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Severance
Reviewed by Rich Drees
When a group of co-workers cap off a long European business trip
with a weekend of teambuilding exercises at a secluded lodge in the
Hungarian mountains, the last thing they expect is to be the latest
victims for a group of psychotic killers lurking in the murky woods.
And with a premise like this, the last thing one would expect from
Severance is a laugh-a-minute comedy, but that’s exactly what
the film delivers. A gleeful subversion of horror film conventions,
Severance does for the slasher genre what 2004‘s Shaun Of
The Dead did for zombie flicks.
A slasher film
is only as effective as its lineup of potential victims and
Severance offers some well defined gist for the killers’
psychotic mill. Veteran British television comic actor Tim McInnerny
heads up the cast as the group’s barely effective manager Richard
who often clashes with Harris (Die Another Day Bond villain
Toby Stephens), who never lets Richard forget who hails from the
better background. (Hint- It’s not Richard.) The rest of the team
varies enough in personality to keep their own inter-squabblings
entertaining while waiting for the killers to show up.
The script
never condescends to its audience, setting up numerous jokes that
get paid off further along in the film. A conversation between two
characters about a particularly grisly form of death is hilariously
revisited when one of the characters meets that particular fate. And
that’s one of several instances where the screenplay adroitly mixes
its gore with laughs. Some jokes are borne out of simple slapstick
while others are artful twists on standard slasher film tropes.
But not all of
the scares are mined for laughs in Severance. The filmmakers
demonstrate that they know that both comedy and horror rely on the
element of surprise. They work hard to keep the audience on the edge
of their seat, unsure if the next scare is going to induce a laugh,
a gasp or both. |
