Movie review: Severance

Wow, a bloody throwback to the familiar slasher movies of yore -- titles like the Friday the 13th juggernaut and the Scream franchise -- Severance spins the genre British-style. Tiffani and I agreed to rent it, consulting on the phone from the video store, based solely on what was available online via Apple's FrontRow. The trailer appeared to weigh the movie heavier on the humor than the gore, and sold us thusly. Considering the gushing blood of the first scene, we knew we were in for it, and hoped the movie the kids were watching upstairs held their attention and kept them from creeping down the steps.

A team-building office retreat to the outback of eastern Europe is the excuse for the seven ensemble characters to be lost and making bad decisions in the woods. Some of the scenes are outright funny -- without spoiling much, perhaps the best are the paintball extremes -- and some of the gore originates with humor, but one can tell that the director and writer were fans of the genre. Clever foreshadowing, office worker cliches -- a Dilbert-like witless boss, a brown noser, the overly competent and sympathetic assistant, and a stoner Cockney character with all the best lines -- and witty British banter make Severance an extension of the American slasher movies that preceded it, rather than derivative of them.