in the last few years. Some like Doghouse and The Cottage manage to balance the laughs with the gore a lot more successfully than Inbred. That said, the gore, which is a mix of digital and practical effects, is very impressively done and if you’ve ever wanted to see what happens when a man has the nozzle of a muck spreader forced down his throat then you’re in luck and you’re also very strange.
Overall Verdict: A stupid, nasty and not very funny horror comedy that is also somehow quite enjoyable.
Special Features On DVD Release:
Director’s Diary
Making of Inbred
Michaels Clips Behind the scenes footage shot by the owner of the land on which Inbred was filmed.
Neil’s Highlights Behind the scenes footage shot by the film’s composer.
2 Deleted scenes
Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon