TIFF Report: Severance Review
A huge step forward from his debut film Creep Christopher Smith's Severance is certainly destined to become an instant cult classic. Smartly written with a crackling pace and engaging cast the film manages to be bloody, horrific, tragic, and hysterically funny all in one package. With Severance Smith immediately places himself in the top tier of genre film makers working today, right alongside his fellow countrymen Neil Marshall and Edgar Wright.
The office drones of major arms manufacturer Palisades Defence have been sent to Hungary for that most dreaded of events: the office bonding weekend. The company has just purchased a new "luxury lodge" in the Eastern European woods and the UK branch office are the first to be sent, whether they want to go or not. There is the determined but incompetent boss Richard, insanely cheerful brown kiss ass Gordon, perpetually high Steven, American office hottie Maggie, and an assortment of other office drones. Abandoned by their bus driver when they reacha blockage in the main road the group sets off on foot, arriving at a ramshackle building with an assortment of Palisade files in the basement and, assuming they've arrived at their destination, they settle in for the night. But when strange men are seen peering in through the windows at night tensions rise and the decision is made to leave the following morning. But morning is far too late ...
With its blend of awkward humor and story of angry hill dwellers wreaking vengeance on the arms company that provided for the devastation fo their country Severance truly deserves the The Office meets Deliverance tag that has been applied to it and as odd as that fusion sounds on paper it works fantastically well on screen. Smith does a simply masterful job of confounding and subverting expectations, continually setting up jokes that pay off well down the road and playing a game of bait and switch to build the tension by constantly setting up expected, conventional pay offs just to pull the rug out from under them and deliver something better. The film is drenched in irony with little dashes of social satire all of it playing with an absurdist tone greatly enhanced by a soundtrack that sees characters strung up and gutted to the sounds of cheery little dance numbers and lilting waltzes.
Key to Smith's success here is a hard and fast rule that guided the writing process: the humor must be kept seperate from the horror. As was the case with Shaun of the Dead and their 'no funny zombies' mantra, the humor comes from the character's response to the scenario, never from the scenario itself. The pain is real, as are the sense of loss and anger. There is no nodding to the camera, no dropping of silly one liners, nothing of that sort. As a result Smith is able to strike a balance between the two elements that drive his film, creating realistic characters that the audience can empathise with and invest in which in turn heightens both the comedy and the horror.
Severance tears along at a blistering pace, laying on both blood and laughs in liberal quantities. Smartly self aware without being self referential it is a film that expertly manipulates the basic rules of its chosen genres to create something truly memorable, something so smartly written and performed that I fully expect repeat viewings to reveal gags and layers of meaning missed on the first pass. Very highly recommended.
