Splatter comedy meets comic splatter in this brash crossover film that puts seven white-collar workers in the scary wilds of Hungary where psycho killer Russian ex-military lurk.
Severance (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:84
Fresh:55
Rotten:29
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: A twisted and bloody spoof on office life, Severance nicely balances comedy and nasty horror.
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:Apr 20, 2007 Limited
Box Office: $66,719
Synopsis: A team-building exercise goes horribly wrong in this horror comedy, where HOSTEL meets OFFICE SPACE. A group of Brits (and a single, sexy American blonde played by Laura Harris of DEAD LIKE ME)... A team-building exercise goes horribly wrong in this horror comedy, where HOSTEL meets OFFICE SPACE. A group of Brits (and a single, sexy American blonde played by Laura Harris of DEAD LIKE ME) travels through the forests of Hungary to a remote lodge in order to mix business with pleasure. Led by their manager, Richard (Tim McInnerny, BLACKADDER), the co-workers soon realize that their trip is less about trust falls and rope courses than it is about death and destruction. Someone has targeted the team, and begins to take down the cubemates one by one. SEVERANCE is savvy and sly, but it never lets the comedy override the onscreen horror. Humor may temper the disturbing visuals, but this British comedy isn't SHAUN OF THE DEAD. It's far less flashy and a good deal darker, but it all works to great effect. This film is more in the spirit of DOG SOLDIERS, a movie with bleak gallows humor amid its blood and gore. In addition to its smart satire of office culture, SEVERANCE features stomach-churning scenes that rival the violence in films from the SAW trilogy. This film doesn't rely on A-list stars, with McInnerny vying with Harris and Toby Stephens (DIE ANOTHER DAY) for the position of most recognizable actor. But regardless of its lack of marquee talent, SEVERANCE ably mixes guts and giggles to create an entertaining and gruesome film. [More]
Starring: Danny Dyer, Laura Harris, Tim McInnerny, Toby Stephens
Starring: Danny Dyer, Laura Harris, Tim McInnerny, Toby Stephens, Claudie Blakely, David Gilliam, Andy Nyman, Babou Ceesay
Director: Christopher Smith
Director: Christopher Smith
Screenwriter: James Moran, Christopher Smith
Producer: Jason Newmark
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
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Reviews for Severance
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.
A The Office-style comedy of corporate manners crossed with a Friday the 13th-style slasher movie, with encoded satire on U.S./British foreign policy and birds coming home to roost.
This is a severance package that may kill you... we nearly died laughing.
Full of energy and appealing recklessness even when the jokes are obvious, the movie isn't so tedious as suggested by its opening scene -- big-breasted women running in abject terror from men with guns.
This is the first shocker in ages where you actually care about what happens to the victims.
...it's not difficult at all to imagine audiences going crazy over some of this stuff (the "bear trap" sequence is an obvious highlight).
[Inserts] the funniest bits of British comedy into the type of gory slasher flick that will make even the most jaded horror fan giddy.
You'll need a strong stomach, but director Christopher Smith mixes lots of laughs into the gore. Despite its predictable finish, Severance is bloody good fun.
Will surely make you laugh, but the guffaws are few and far between. That's hardly a caveat when you consider the statement made here, though...
In the sea of blood and gore rolling down theatre aisles nowadays, this cheeky, scary horror farce proves that the comic slasher movie isn't dead yet.
The result is a cathartic hoot, relishing its own carefully doled out carnage.
It does possess an enjoyably English gallows humor along with a strong visual style and a knack for making its bloody mayhem both creepy and droll.
Witty slasher pic about weapons dealers who are hoist with their own petard.
For decades horny teens have been the slasher movie's victims of choice, but this darkly funny British import finds more deserving targets: the sales team of an international weapons manufacturer.
Christopher Smith's Severance is an odd but entirely welcome duck: a horror spoof that strays into zones of political and ethical consequence, without ever becoming mired in them.
Severance turns a corporate retreat in a Hungarian forest into a bloody game of whack-a-mole. (Team building and paintballing are so last year.)
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
| 49% 49% | Taking Woodstock |
| 26% 26% | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard |
| 47% 47% | The Girl From Monaco |
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