When it comes to the movie industry, I’m always rooting for underdog filmmakers. Amateur actors, Low budgets and questionable production values rarely bother me so long as the script and general direction feel earnest enough. Unfortunately, things can get a little messy when some films attempt to rely solely on their lo-fi charm in order to win over audiences, and I’m sad to report that Joe McReynolds’ Inhumanity is one of these regrettably misguided productions.
Inhumanity stars Darcel Danielle as Jessa, a young woman who narrowly survives an assault by a demented serial killer known as Six-Pack Sam (Leviticus Wolfe), only to discover that her father has apparently committed suicide. Desperate for answers about her father’s suspicious death, Jessa is unwittingly drawn towards a horrific conspiracy involving the police, mad scientists and corporate overlords.
While combining a murder mystery with Clockwork-Orange-inspired sci-fi elements may seem like a clever idea on paper, McReynold’s script never manages to leave the shallow end of the narrative pool, insisting on age-old clichés and imitating ideas that worked better in other films. That’s not to say that the movie is entirely devoid of original ideas, it just doesn’t seem to know what to do with them.
As is usually the case with movies that don’t have the benefit of a strong script, Inhumanity attempts to make up for its lack of depth with stylized visuals, though it lacks the resources to do so properly. The low budget and oddly selected camera angles make this look more like an overtly ambitious student film rather than a charming B-Movie. There’s little passion here to distract from the amateurish acting, sound and camera work, and this is only aggravated by a bloated runtime, as the film struggles to juggle around so many disparate ideas and characters.
The casting also feels a little awkward, with Danielle being the only believable character harboring any amount of emotional depth. While the mixed bag of performances might be explained by the limited budget, it doesn’t quite excuse how the film doesn’t delve deeper into the psychological implications of Jessa’s quite literal near-death experience at the hands of Six-Pack Sam, or what’s really driving her to investigate her father’s death.
With a tighter script and a bigger budget, this could have easily turned into a memorable genre mash-up, but, as it stands, Inhumanity relies too much on well-worn tropes and predictable twists instead of playing to its strengths. That being said, despite clearly having overreached with this project, McReynolds’s work shows promise, and this isn’t a completely terrible movie, there just isn’t enough here to warrant a recommendation.
Inhumanity is available now on VOD.
