| NUMB AT THE LODGE : Christopher Smith's 'Severance' [6/10] |
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 In a nutshell British comedy-horror is just about sufficiently amusing, grisly and suspenseful to pass muster, though it never quite lives up to the potential inherent in the intriguing 'The Office meets Deliverance' concept. Premise Seven mismatched employees of an international arms company (mostly British) go on a "team-building" exercise in the forested wilds of Eastern Europe. When they lose their way after an altercation with their coach-driver, blood-soaked mayhem ensues as they are hunted by masked, armed figures in the woods. Main cast Danny Dyer as magic-mushroom-munching, spliff-smoking, ecstasy-popping Cockney geezer Steve - a slightly more sympathetic version of his trademark screen persona as seen in The Football Factory, etc; Laura Harris as tougher-than-she-looks Steve's blonde American colleague Maggie; Tim McInnerny as their buttoned-down boss Richard. Behind the camera Second film from British writer-director Christopher Smith after terror-on-the-Underground shocker Creep (aka YouDon'tTube); this time he shares script duties with Jim Moran. Funded by the UK Film Council and what would seem to be a German finance company. Filmed on the Isle of Man and in Hungary with a British/Hungarian crew and cast: the two locations are seamlessly integrated via Ed Wild's high-definition digital cinematography. Nice to see so many Hungarian names in the credits; shame they all appear (incorrectly) with surnames last. Positives Nifty pre-credits sequence raises expectations to high level. Effectively switches back and forth between laughs and shocks; doesn't hold back on the bloodletting (highlight: a wincingly comic below-the-knee leg amputation); unpredictable: plays quite nimbly with our expectations and deaths often occur suddenly and unexpectedly. Cast are convincingly pissed-off/harrowed as their characters endure extremis situations. Some nifty one-liners and sick/smart visual gags (most of which pop up in the trailer). Touches of class are added by McInnerny and Toby Stephens (well-cast as a Cambridge-educated rugger-bugger type, but this relatively low-budget, low-aiming project is an odd choice for the increasingly-respected actor). Negatives Story doesn't make really much sense (some narrative threads lost among the rewrites?). Takes a bit too long to get going. Never quite as funny or scary as it thinks it is, or as it could have been with a couple more rewrites. Debts to antecedents are hard to overlook (see below). Christian Henson's score occasionally strikes an over-jaunty, too in-yer-face incongruous note (as when our heroine drops a big rock on a bad guy's head). Dodgy presentation of eastern Europeans as either (a) superstitious and argumentative, (b) big-busted 'Balkan babes' [one of whom gets to wield a machine-gun in a particularly gratuitous, director-gets-his-rocks-off moment] or (c) hulking, bestial, sadistic [think Arkans' Tigers] assassins. Opportunistically topical references abound: the company's big boss is a gung-ho, terrorist-obsessed American named 'George' (played by David Gilliam, who looks a bit like GWB). Unlikely that this bunch of characters (especially Claudie Blakley's geekily PC, social-workerish character Jill) would all work for such a dodgy arms company: and does their line of work mean they're supposed to deserve such rough treatment? Antecedents and (in-bred) half-cousins The Descent / Dog Soldiers; Shaun of the Dead / TV's The Office; Deliverance / Southern Comfort; Cabin Fever / Hostel. In fact, so much does it (coincidentally) resemble Eli Roth's torture-fest that it could easily have been titled Lodge, the location where much of the plot unfolds... You can see what they were getting at with calling the film Severance, but it doesn't quite fit the story as presented in this final version. Worth seeing if... {A} You are unwisely planning an outward-bound/corporate-bonding/paintballing event. {B} You're into this (increasingly familiar) killers-in-the-woods / Eastern-European-nasties sub-genres. {C} You can see it after a drink or two in a packed cinema. {D} You fancy an undemanding, jokey, vaguely post-modern chiller for a night in with a DVD. Neil Young 29th August, 2006 SEVERANCE : [6/10] : UK (UK/Ger) 2006 : Christopher SMITH : 96 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Empire cinema, Sunderland (UK), 29th August 2006 - public show (paid £4.00)
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