With past credits including This is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride (in which he played the dastardly Count Rugen, who killed the father of Inigo Montoya), you would hope that Christopher Guest, who directs, writes and stars in Mascots, knows comedy when he sees it. Unfortunately, Guest seems to be desperately failing at keeping up with contemporary audiences, and the brand of humour he exhibits in this film is vulgar, unintelligent and completely devoid of charisma.

The mockumentary follows a number of mascots (mostly from the US, but also the UK and Ireland) competing for the World Mascot Association championship’s Fluffy Awards. It stars a big ensemble cast including Chris O’Dowd, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, Ed Begley, Jr., Zach Woods (The US Office), Jennifer Coolidge, Susan Yeagley, Kerry Godliman (Derek), and Harry Shearer (The Simpsons).

The first half of the film consists of interviews with various competitors, judges and sponsors preparing for the contest. The second half follows the competition itself. From start to finish, the dialogue is painfully unfunny, the physical comedy is just plain embarrassing, and not even a few tender moments in the third act can save the flick. There are essentially no likeable characters. You don't find them relatable and you don’t feel sorry for them. They’re utterly unredeemable, and you can’t even bring yourself to love to hate them.

Lynch as mascot legend Gabby Monkhouse is the least painful to watch and seems totally at ease in the role. At the same time, that is because she essentially always plays the same character, and it’s getting old. The British family, which includes a son who feels torn in carrying on the tradition of his father, and his supportive wife, also have their moment in the sun if not to only tick the box of obligatory loving family (they also have two sisters competing who fulfil this role). Much of the cast have collaborated with Guest before, so maybe they were just doing him a favour? Still, someone should have had the decency to tell him to scrap the script because it does not make you laugh once.

Netflix needs to seriously get their act together and produce some decent original content at this point. Aside from documentaries, with recent outputs Audrie & Daisy and Amanda Knox providing really gripping, insightful and evocative narratives, it severely falters in original drama and comedies. The only example of the former that pops to mind that excelled was Beasts of No Nation, while their comedies (including The Ridiculous 6, The Do-Over and Special Correspondents) are just dire. Maybe it’s time for Netflix to call it a day and to just focus on television content.