Severance (2006)

Written by James Moran & Christopher Smith
Directed by Christopher Smith

First off, let me say I HATE the way this film is being sold. Part of the reason for that is I really enjoyed the film, but they're selling this movie as if it were Black Sheep or Murder Party, where the comedy is in the horror. In Severance, it's not. The comedy is in small jokes about the characters and the weekend they're supposed to be having, once it kicks into horror mode, it's a full on bloodfest and any comedy is kicked to the wayside, short of about 3 instances. Not what I'd call a horror/comedy, but as you can see from the cover, and if you read any other reviews, they'll lead you to believe this is Evil Dead 2 or something. Not true in the slightest, and although it's a good movie, to advertise it so wrongly is pure injustice.

Ok, with that out of the way, Severance is about an office group that is off on a weekend "Team Building" trip for their weapons/defense company (think Lockheed Martin) with a bunch of mostly unwilling participants. Once on this weekend, things turn sour quickly, when the bus driver ditches them because he refuses to take a detour and quickly loses his temper when the manager tries to argue with him. The team goes to the lodging, which is a crappy old cabin where they're even more unhappy. Of course all the stereotpyical characters are here in some form or another, the Gareth/Dwight kiss ass, the slacker, the brain, the feminist, etc.

The first night at dinner they discover something is really wrong with their lodging, and quickly realize they are not alone out in their woodland cabin. They tell stories about these types of buildings, a few characters have their own ideas about what these places were used for, from insane asylums to prisoner of war bases. After a scare on the first night, a few of the employees decide there's no way they're staying the next morning they will head back towards town, irreguardless if they still have a job or not by doing so.

Morning comes and a few of the employees continue in their team building excercises playing paintball, until a horrible accident involving a bear trap stops them short. That's all I'll say about the plot, except that from here it gets progressively uglier, until they realize some of the stories they were telling the night before may indeed be true.

The rest of the film plays out as a horror survivalist picture, where the team building is put into action as these office employees literally go to war against a mostly unseen enemy. There is gore, and quite a bit of action. I really like the two main characters, Maggie (Laura Harris) and Steve (Danny Dyer of Football Factory and The Business) and that's what carries the rest of the film, the dynamic of these two characters and how they deal with the situation they're in. Watching this right after Wrong Turn 2 might've hurt my enjoyment a bit, as the dynamic of the main characters vs the villains is quite similar, but the editing, and the turns the story takes were original enough to keep me satisfied, and just the fact that Danny Dyer is a great actor, possibly England's best that hasn't made it across the pond yet. Definitely worth any horror fan's time, I had the chance to see this in theaters and now I'm kicking myself for not going that night.

8.2/10