Severance (2007)
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Starring: Danny Dyer, Laura Harris, Tim McInnerny, Toby Stephens, Claudie Blakely
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Reviews
Sitting through its increasingly sluggish pace feels like, well, work.
For the most part, the scary parts are the scary parts, the funny parts are the funny parts, and never the twain meet.
The result is a cathartic hoot, relishing its own carefully doled out carnage.
Like a special episode of 'The Office,' scripted by Clive Barker.
The cast shows spark and gusto, especially Laura Harris as a vulnerable yet intrepid survivor type and Danny Dyer as a bent druggie who straightens out long enough to fight back.
So there's still a smart office-horror movie left to be made. In the meantime, Severance is just another paycheck.
Like the Britain of Tony Blair, it's neither bloody awful nor bloody great. Which isn't to say, rest assured, that there isn't plenty of blood.
[Smith] paces the gore too unevenly, leaving the cast standing around and griping for vast chunks of time. And the jokes ... are either too broad or too underplayed.
It turns into yet another graphic Hostel-style killfest that eventually washes away all the fun ... with lots of blood.
"Severance" is just enough of an exploitation satire (think, Roger Corman in his heyday) to hold your interest beyond its gratuitous knife, blood and breast recipe for suspense and shock.
Like Shaun of the Dead, the movie enthusiastically embraces all the grotesque clichés we love and have come to expect from the form -- turning several on their ear.
At heart, it's a sophisticated variation on Friday the 13th, a splatter film with a slightly more interesting collection of targets.
Comparisons to Shaun of the Dead are wildly overblown. Shaun had pages of hilarious dialogue, and Severance has, well, none.
Severance is a slasher film, no more, no less, with a veneer of jokes and some mild pretensions to meanings beyond its strict genre obligations.
Severance is a bit of British fear-mongering that pulls you in with a nifty mix of black humour and white-knuckle scares.
You got your humour, you got your horror, simply ratchet up both and, voilà, Severance -- or, as the billing not inaccurately puts it, The Office Meets Deliverance.
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