Severance (2006)
I enjoyed Chris Smith’s previous movie, Creep, even though it was an obvious mix of Death Line and Run Lola Run. Similarly, his new movie Severance takes few risks, mixing the backwoods horror of The Hills Have Eyes with a cast of characters that are familiar from The Office. Or indeed any office.
The sense of humour is akin to that employed by Neil Marshall in Dog Soldiers, mixing unpleasant gore effects with desperate black humour. And like that movie, Severance turns out to be enjoyable while adding nothing new to the genre.
The most familiar cast member is Tim McInerny, playing the team leader and skating a fine line between David Brent and a more rounded character, starting out annoying and eventually gaining our sympathy as he gets more out of his depth. Danny Dyer wheels out his Cockney stereotype yet again, and like the rest of the cast, you can’t wait to see him mercilessly slaughtered. Or perhaps I just don’t like West Ham. Andy Nyman gets some laughs for his death scene, but again he’s not exactly sympathetic.
The exception is Laura Harris, uncoincidentally the only American in the cast and the only one who ‘deserves’ to live. Smith also keeps reminding us that these people work for an arms company and are only reaping the rewards of their hard work in exploiting poor Eastern Europeans. It’s sledgehammer satire, but it works in both moving the plot along and allowing the audience to enjoy the deaths. Smith’s also clever enough not to develop the soldiers’ individual characters too much, so they can be slaughtered without guilt as well.
Although the plot is standard, Smith plays a clever game of setting up expectations and then reversing them, letting us know that he’s in on the joke and allowing him to crack some outrageous jokes. Not to mention somehow working two topless machine-gun wielding girls into the story. Very few horror comedies work, but this is one of them.
Rating: 
[imdb]464196[/imdb]
