Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2012: Inbred

Hillbilly survival is my favourite subgenre of horror, and is one of the only subsets of the genre with the consistent capacity to creep me out and scare me. It's got its roots in films like Deliverance, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Children of the Corn, and has wound up in modern incarnations in movies like Wrong Turn and Calvaire. It's even been cleverly and spectacularly turned on its head in the wonderful Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, which you should really watch at your earliest convenience.

Inbred throws a monkey wrench — albeit a small one — into the hillbilly survival formula by transplanting the setting to rural England. It's a small but significant change, but a notable one that allows writer/director Alex Chandon to introduce a few interesting elements that the other movies in this group don't have.

The basic idea is the same though — a group of people (in this case, a group of troubled teens and their mentors/teachers) end up in an unfamiliar, rural area and are terrorized by the locals. As with most of these films, the twisted nature of these locals is cranked to a very surreal '11' and, before long, their quirks begin to, um, negatively impact our heroes (sometimes literally).

The gore here, while very exaggerated, has a realistic tinge to it for the most part. This is certainly not for the faint of heart and this doesn't leave you with blue balls like certain other horrors seem to enjoy doing. No, if resolution, a violently convoluted story, and unabashed gore is what you're after, Inbred will satisfy you and then some.

I'm going to post the trailer for Inbred, but if you're planning to watch this movie anytime soon, I encourage you not to watch it as it's full of spoilers and some of the best parts of the movie. However, if you're on the fence about whether Inbred is for you (in which case, shame on me) then by all means check it out:

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Stay tuned all week for more reviews from the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. You can find them all here.

This review was written by Sachin Hingoo, a freelance writer when he is not working at an office job that is purpose-built for paying the bills while he works as a freelance writer.  His writing has appeared on Mcsweeneys.net, the CBC Street Level Blog, Ohmpage.ca, and The Midnight Madness Blog for the Toronto International Film Festival. He has also been featured at Toronto lecture series Trampoline Hall (which is rumored to be excellent). His mutant power is 'feigning interest'. You can read all of his posts here.

Photo: A very nice poster for the very not-nice move Inbred