Main cast: Jo Hartley (Kate), James Doherty (Jeff), James Burrows (Tim), Neil Leiper (Gris), Chris Waller (Dwight), Nadine Rose Mulkerrin (Sam), and Seamus O’Neill (Jim)
Director: Alex Chandon
Jeff and Kate are two youth officers who bring four juvenile delinquents – Tim, Dwight, Gris, and the sole girl Sam – to the rustic countryside for some beneficial activities, like cleaning up disused buses and such. The kids, as you can probably imagine, are just thrilled. So far only minor conflicts ensue. Jeff is a stickler for the rules, while Kate feels that they can ease up on the kids a bit so that they can relax and have a good time. Dwight is just super annoying with his constant mouthing-off, while his buddy Gris only adds to the cacophony. Meanwhile, Tim and Sam seem to be bonding over the fact that they always feel like outsiders. All seems fine, right? The locals, led by Jim, seem nice too.
Well, not for long – the locals being nice, that is. A bunch of ruffians so attack them while they are at work, and Jeff is hurt in the process. Kate and the kids bring Jeff to the inn for help, and Jim helps – by putting Jeff out of his misery in the most gory way and then hold the remaining five as prisoners. He has some grisly entertainment for the rest of the folks, courtesy of these five fresh meat…
Inbred is British-made, but I doubt it’s going to be the pride and joy of the horror community of that country. The problem with this one is that it is mostly gimmicks, taken from previous slasher movies, cobbled together in a rather uninspired manner. For example, Jim has a carnival of torture theme going on for his shows to the people in town, but this aspect never really takes off as it’s just sort of there, included for the same of having a gimmick. The “torture” scenes are drawn out unnecessarily without ample amount of gore or whatever to make up for the tedium. Worse, the CGI during these scenes is very fake, reducing their effectiveness to scare the viewer.
The movie improves tremendously when it abandons the useless carnival theme and just goes straight for no-nonsense old-school killing. Only then does things become more fun in a wickedly twisted manner as the script practically revels in delivering the pointless gore. Unfortunately, even then the poor CGI, coupled with the ridiculous ease of people being torn into half by a single gunshot, sometimes makes these scenes unintentionally hilarious rather than scary.
But the biggest issue here is that the main cast is on the whole a bunch of unlikable, obnoxious twats, and seeing them die actually has me rooting for the rednecks to do more damage on the rest. The most tolerable of them all is Kate, and that’s only because the rest are a more annoying bunch. Jo Hartley’s screams and shrieks are like nails on chalkboard, however, so I’m also rooting for her death. But at the same time, the rednecks are basically the same old rednecks from other movies of this sort, only with a British accent and what seems like a tendency to gather for songs and dances at the local pub when they have no victims to torment. It’s hard to see them as scary people because they can be such goofy stereotypes.
Therefore, at the end of the day, Inbred ends up neither here not there. I’m sure the folks behind the movie are aiming for a fusion of horror and comedy, but both horror and comedy tend to work against one another here. It just ends up grating on the nerves.
