Severance

UK / Germany, 2006. Directed by Christopher Smith. Danny Dyer, Laura Harris, Tim McInnerny, Babou Ceesay, Andy Nyman, Claudie Blakley, Toby Stephens.

Wittily titled horror comedy from director Christopher Smith which sees a group of office workers on a team-building weekend somewhere in Eastern Europe. They are members of the salesforce for Palisade Defence, a multi-national company specialising in weaponry. All are recognisable “types” – ingratiating but ineffectual manager (McInnerny), feisty female supervisor (Harris), gadget geek dullard (Nyman), cynical know-all (Stephens), irreverent laddish pothead (Dyer), plain female with conscience (Blakley) and reliable, sensible right-hand man (Ceesay). The group finds itself stranded and at the mercy of a number of very unpleasant and aggressive guerrilla-style woodsmen. One by one most of the characters come to a grisly end and along the way the horror is peppered with grim humour, together with a few political points presumably intended as satire but which lack real bite. In fact the humour often sits uncomfortably alongside the gore, especially when the film ventures into horror/torture territory. Shaun Of The Dead showed how well horror and comedy can be mixed but here the mix is only partially successful. Nevertheless it will amuse many and there are enough gags to keep the audience satisfied.