Severance (2006)

That was an excellent one.

Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

SEVERANCE is nothing new. I'll admit that from the outset. Its thrills, spills, and chills are a jumble of themes, with references to THE EVIL DEAD and DELIVERANCE in the plotting and scenes straight out of HOSTEL amongst other films. There's nothing you haven't seen here before. Instead, this is part of a modern sub-genre of British cinema which throws a group of people into an isolated natural setting and gives them an enemy to battle. We had soldiers vs. werewolves in DOG SOLDIERS; cavers vs. mutants in THE DESCENT and juvenile delinquents vs. a maniac in WILDERNESS. SEVERANCE, with its tale of office workers battling Eastern European criminals in the woods, fits easily into this mould. It doesn't really try hard to be anything else or to offer much in the way of surprise. But I loved it to bits anyway.The script is a definite plus, offering a ton of black comedy mixed in with the horror. Scenes such as the bear trap sequence are a perfect mix of laughs and chills, and the gore level in this movie is spot on. My favourite moment is the smiling severed head, one of the best jokes I've seen done in a comic horror. It's little touches like this which make the film that much more enjoyable – the rocket launcher moment is another nice surprise. The action is well-handled and the traditional pacing, with a slow build-up and frenetic climax, works a treat. Another big highlight is the cast. I don't care much for Danny Dyer but even he does well in this one, what with his magic mushroom ride. Laura Harris is another in a long line of ass-kicking heroines, while Toby Stephens shows why it's wrong to typecast him as a villain. Tim McInnerny is also outstanding as the stuffy boss. SEVERANCE won't set the world alight, and it's occasionally lazy in its plotting, but for the most part it's an engaging little movie, and one you can watch more than once.

I personally am not usually a fan of horror-comedy films and especially British horror movies as all apart from a select few are terrible in my opinion. Severance is a refreshing take on the horror-comedy genre and has a sublime combination of essential elements of horror such as gore, jump scares, unpredictability and well done humour which has genuine laughable moments and made me root for certain characters. The majority of the cast's acting is strong and characters can be related to which allows you to connect with the film. The plot is somewhat different than the obligatory 'people in a cabin in the woods' that you might expect and has a relatively uplifting ending.

Good old team building exercises. The sales team gets sent to do some paintballing in a forest setting and after some amusing fallings out, inter-personal problems, and displays of dysfunctionality, that thing happens which is the worst thing which can happen on team building jaunts. Yes, you've got it - a man trap cuts off the leg of one of the members. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, someone kills their driver, chops the head off another team member, sets fire to... you get the picture.Severance, like From Dusk To Dawn, starts off in one genre and switches to another half way through. In both cases, the part-films work: the first half is genuinely funny and the second half (last man standing slasher movie) is violent, bloody and suspenseful.Weird but, of its odd kind, not at all bad.

This is the first film I am watching from this British genre director who was one of the interviewees in the recently-viewed documentary VIDEO NASTIES: MORAL PANIC, CENSORSHIP AND VIDEOTAPE (2010); it was preceded by CREEP (2004) and followed by TRIANGLE (2009) and BLACK DEATH (2010) and, given my fairly positive experience with the film under review, I would not mind checking out now. I knew next to nothing about this film going in except that it was going to be a comedic horror piece about a team building exercise gone awry but, rather than the expected BATTLE ROYALE (2000)-type scenario, I ended up with yet another ride through DELIVERANCE (1972) territory with the added dollops of pseudo-socio-political commentary thrown in for good measure; even though my experience was nowhere near this catastrophic, it did bring back memories of a positively traumatic team building exercise that me and my colleagues went through a year-and-a-half back! While I still have at least 2 DELIVERANCE imitations to go through from around that same period – SHOOT (1976) and RITUALS (1977) – the "smart-ass-city-dwellers-at-the-mercy-of-backwards-country-folk" plot has been done to death in horror fare from all over the world particularly throughout the last decade.This group of 7 British colleagues – employed by a weapons manufacturing company – seemed too small to warrant this kind of activity, which is generally aimed at larger groups in order that they get to know each other better; also the fact they are flown off to a supposedly luxury hotel in a remote part of Hungary comes off as far-fetched, especially since the CEO is waiting for them there! At any rate, we have the standard collection of stereotypical characters set to bond or clash at the very first opportunity: the hated supervisor, the sarcastic handsome salesman, the nerdy, eager-to-please fat guy, the sensitive woman, the hot blonde girl everybody lusts after, the colored underling and the horny, dopey wastrel. Half the film is spent on establishing the relationships within the group, all the while making use of some agreeably surreal touches to do so: the supervisor dreams of the hot blonde inviting him into her bed but, upon turning to face him, he finds the contemptuous salesman in drag; the pot-headed man sees multiple versions of himself (and meets a talking deer in a deleted scene), etc.While the events are unnecessarily narrated in flashback, needless to say, very few opportunities for blood flowing or gallows humor are missed (the fate of the fat guy and the salesman are particularly notable in this respect) and the fact that the two local call-girls (hired by the wastrel) eventually save the day is a clever touch – as is the inclusion on the soundtrack of The Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park" and the unfortunately-covered Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" (over the opening and closing credits respectively). The downside of all this, however, is that once the villains' identity (a band of mentally unbalanced Hungarian war veterans) is revealed, we see way too much of them making for a far less menacing presence then they had seemed initially!