SEVERANCE

"Are you high Steve?"

As a reward for been the best sales teams in Europe, Palisade Defence send them to their new luxury lodge in Hungary for a team-building weekend. When the road is blocked about a mile from the lodge, manager Richard (McInnerny) decides that the team should walk the rest of the way, after a heated argument with the coach driver, and the rest of the reluctantly agree. After walking for what feels like hours, they come upon a lodge that isn't quite the lap of luxury they were expecting but they settle in for the night. When both Steve (Dyer) and Jill (Blakely) see a stranger hanging around the lodge, the group decide to call for help in the morning but as head out they realise they are walking into a trap and someone is out to kill them all.

As Hollywood continues to remake classics and Asian horror hits, Britain is becoming the place were the genre is getting a spark of imagination.

After hits like 'Dog Soldiers', '28 Days Later', 'The Descent' and 'Shawn of the Dead', there is no denying that British horror is back on the map. After ruling the roost throughout the 50s and 60s with Hammer House of Horror movies, starring genre legends Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Hollywood took over again in the 70s and 80s, creating some of the best examples of genre like 'The Exorcist', 'Halloween', 'Evil Dead', 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and 'The Shinning'. But as they created numerous knife-welding killers who slaughtered teenagers, the genre became very stale. The 90s and 00s saw Asian filmmakers reinvigorate the genre with films like 'Ringu', 'Ju-On: The Grudge' and 'The Eye' but Hollywood continued to fall away. As the new Millennium dawned they got desperate and started remaking the movies that had defined the genre in the 70s and they also got their hooks into the Asian hits that that had reinvented horror, so it was up to filmmakers outside of Hollywood to bring some originality back to the horror genre.

The British approach was to take horror back to its roots, throw in some excessive gore and then mix in some comedy. Bringing back Horror favourites like werewolves, zombies, monsters and psycho killers, the films were made with micro budgets but the utmost creativity. The injection of comedy made all the difference and made the movies hits not just in Britain but also around the world. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg set the standard with 'Shawn of the Dead' in 2004 and now 'Severance' tries to continue this.

After making not much of an impact with 'Creep' in 2004, writer/director Christopher Smith enters the horror genre again and this times gets it right, for the most part. The film is an amalgamation of an 'Office' team working training holiday, a weapon welding killer and a wilderness that is just as lethal as the killer that is after them. All of these elements come mix together to make a horror comedy but some of the ingredients taste a little stronger than the rest.

The gore and scare factors are ramped up to the maximum and with no real huge star in the cast, anyone is up for grabs. While Danny Dyer, Laura Harris, Tim McInnerny and Toby Stephens are known actors, Christopher Smith and his creative team leave you guessing all the way though as to who will survive the bloody onslaught. With the gore and scares taking most of the running time, it is the comedy that suffers. There are very funny moments, especially one during the final battle but they are very sporadic and mainly come from Danny Dyer's character Steve, who spends most of the film getting high. This doesn't distract the film from been a good horror movie but it does put pay to any comparison with the extremely funny 'Shaun of the Dead'.

'Severance' is another fine example of why Britain is becoming the most creative place for horror in the world at the moment. With the gore and scare levels pumped up to the maximum and the injection of the clever comic moments, the mix is a little uneven but horror fans will rejoice in the abundance of blood and murderous intent.

The Decent

Shaun of the Dead

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2006