Severance is a good office comedy, a decent slasher, and an excellent, enjoyable film when those two halves mesh.
An example of this: A motley collection of office workers from a weapon manufacturing company have gathered in a remote lodge for a team-building exercise. They’ve begun to share scary stories about the “true nature” of the lodge – one posits that it’s a once-abandoned mental hospital, now haunted by the inmates’ crazed spirits; another suggests it’s actually a prison for deranged, murder-hungry former soldiers from the region; a third suggests it was a sex hospital.
Each story is accompanied by flashbacks, filmed in a range of styles (The Cabinet of Dr Calgari-esque silent film for the first) featuring the actors telling the story. It’s hilarious and creative, plus it deftly skewers the scene from countless horror films where (invariably around a campfire) the protagonists share the villain’s backstory that they somehow know.
It’s not always this great: I would’ve liked for the slasher back half to be as intelligent as the first half (more developed villains would have helped a lot) – it does have some very funny moments though! These are minor complaints; Severance is a fun horror-comedy worth your time.
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