Mother Father Sister Brother Frank review – frantic night of murder, mayhem and family bonding

The family that eats together stays together, they say. But the proverb will have to be tweaked for director Caden Douglas’s cartoonishly grisly comedy, in which a family’s regular Sunday dinner ends with the neighbour’s dog running around the back garden with a severed human arm clamped between its teeth. You could describe Mother Father Sister Brother Frank as Fargo-esque, in the sense that it’s a tale of nice ordinary folks doing bad stuff while snow falls serenely around them – though in truth it is less flavoursome and the humour is more obvious, not so deliciously off-kilter.

It is lunchtime at the Jennings’ house, where mom Joy (Mindy Cohn) is a picture of homely friendliness. Her husband Jerry (Enrico Colantoni) seems a little grumpy while their grown up kids Jolene (Melanie Leishman) and Jim (Iain Stewart) bicker like teenagers, but that seems like fairly standard family dysfunction. Then in walks uncle Frank, a truly loathsome piece of work, sexist and nastily homophobic to Jim, who’s gay.

What follows is a frantic night of murder and family bonding. The script is not exactly light touch – and depends for a lot of its laughs on nice wholesome Joy swearing, or dad Jerry’s constant refrain of “They had a discount at Costco”. It ramps up with a knock at the door from a neighbour whose dog is missing. Then Jim’s husband – known in the family as “Shifty Pete” – shows up drunk, followed by a local cop. It’s entertaining enough; what’s missing, perhaps, is the spark of originality.

• Mother Father Sister Brother Frank is on digital platforms from 27 January.