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Severance

Written by Nobuhiro Hosoki

 

"Severance," Christopher Smith's sophomore trip to the "Shaun of the Dead" genre, seems a more confident attempt at making this type of film. The plot unfolds around Palisades Defense, a global arms manufacturing farm where George, a contractor boss (David Gillian) intends to promote greater productivity to employees by inviting the raggedy young bunch to team-building exercises in the Hungarian wilderness. They're soon stranded when the road is blocked by a fallen tree, then are abandoned by their driver. Richard (Tim Mcinnerny), the  rather stiff and inept office manager, insists on leaving a bumpy road to hike up the forest to the lodge.

During the long hike, the key characters are revealed,including  Steve (Danny Dyer), a magic mushroom eater; Maggie (Laura Harris), a cynical blonde beauty); plus the sarcastic Harris (Toby Stephen), the brainy Jill(Claude Blakely), and the skeptical Billy (Babou Ceesay). After briefly seeing a stranger in the wood, they spin the old story of the rundown lodge, getting into mildly surreal sequences of vampires  and a sex romp. But the paintball turns deadly serious when a small army of psycho soldiers appears out of nowhere, brandishing flame throwers, guns, knives, bear traps, and landmines.

Then the group embarks on a terror trail of  games to see which teammates get whacked first. Some of the scenes are grotesque, such as when one of the guy's legs gets cut off by a bear trap. But Director Christopher Smith manages to rely on character development to provide many of punch-lines. Even though the film leans more heavily on the horror side in the third act, it is possible to make a horror film that could be both scary and funny. You'll be cheering when the "Dr. Strangelove" theme song runs at the end!

Directed by Chris Smith
Written by Mr. Smith and James Moran
Director of photography: Ed Wild
Music by Christian Henson
Production designer: John Frankish
Produced by Jason Newmark
Released by Magnolia Pictures.
Running time: 96 minutes.

Cast: Danny Dyer (Steve)
Laura Harris (Maggie)
Tim McInnerny (Richard)
Toby Stephens (Harris)
Claudie Blakley (Jill)
Andy Nyman (Gordon) ,
and Babou Ceesay (Billy).