by Phillip Ellis

Created on: April 28, 2008

A decent horror film for me is one with comedy. I just can't take the genre seriously without some dark humor or tongue-in-cheekiness, as is the case with this one. I haven't been scared by a horror film in my life and 'sussed' from an early age that nothing was real in these films, the heads coming off, not real, the blood ,Kensington Gore. The whole concept just seemed ridiculous, although 'Scanners' still looks fantastic. So when Severance came up and the same person who recommended Neil Marshall's cracking 'Dog Soldiers' and the stylish 'Descent', said I would like this I agreed a to rent-and I'm happy I did. If you're the above horror fan who can't take all the nonsense seriously then this maybe for you. It's not outstanding, but its good fun.

The introduction of satire makes this work on another level, here mixing Deliverance with The Office, allowing that mechanism. A British comedy of manners meeting an Eastern European backwoods was probably based on a cost decision on minor cast and crew members but makes for something different in the blossoming British horror film industry. You can't do anything in England without the help of our new cheap workforce so why not be ironic and go there and exploit that cost-cutting for once. That joke is not lost within the movie.

First we find a suitable location where cell-phones are out of range, the pesky devices the scourge off modern horror movie plots and the supreme suspense killer if left unsupervised on those look behind you moments, here a mountainous forest in the Hungarian smoky mountains the oasis from technology. Arriving here is a group of office workers from a British arms company on a team- building weekend, the employees of 'Palisade Munitions' expected to complete the challenge under the leadership of Capt Darling himself in Tim McInnerny (Richard), his bumbling not exactly looked up to by his staff, especially cockney Steve (Danny Dyer), and American rep Maggie (Laura Harris). But Richard 'can't spell success with out 'U'.
The company's motto is 'If you don't have it, they will'.

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2nd best salesman on the bus: We will win the 'war on terror!'
Top salesman: I hope not.
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When the coach driver abandons them for all sorts of reasons they have to walk the final mile or so to the lodge, failing to find even that, ending up in a ramshackle house, where the pie in the fridge is a pointer to who might have lived there. But Richard still insists

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