Severance (film)

Severance
Promotional poster
Directed by	Christopher Smith
Screenplay by	James Moran Christopher Smith
Story by	James Moran
Produced by	Jason Newmark Finola Dwyer
Starring	Danny Dyer Laura Harris Tim McInnerny Toby Stephens Claudie Blakley Andy Nyman Babou Ceesay
Cinematography	Ed Wild
Edited by	Stuart Gazzard
Music by	Christian Henson
Production companies	Qwerty Films UK Film Council Isle of Man Film N1 European Film Produktions Dan Films HanWay Films
Distributed by	Pathé Distribution (United Kingdom) Splendid Film (Germany)
Release date	25 August 2006
Running time	95 minutes
Countries	United Kingdom Germany[1]
Language	English[2]
Budget	$10 million[3]
Box office	$5.95 million[3]

Severance is a 2006 British-German comedy horror film co-written and directed by Christopher Smith. Co-written with James Moran, it stars Danny Dyer and Laura Harris.^[4] The film tells a story of group of British and Canadian co-workers who go to a remote mountain forest in Hungary, where they become victims of murderous attacks.

Severance received mostly positive reviews. In 2009, media interest in the film was revived following the alleged copycat murder of a UK teenager.^[5][6]

Plot[]

The film opens with George (David Gilliam) and two women (Juli Drajkó and Judit Viktor) running through the woods. The women fall into a large pit trap while George is caught by a snare. As he hangs helplessly, a masked man approaches and disembowels him with a knife.

What is later revealed as some days prior to this, the European Sales division of Palisade Defence military arms corporation are on a bus to a team-building weekend at a "luxury lodge" in the Mátra Mountains of Hungary. When a fallen tree blocking the road halts the bus's progress, the driver (Sándor Boros) refuses to take a dirt road through the woods and, after an argument, drives off, leaving the group to walk the remaining distance to the lodge.

Eventually the group reaches the lodge, which is old and in serious disrepair, but the manager, Richard (Tim McInnerny), convinces the wary but tired group to enter. Inside, Harris (Toby Stephens) discovers a file cabinet full of cryptic Palisade documents, written in Russian. The group discusses the documents, leading Harris to relate a story he'd heard about the lodge: the lodge was previously a mental institution, and in the early 20th century a Palisade-made nerve gas was used to clear it out after the inmates took over. Jill (Claudie Blakley) responds with the story she'd heard: the lodge was a "reeducation center" for Russian war criminals, and after an escape a Palisade-made nerve gas was used to clear escapees out of nearby buildings. Both mention a lone survivor who swore revenge on Palisade. Steve (Danny Dyer) starts to tell his own story about the lodge's past as a clinic staffed by busty nurses when he finds a human tooth in the meat pie the group is eating for dinner. Chastising Gordon (Andy Nyman) for serving a pie he just found in the kitchen, everyone goes to bed.

That night Jill sees someone looking into the lodge from the trees. Though nobody is found outside, everyone but Richard agrees that they should leave the lodge. The next morning Richard grudgingly sends Harris and Jill to the top of the hill to call the bus driver back, on the condition that the rest participate in a team-building game of paintball. Reaching the hill, Harris and Jill find the bus abandoned and the bus driver dead in a nearby creek. Back at the lodge, the game of paintball has just finished when Gordon steps into a bear trap. After several failed attempts by Steve and Billy (Babou Ceesayu) to pry the trap open, Gordon's left leg is cut through completely under the knee. Harris and Jill arrive in the bus, load everyone in and head back for town. On the way, a spike strip is thrown in front of the bus, which causes it to crash. Harris is thrown clear of the bus in the crash, and is decapitated by a masked killer with a machete. Jill is captured and tied to a tree, gagged, doused with gasoline, and burned alive. The rest discover Harris's body, prompting them to head back to the lodge for the night.

While Steve and Maggie (Laura Harris) smoke, a masked figure (Levente Törköly) "quietly" grabs Gordon and carries him into the basement. Discovering Gordon's absence and a newly opened door, the four head into the basement which leads to an underground prison. Through one door Billy and Maggie find the now-dead Gordon, who has had the Palisade logo carved into his torso, and a now-unmasked killer who fires a shotgun at them. The two hide in a nearby cell, where Billy dies from a chest wound. Steve hides on the second floor while Richard escapes out the back into the woods. While the killer searches for Steve, Maggie sneaks up on him with a large knife she took from the prison in the basement, but she falls through the rickety floor. The killer turns around and takes aim at Maggie, but, at the last second, Steve saves her by impaling the killer through the back. The killer falls down and becomes lodged in the main level floor, and Maggie takes his shotgun and shoots the killer in the head.

