Ben Austwick [Film Festival 09.06.11] movie review horror



Year: 2011
Directors: Alex Chandon
Writers: Alex Chandon, Paul Shrimpton
IMDB: link
Trailer: link
Review by: Ben Austwick
Rating: 5 out of 10

I was determined not to leave my sense of humour at home when I went to see Inbred, a horror comedy that takes aim at my home county of Yorkshire. With an open mind and an open heart I suffered its poor story, amateur acting, unfunny jokes and general cheapness, eventually managing to raise a chuckle and see a glimmer of originality amongst all the pointlessness. It took a lot of effort though.

Jeff and Kate are taking a group of disadvantaged children on an activity weekend in the Yorkshire countryside, arriving in the backwards village of Mortlake and visiting its local pub, the Dirty Hole (you’ll get an idea of the general level of humour from the name). James Doherty and particularly Jo Braxton do a pretty good job of these two youth leaders, but their charges are less convincing, their stilted banter just serving to irritate. Without any solidity, originality or decent jokes all you can do is wait while Inbred trudges through its familiar story to the gory bits, and hope they’re a bit more diverting.


The gores comes when Sam and Tim, the more sympathetic of the teenagers, disturb two of the villagers while out on an exercise, and become victims of an assault. Jeff is injured when he comes to their aid, and the group take him back to the Dirty Hole so they can call an ambulance. The welcome isn’t as warm as the one they got the previous night though, as Jim the pub landlord takes offence at their meddling in local affairs.

Inbred picks up after this and even manages a shot at originality, as the villagers put on a “show” where the captured incomers are tormented to death in ingenious ways, in front of an audience of braying, comedy Yorkshiremen. Early 2000s BBC television comedy The League of Gentlemen is an obvious influence on this surreal section of the film. It did the whole backward Northerner thing with a lot more affection, knowledge and humour, but Inbred can’t really be faulted for taking on some of its ideas, especially as this is the most successful part of the film. Later the outsiders try to make their escape, and the film’s climax treads familiar ground as they hole up in a farmhouse, under siege from the locals. We’ve seen it all before, and Inbred’s take adds nothing.

For the most part, the humour in Inbred is puerile and immature, coming across like a children’s programme with lots of inappropriate gore. There is a difference between stupid humour, which can be fun, and childish humour, which is the repetition of jokes we grew out of years ago. The second is of course needs no imagination and is a lot easier to do, and this is the main problem with Inbred: it feels like not enough effort has gone into it. Judging by the cast members in the audience at this premier screening it was a lot of fun to make, and I’m sure a lot of hard work went into realising the film, but when it comes to script, ideas, jokes and even the location, which was quite obviously the Home Counties even though Yorkshire is only 200 miles away, Inbred has the unmistakable air of Will this do? Which unfortunately it won’t.

Mark Rossi (8 months ago) Reply

Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion but it would be nice if the comments were at least well informed. The film was filmed entirely in Yorkshire and the actress playing Kate is Jo Hartley.

Anonymous (8 months ago) Reply

I went to the premier of INBRED and being a northern girl found it highly amusing. Think its a fantastic film. From what i heard from people after the film it went down a treat. Well done alex

Ben Austwick (7 months ago) Reply

Apologies Mark - my bad. It can be tricky getting all the facts right sometimes when you've got more reviews to do.

(5 months ago) Reply

i wanna see it

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