"Inbred" (Guardian 21/09/12)

Inbred (18) 90 mins **

This sniggering Brit splatterfest dispatches a minibus of inner-city care kids on a team-building exercise to the ominously named Northern backwater of Mortlake, where the cross-eyed, buck-toothed locals – gathering in their local The Dirty Hole (hur hur) after a hard day’s livestock-burning – take none too kindly to outsiders. The ever-welcome Jo Hartley (Thomas Turgoose’s mum in This is England) catches the shambling, happy-amateur tone as one of the carers, yet both the comedy and horror elements rake over old ground. The warped variety show the kids stumble into – with its trouserless organist “Clayderman” and grim forms of 3D entertainment – owes rather too much to Python, The League of Gentlemen and Channel 4’s late-night gem Focus North; co-writer/director Alex Chandon may also be the first person since That’s Life!’s Doc Cox to find phallus-shaped carrots enduringly funny. Amiable, but best kept for DVD. 

Inbred opens in selected cinemas today, ahead of its DVD release on October 15.