Film Review--Severance (2007)

Severance
directed by Christopher Smith
written by James Moran and Christopher Smith
starring Toby Stephens, Claudie Blakley, Andy Nyman, Babou Ceesay, Tim McInnery, Laura Harris, Danny Dyer, David Gilliam, Juli Drajkó, Judit Viktor

Someone is out in the woods and they’ve got a nasty habit of gutting people who stumble into their lair. This film is a tale of just such butchery and it’s glorious ramifications.

As the movie opens a man and two Russian hotties are running desperately through the woods. The girls fall into a trap and the man is disemboweled. The film backs up a few days and a group of associates for Palisade, a weapons firm, are in a bus heading for a nice get-to-know-you weekend at a fancy lodge. They are stalled in the road by a tree in the roadway and their driver refuses to go on. He drives off leaving them to walk to a lodge that is far from fancy.

The film involves the picking off one by one of the workers as they attempt to improve company morale through various exercises. But, unfortunately for them they stumble into the territory of a very hostile group of thugs that wants nothing to do with their team-building games. Indeed, they rather enjoy the sport of hunting humans and quickly the group is decimated for their ill-timed adventure.

There are several theories surrounding the lodge and it’s purpose. According to various accounts it was either a mental hospital, a prison, or a “love” hospital teeming with sexy nurses satisfying the needs of tottering old fools succoring on their immaculate breasts. The film never fully explains specifically who the men are and what they want only that they are Russian, they know about Palisade, and that they are wholly demonstrative animals with a keen eye on establishing a giddily high body count out of the poor saps caught in their cross hairs. Also they are bloody efficient and fulfilling the edicts of their overall plan. The victims are easy prey having no knowledge of the area and no easy mode of transportation to take them away from their de facto prison.

The film can best be described as a black comedy for those who take delight in the niceties of butchery tempered with clever one-liners that are designed to take the edge off of the horror. To everyone else the film is incessantly brutal with graphic depictions of violence against characters to whom one has grown sympathetic. Still, there are those here whose deaths are not particularly minded, even wished for based on their behavior during the initial stages of the film.

The final third of the film features two characters in full-on survival mode. Maggie (Harris) and Steve (Dyer) become the ultimate hunted game as they desperately attempt to elude capture and imminent death. Maggie is particularly fierce and proves herself to be agile and fully capable with weapons. As is always the case an exquisite female form handling herself with shotguns is terribly sexy especially when the camera lovingly hovers over her immaculate face caked in blood.

The film possesses a tremendous amount of energy both before and during the hunting sequences where the characters are driven out of their precious comfort zones and forced to fend for their lives. Most of them prove to be easy enough to capture and it’s only the final two who put up much of a fight. The group spends a time arguing amongst themselves about the best possible action to leave the cabin and get back to civilization upon the discovery that someone has been peering through Jill’s window. There is a sense for a while that the infighting is going to cause considerable damage to the participants and sully the integrity of their mission. It takes a real catastrophe such as certain death to rid them of their pretense and force them to concentrate on the problem facing them all.

There are moments during the final sequences where the film allows its audience to question the legitimacy of the Palisade corporation. It strikes one as a sinister organization who supplies weapons to anyone who needs them ostensibly including terrorists. The company is a specter that hangs over the entire film. Harris finds boxes of records regarding Russian men who may be patients or inmates featuring the company’s logo. It becomes even more sinister when several members of the group discover a prison set up in the lower regions of the building.

We learn at the end that the two girls running through the woods are Russian escorts that Steve has hired for a bit of good, clean fun.

The performances in this film are stellar throughout. Laura Harris is clearly present and focused for the duration of the film. She establishes her character’s grim determination to survive at all costs. One gets a very real sense of Maggie’s intensity which is demonstrated early in the film before she’s forced to engage in behavior that has always been a part of her but which she has kept in reserve. Maggie is a bit cold and distant for the first half of the film and it isn’t until the chase is on that she opens up and releases a torrent of emotions. Danny Dyer’s character offers some comic relief early in the film with his slightly daft mushroom trip where he temporarily freaks out and has to be led on a rope by Maggie. Dyer is convincing as a bit of a loose canon who doesn’t take the mission all that seriously. Andy Nyman plays Gordon as centered and grounded until he loses his leg and he becomes necessarily hysterical; Steve gives him some ecstasy to help with the pain and he starts blabbering to Maggie that he loves her in classic e-speak.

Overall, this film is intoxicating from beginning to end. It deftly establishes all the characters creating the potential that the audience may actually find something in them worth caring about. For the most part the characters are entirely sympathetic although there are degrees as to which some are more worth bothering over. It’s a very funny film that deals with a horrific situation that really calls for humor. The film suggests that it’s the only way to deal with such a ghastly situation as this. The nameless and mostly faceless killers are an interesting lot considering that so little is known about them and that the film refuses to disclose any information that might help the audience make a positive identification. They remain wholly other and outside the realm of proper judgement; they are ciphers who storm in and cause considerable mayhem before slinking back into the dark night. Ultimately, this film satisfies the longing for torn flesh throughout and plays like a dark fable about avoiding strange woods where sinister creatures haunt the night.