Review for Inbred

Inbred
Director: Alex Chandon

Film

Well-known within the British film community, director of “Inbred” Alex Chandon, made his name over the past couple of decades as something of a jack-of-all trades. Across a wide variety of projects he has served as a Writer, Producer, Cinematographer, and of course, in the medium of visual effects. He is perhaps best known for his uneven 2001 horror anthology starring Dani Filth, “Cradle of Fear“. Emily Booth fans though, will no doubt recall being titillated by his work on trash-opus, “Pervirella“.

With his biggest budget to date, and a couple of familiar faces, “Inbred” is his most technically accomplished work to date. Unfortunately, that does not make it an enjoyable viewing experience.

The story is incredibly predictable for the most part. A group of young offenders set off to a remote Yorkshire village, on some sort of shady looking community service weekend with their care workers. Tasked with a spot of re-decoration in their run-down cottage, they soon find themselves in the local watering hole, where we are introduced to an obviously inbred bunch of nasties.

The moronic care-workers fail to spot that the locals are nuts however, despite clearly serving p*** in a glass, disguised as lemonade. The nibbles that fill their bellies are of a similarly disgusting nature….

Of course, the next day, there’s a skirmish with the locals, and it swiftly degenerates into violence and murder, before taking a bizarre turn for the worse, as the extent of the yokel’s bizarre habits become apparent. Cue a gore-soaked second half that rarely pauses for a breath amidst sadistic scenes of slaughter.

   *Images taken from Press Materials

Immediately, the first stumbling block is readily apparent. The characters are all extremely unlikeable. The notion that they are young offenders, thus offering a reason for them all to be pricks, is a sound enough excuse, but it would have been much better to have simply established a few people you could have actually rooted for. Therefore, the filmmakers set themselves up with an immediate uphill struggle in any attempts to make the audience care. It’s the yokel, Anglo-hillbilly dribblers who provide the charisma and entertainment, and I imagine many horror fanatics will (somewhat disturbingly) find themselves cheering on their increasingly repulsive acts.

Speaking of which, there are several genuinely repellent moments within the running time, involving faecal matter, chainsaws, severed limbs, and the love a man shares with an animal. The squeamish need not apply here: “Inbred” is impressively claret-soaked. In concept, the most intriguing part of the film is the centrepiece, a twisted vaudeville show provided by Jim (Seamus O’Neill) for the benefit of his toothless audience. In these sequences “Inbred” could have been a winner, but it goes nauseatingly overboard in a splattery cocktail of s*** and body parts. Pure gore aficionados will find this stuff entertaining, but most observers will simply be appalled. It is far too mean-spirited to be genuinely funny, in the manner Peter Jackson’s horror efforts succeeded. “Inbred” revels in sadism and nihilism, but in doing so, sacrifices its wit.

For the most part though, the physical effects are very impressive indeed, and only occasionally let down by the odd moment of overly ambitious delving into the digital realm. Additionally, it should be noted that an opening prologue/sequence with Emily Booth, is utter rubbish.

Also on the plus side, some of the day-time scenes do look lovely, with some really crisp photography. This is accompanied by a great score by Dave Andrews, that at times delivers menace with real gusto. 

The big problem at the core of Chandon’s film is that we’ve seen it all before, and we’ve seen it in a much more accomplished form. “Inbred” is just a cheap, slap-dash imitation of far more successful horrors, regardless of whether it wants to be horror, comedy, or occupy some sort of twisted middle ground.

Fabrice Du Welz’s “The Ordeal” combined scares with a dose of genuinely demented humour, providing a fresh template for the modern day back-roads psycho family. Scenes that transpired in that local bar projected an almost David Lynch styled otherworldliness. Meanwhile, in “Frontiers”, Xavier Gens took the concept a step further, into neo-Nazi cannibal hell. His violence though, was jarring and disturbing, perfectly fitting a twisted nightmare that delivered with conviction. “Inbred” does not generate that same edgy, horrific atmosphere, instead, it’s just sickening.
“Inbred” comes complete with neither the genuine wit to be a spoof, or the realism and humanity to deliver a disturbing, serious tale. Instead it revels in repugnance and is hugely unsatisfying.

Extras

The jewel of this blu-ray release is a fifty-plus minute “making of” feature purely for the length of the feature. In some ways, the footage here covers just about everything. On the other hand, this is not one of those documentaries that includes interviews and insights. Instead, it’s simply an assortment of footage of the cast and crew at work. Some of this is certainly fascinating, and horror enthusiasts may well get a kick out of the behind the scenes clips of special effects being worked on. But in reality, it’s all rather boring. Unfortunately, as it is somewhat cobbled together and lacking in proper structure or any kind of narration, it also renders another feature, Alex Chandon’s “Director’s Diary”, absolutely useless.

“Neil’s highlights” is a look at Neil Keenan, comedian and long term collaborator with Chandon. Again though, it largely follows the same pattern as everything else in the extras package, running for fifteen minutes. It feels interminable when accompanying a viewing of the other extras, but alone is much funnier and more involving than much of the other material.
“Michael’s Clips” is yet another separate collection of clips from location provider Michael Sanderson. This stuff will probably fantastic for the crew and cast to look back upon fondly, but for the fandom casual viewer, it is both repetitious and pointless.
Two Deleted scenes are an interesting conclusion though, and the disc also includes the extremely gory trailer.

In fairness, while some of these are a bit of a slog to trudge thorough, Anchor Bay should be applauded for their attempts to pull together a worthwhile package. Indeed, this is a sharp blu-ray release, with crisp image quality that one does not normally associate with low-budget British horror fare.

Overall

Several decent performances and an abundance of energy do not change the fact that Inbred is a foul-mouthed, repugnant mess that treads familiar ground but offers nothing new whatsoever.