There's Some Round These Parts That Care Nowt For Strangers...

It's weird up North...

Inbred is a new horror comedy film from director Alex Chandon - probably best known for work he did with Cradle of Filth - which is due out in Autumn. It was recently premiered at the Electric in Birmingham - Britain's oldest cinema, and where the film's sound was mixed.

Mention comedy horror and the first film that springs to mind is Shaun of the Dead, a film which it turns out Inbred doesn't bear much relation to (geddit?) at all. Shaun of the Dead is comedy with horror elements and is at heart a rom-com; Inbred is a horror with comedy elements, and comes more from the direction of Peter Jackson's early work (like Derek from Bad Taste). The thing it does share with Shaun of the Dead is it's referencing of lots of different films and shows, but the gore is realistic and un-nerving.

Inbred is very much its own beast, and its humour comes more from the more disturbing elements of Monty Python (especially Gilliam) and the League of Gentleman than the relative gentleness of Shaun of the Dead. It is a film that absolutely blurs the line between horror and comedy, which feels disorientating. There are belly laughs, but more often than not the laughter comes because you're not really sure how else you should react.

The plot revolves around a group of 4 'problem' teenagers being taken on a team-building holiday to Thirsk by their careworkers. It's the same Scooby Doo-meets-Deliverance set-up as many horrors have, especially American ones.  Or to put it another way, it's like dropping the Misfits characters into the Horror genre instead of the Superhero one.  The first half an hour of the film takes time in setting up the main characters; it's character comedy and laughing at the hilarious cartoony local yokels, complete with crooked teeth and deformities. The scenes in the run-down cottage are almost from Withnail and I, and it's comedy coming from putting City people in Rural settings. If one of the teens said "I demand to have some booze!" it wouldn't really feel out of place.

The next chapter is where things get interesting. When the characters get caught by the locals (which isn't really a spoiler), they're killed off one by one, as you always knew they would be. But they're killed in a barn/-come-theatre with an audience - Grand Guignol in a stable yard. This is where I found it hard to know how to respond, and kind of opted for laughter for the want of anything more appropriate. This response is highlighted at the very beginning, with a Lady Chatterly's Lover scene that ends in a bloodbath; it turns out to be a clip being watched on a smartphone, with some teenage lads giggling at it. Not only is this a clever way of integrating a short film into a main feature, but it means that from the start the theme of who the audience of horror actually is, and what their motives are. The scenes in the barn shows people after a Roman Circus style entertainment, and who have to make do with creating it in a DIY low budget style. Rather like people such as Chandon and Jackson making low-budget films before getting their hands on more money.

In the local show for local people there is a Papa Lazourou style ring-master; there are even more Python references (a nude organist, a Mr Creosote-like demise); there's a man in Alex DeLarge's mask, revelling in violence quite jovially; but it's not actually played for laughs, meaning that whilst you're not encouraged to join in with the yokel audience, you're put in their position anyway and forced to deal with it. This could be intended to be a comment on the event-telly culture of laughing at people being shite on Britain's Got Talent, or it could just be intended to make you squirm a lot. It's more likely to be both. It's certainly the most interesting part of the film - there is extreme torture in a non-pornographic way, because it actually has a purpose (though admittedly, not a very nice purpose...)

The last chapter of the film shows the rest of the characters trying to escape and failing, and this for me went on for too long; after the extreme theatrics, it's not that disimilar to the ends of most horror films that involve victims being persued. There's more humour, but it's a bit repetitive, and makes the pacing seem sloightly out of kilter. It's not boring, and the characters take you through it just about, but plot-wise it is going through the motions. Padding basically, something that most genre films tend to suffer from.

Alex Chandon in conversation with some Brummie (picture by David '@Modulor_Man' King)

The acting of the main characters is pitched well; played absolutely straight, meaning that there is genuine tension. James Burrows in particular is very well acted, and reminded me a lot of Christopher Eccleston in Shallow Grave (the 'quiet one' who actually turns out to be quite hardcore) The villagers are then able to be played as extreme grotesques, to a man. Fear of disabilty and 'otherness' is played upon a lot (most obviously in the scene with a thalydomide sufferer struggling to use a hammer to pin someone down). Seamus O'Neil as the Landlord/Village Chief, is menacing and jovial by turns. A lot of the actors seem to have come out of Nottingham (huzzah!), and although Chandon is a Londoner the film feels refreshingly provincial. Even the City the group come from is Milton Keynes rather than a more 'glamourous' area. Another special mention goes to the excellent use of animal actors, especially the loveable ferret.

The effects are on the whole very convincing, especially some of the prosthetics. I could only think of one which was too cartoonish for me. There wasn't much that broke the suspension of disbelief, another reason why the Gilliamesque opening sequence is deceptively crucial; by being so OTT, it makes the rest of the gore in the film seem more realistic. There was apparently a problem with the sound at one point, but I couldn't tell that anything was wrong (although the sound of glass being pulled out of someone's face sounded too much like me messily eating the lolly I'd had earlier as an unsuccessful hangover cure).

In terms of 'making a point', it looks at where entertainment comes from, but doesn't make enough of a direct comment for it to be something that' intellectually driven, and I doubt that's how it was intended to be anyway. It's a visual experience, and actually has some beautiful cinematography, especially the shots of Yorkshire and a train graveyard. The opening shots of shadows crossing across sunny, wheaty, flowery fields is quite pretty, and if it wasn't for the foreboding music could be some kind of tourist board ad for camping in the North.

It's basically horrorshow entertainment that amuses and disgusts in more or less equal measures, and as I'm not generally a fan of the horror genre, I think I'd say it's a cut above the rest. It will probably divide opinion when it comes, out, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't get some attention, at least on a cult level.