Believing they are safe Maggie and Steve exit the lodge, but discover that a group of several more armed, Russian-speaking killers, are awaiting them outside. Maggie shoots one before he can fire on them, and the two run into the woods. They come across Richard, who has stepped on a Palisade-made land mine and cannot move without detonating it. Richard guides Maggie and Steve through the minefield. The killers know that the area is a minefield and do not enter; they use a fallen branch to pass over the minefield close to Richard and torment him with insults and stones as they pass overhead. Accepting his situation, Richard does his best to save the others and steps off the mine, killing himself as well as two of the killers.

Steve and Maggie come to another building, the real Palisade lodge. Inside they find their boss George, who is partying with two escorts Steve ordered via the Internet earlier. George brings out a prototype missile launcher and fires it at the approaching killers, but the missile locks on to a passing commercial jet instead, destroying it. The five run into the woods, leading to the events shown in the beginning of the film.

Maggie is snared and is about to be molested by a killer when she manages to smash his head with a rock. Steve encounters two attackers and gets beaten and stabbed, but eventually kills them both with a knife and a submachine gun. Maggie is chased by a flamethrower-wielding killer into an abandoned prison camp, filled with crates bearing the Palisade logo. There, Maggie breaks her leg, but is saved when one of the escorts, rescued by Steve, arrives and shoots the man. Steve, Maggie and the escorts make it to a rowboat on the shore of the nearby lake, and as they paddle off to safety Steve jokingly quips, "Foursome?"

Cast[]

• Laura Harris as Maggie
• Claudie Blakley as Jill
• Toby Stephens as Harris
• Andy Nyman as Gordon
• Babou Ceesay as Billy
• Tim McInnerny as Richard
• Danny Dyer as Steve
• David Gilliam as George
• Juli Drajkó as Olga
• Judit Viktor as Nadia
• Sándor Boros as Coach Driver

Release[]

Home video[]

Severance was released in the United Kingdom on DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on 8 January 2007.^[7] In the United States it was released on DVD by Magnolia Pictures on 27 September 2007. Severance has also been released on DVD in Australia by Warner Home Video, in France by Fox Pathé Europa, in Germany by Splendid Film and in Hong Kong by Deltamac.^[8]

Reception[]

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Severance received generally favorable reviews. The film holds an approval rating of 64% on the film critic site Rotten Tomatoes based on 89 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The consensus reads: "A twisted and bloody spoof on office life, Severance nicely balances comedy and nasty horror." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 62 out of 100 sampled from 23 critics' reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[9][10]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone commended Smith's "mischievous blending [of] The Office with Friday the 13th", awarding the film three stars out of four.^[11] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave not such a positive review, saying, "It is being billed as Deliverance meets The Office – a tellingly misleading description," giving the film only two out of five stars.^[12] In 2012, Total Film ranked it as the 36th best independent horror film of all time.^[13]

Connections[]

Mentioned in the film, the CRM-114 land mine is a reference to the CRM-114 radio discriminator in Dr. Strangelove.^[14] Severance and Dr. Strangelove both end with the song "We'll Meet Again".^[15]

On 28 April 2009, the BBC reported that the murder of a 17-year-old student from Norfolk was allegedly based on a scene from the film.^[16][17] According to the BBC news report, "Norwich Crown Court was told how Simon Everitt, from Great Yarmouth, was tied up and petrol poured down his throat before he was set on fire. Simon's body was found in woodland at Mautby in June 2008." Jurors at the trial of Jonathan Clarke and two other co-defendants were played a scene from Severance and told that, when Mr. Clarke had watched the DVD, "he made a comment to this effect: 'Wouldn't it be wicked if you could actually do that to someone in real life?'" On 29 May 2009, the trio were convicted of Everitt's murder.^[5][6]

See also[]

• Deliverance
• Survival film, about the film genre, with a list of related films

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Severance at IMDb
• Severance at Box Office Mojo
• Severance at AllMovie