Released: 2006

Grade: A-

I saw Severance at The Cleveland Film Festival in 2006. I was surprised, but very pleasantly so that a horror satire was even playing there as dramas and documentaries are at least 90% of the films that are played there. Horror is under recognized as an artform and by this being shown there, it showed that despire that this film was able to be recognized and it is a very deserving film.

The sales division of the multi-national weapons company, Palisade Defense, go on a weekend business trip. Immediately, things aren’t going their way. They have trouble with the bus and get lost. They are trying to get to a cabin in the woods of Eastern Europe. They soon discover that this will be one business outing gone very wrong. As they start walking to try and find the cabin, instead they find the bus driver completely mutilated. It doesn’t stop there though one of the workers loses his leg in a bear trap. The others look around and realize that these traps are planted everywhere. They really aren’t bear traps, they are traps specifically meant for them. Someone is hunting them. If they have any chance of surviving they have to stick together and outsmart the men out to kill them.

Severance is superb in so many ways. It is just as funny as it is grotesque. Horror films these days seem to be confused on what showing horror accurately means. There is usually either no gore or an overload of it to make up for the lack of development in the script. Severance manages to have the perfect amount though. It does this realistically too. Oh yes, you can’t forget the comedy either. There were more laughs than anything else in the theater. Severance blends horror and comedy so beautifully. It mocks horror clichés and stereotypical elements. It makes fun of such things as victims not seeing the killer while in an obvious place. It does things similar to that in which films like Scary Movie do. However, it manages to be completely different in the sense that it is not a parody. It makes fun of things and is funny while still being a serious movie. The characters are actually pretty smart as well. It would be easy to poke fun at the women as victims and being stupid or helpless, but they are actually portrayed as intelligent. The last woman alive shows great strength, courage, determination, and intellect. Director and writer, Christopher Smith even sneaks in a moral side in his impressive script. He could have made these characters employees of any business, but he made them a defense company involved with multiple weapons. For one, this gave them a sense of implied strength. This also suggests that at some point they either did or were planning to do something to deserve the torture that is coming at them now. They are the sales division, so what they do is sell weapons that kill people. Maybe they sold something to the wrong person. These men could simply be giving them a taste of their own medicine. It wasn’t just some random act of violence. The killers were well-organized men out for revenge to make a statement.

Severance has so many qualities that would seem conflicting. Yet somehow it manages to blend these things so well. If you like horror, you will love Severance. If you like comedy, you will love Severance. If you like movies that deal with reason, moral or not, you will love Severance. If you like movies that deal with women or men’s strength, you will love Severance. Everyone should enjoy this movie. It has many elements, apart in which would make it a good movie, but together make it great.