Review: Inbred

What a deception.

Inbred has been in the works since 2011 and its finally hitting American shores this month. Alex Chandon, director and co-writer behind this piece, has done very little before. His short filmography includes a Cradle of Filth music video so at least he has some experience behind the camera. Paul Shrimpton, the other co-writer, makes his debut with the film and its easy to see that. Between the two of them they create a watchable, albeit lackluster, British Wrong Turn.

Inbred starts slow and stays that way. The story is pretty basic, something weve seen approximately one hundred times before: misbehaving teenagers are taken out into the wilderness by adult chaperones and things go horribly awry. Kate and Jeff take four delinquents out to teach them not to be bad. Dwight, the most obnoxious of the bunch, is constantly too loud and making tasteless sex joke and Zeb is, I guess, trying to be a gangster with an oversized hoodie and horrible fade. Then we have the completely useless love interests with Sam and…Tim? Maybe Jim. There is both a Tim and Jim in the movie and the accents are very strong and the story is very boring so it got the point where I really didnt care. After settling in a small house outside of Yorkshire, they head to the pub where they meet the locals. They are full of barely bathed, gap mouthed, stereotypical movie yokels. A load of foreshadowing is brought about and then the next day the kids go out to start their community service. Once out there they finally run into a few particularly violent locals and the movie finally starts rolling.

Inbred is full of problems. Besides being a carbon copy clone of a few movies weve already seen (a lot) it has a few other problems. The characters that we are supposed to be rooting for, the victims, are entirely plain and unlikable so no emotion is evoked when they are offed. Except maybe a little bit of joy. Chandon tries to put a spin on it by adding a strange circus theme that, if explored more and maybe with a bigger budget, could have been a different edge. The horrible gore spilling doesnt help either. There is a difference between B movie and bad movie and with the ridiculous squirting blood in Inbred, it treads easily into the latter category.

At the end of the movie, after dropping the circus theme completely, it seems as though the kids are going to fight back and make a badass last stand against the hillbillies. You know, go down swinging. Nope. Despite ramping up as though theyll go down in a blaze of glory, that ending is swerved away from and instead ends with an attempt at a comedic finale. In fact, the film is listed as a horror-comedy but it ends up being very little of either of those categories.

I know I bagged on the movie a lot and Im not saying it doesnt deserve it. Im not even saying to watch the movie. I guess if you have never seen Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes, Turistas, Hostel, The Perfect Getaway, Wolf Creek or a slew of other backwoods inbred killer movies then Inbred will seem entirely new to you. What I am saying is that its just been played out. Given a different script, Chandon might do some good. But its a safe bet to stay away from Inbred.