Severance: Review By Mushy

Severance is the somewhat funny tale of a group of workers who go away to a mountainous retreat and then proceed to be picked off by what seems like a serial killer. The fact that certain workers were discussing killers, curses and other mythic lore before this, all plays into this film's sense of humor. Done in the traditional style of such '80s horror films as Friday The 13th and April Fool's Day, we see our faithful workers thinking they are going to a nice spot to practice team building exercises and maybe have some between the sheets time with one another. People begin being picked off, all ways out of the mountains are non-existent and it is then that we realize that the arms company they work for, Palisade Defence, has come under siege by some soldiers whose motives (to me) still remain unclear. In the end, only a few characters survive, most of which are the ones you might expect.

If I seem at a loss to really talk about Severance, it might have something to do with not really knowing what to say. I don't know what I was expecting here but I didn't really see this film separating itself in any way. It is filled with a lot of drug references, jokes and the kind of irony laden characters that it seems people like in their horror movies today. It seems that the less the players really take their situation seriously, the more viewers become in engaged with it. Then, even when people start being hacked up or they scream in fear, its done with a detachment so that when they eventually die it isn't like we really care too much anyway. Death in a movie like Severance is expected so how can we care about the characters too much?

Before I saw this film, I recall hearing some comparisons in tone to Shaun of the Dead. A big reason why that movie worked as well as it did is because, unlike Severance, it never became the kind of horror movie is was examining. Shaun of the Dead seemed to be telling a separate story and then the whole zombie aspect of it just sort of crashed into it. It forced itself upon the film in a way that the characters had to deal with it. Severance seemed, from the start, to be on course to being a horror film that was winking at its audience. Eventually, in walking that tight rope, it appeared to just fall into the genre that it was having fun with. Thus, all ironic detachment was lost

To say that Severance is a bad movie would be misleading. It was funny, the effects were good and it presented us with an assortment of enjoyable characters. I guess I wanted something from this movie to kind of separate it from the other films of its ilk. Instead, what I got was something that sadly felt all to familiar.