Severance

A satiric slasher that cuts itself in half with too much comedy, and too little concept. "Severance" is a film that reveals more plot holes than bullet (though it is certainly action-packed), and leaves us with a lame storyline. A "team-building" weekend funded by a multi-national weaponry corp by the name of Palisades Defence turns into an unoriginal slash fest in a mountainous Eastern European countryside.

The films start with clips taken out of its ending...though the directorial reasons behind this are murky; perhaps Christopher Smith thought it, well, looked cool. Meanwhile, a tour bus with seven weapons designers (or sales people? It's never made clear) roar past on a nearby road - unaware of the doom that awaits. Trivial is almost too sophisticated a word to describe most of the scenes in this film. It's like "Scary Movie" for twenty-somethings that cultivate their political convictions by watching Saturday Night Live.

First, Steve (Danny Dyer) openly takes hallucinogens despite the fact that he's on a corporate outing, but no worries, no one seems to find this bothersome or unprofessional anyway. Then, perhaps in an effort to emphasize the types of cityslickers we're dealing with, everyone whines about walking down an unknown road that the bus driver refuses to take instead of using their energy to move a fallen tree out of the main road so that they can pass. It makes little sense considering the whole point of the weekend is to unify the team, and the length of the walk is unknown. It's also odd that no one questions why a perfectly normal bus driver would suddenly turn ballistic when asked to go slightly off-route. The lack of subtitles is also the lamest of cop outs because it frees the filmmakers from having to write, I don't know, something that makes sense or maybe has meaning...

The characters are ocassionaly likeable but never intriguing enough to care about when slaying time abounds. When bear traps are complemented by flame throwers and mine dodgers the film really does become entertaining, but any expectation of a poignant political satire should be left at ticket booth. A missle crashing into an airplane flying overhead is about as funny as seeing a decapitated head smile eagerly at the camera...This film left many major questions unanswered like: who is behind this vengeful militia or why didn't this go straight to DVD?