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Entertaining horror romp in the woods
SEVERANCE
Directed by Christopher Smith
Certificate 15
SEVERANCE is the work of director Christopher Smith, whose previous film Creep was inspired by being stuck one day on a Tube on the Northern Line.
Quite where the inspiration for his next effort came from is not immediately clear, but he does manage to borrow heavily from well-worn premises that make up horror film genres. He combines some elementary plot devices – group go in woods, get lost, start dying mysteriously one by one – but still manages to create an entertaining hour-and-a-half.
Severance is a about the office beano from hell. Employees of unscrupulous arms company Palisades Defence are sent off to the wilds of eastern Europe for a weekend bonding session to improve morale and productivity.
Every filmmaker knows this part of the world is instantly scary to the average viewer. Firstly, there is the claustrophobic nature of a country which was once part of the eastern bloc and secondly, in the viewers mind, its near where Dracula came from.
Smith dangles this preconception in front of you before backing it up with suitably grim backdrops which are so clichéd you can almost hear the werewolves howling in the distance.
And when our colleagues get lost on their way through a Hungarian wood as they head for their lodgings, things start badly and then get a lot worse.
It so transpires that person(s) unknown are none too impressed with their line of work, and are intent on giving the employees the sack…permanently.
The make-up of the group has the usual faces chosen from a pic and mix character selection.
However the cast wear their motifs – office nerd, upper class snob, cool dope smoker – well and for a film with some intriguingly brutal deaths. Severance manages to make the audience laugh, wince, then laugh again: not a bad trick to pull off. |
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