The Big Picture
Who doesn’t love some British humor? The United Kingdom has produced some of the world’s most beloved comedies, from the legendary Monty Python films to world-renowned (and American-remade) sitcoms like The Office. One of Britain’s most underrated black comedies is both hilarious and genuinely terrifying: Christopher Smith’s 2006 horror-comedy Severance. Yes, before that title was more associated with Apple TV’s popular thriller, it was assigned to a cult-classic and criminally underappreciated slasher comedy starring British buffoon character actor Danny Dyer.
The film is in dire (pun intended) need of a revisit these days as well, as it’s a rare example of being daringly unique and oddball within the horror genre. It’s also perhaps the biggest golden example of a comedy-horror being successful within both the genres it attempts to be, as it’s both hilarious and harrowing in equal measure. The jokes are brilliantly layered and delivered with the English wit of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s “Cornetto Trilogy,” while at the same time, not once holding back from the horrifying brutality of the 70s exploitation horror films that Severance takes inspiration from.
‘Severance’ Combines ‘Office’ Humor With Slasher Horror
A quick way to describe Severance in a nutshell would be: “The Office meets Friday the 13th.” This was what marketing campaigns in Britain would call the film at the time and pretty much every critic who has reviewed the film makes a similar comparison. It is very true though, as the cast of characters and general banter of the film (before the killing starts) could almost trick you into thinking that it’s a “road trip special” of Britain’s beloved workspace sitcom. Severance tells the tale of a group of office workers going on a team-building weekend together under the obligation of their weird, awkward manager. No, he’s not Micheal Scott or David Brent, but he’s quite close, much like the rest of the characters can be compared to the office space archetypes we all know and love from The Office.
Character-driven, hilarious dialogue and shenanigans ensue, leading you to almost forget the inbound horror that the film’s cold open sets up: A man and two women run through the forest, getting caught in what appear to be animal traps. The women attempt to escape the hole they’ve fallen into while the man gets snatched up into a tree by a rope. Suddenly, a sinister, trenchcoat-wearing figure appears with a knife and guts the man, letting him bleed out and choke on his own blood. From this brutal butchering of a terrified man, we suddenly cut to the daytime. The whimsically pleasant folk track “Itchykoo Park” by The Small Faces starts playing, with the happy-go-lucky lyrics “It’s all too beautiful!” repeating over and over. This leads directly into the introduction of our cast of characters on their bus ride to their weekend getaway, with their distinctly British deadpan, comedic conversations lulling us into a sense of relaxation. This sudden shift between gory sadism and pleasant fun sets the oddball tone that the rest of the film so masterfully carries throughout.
What Is ‘Severance’ About?
The group of office workers is a Marketing team for an international weapon manufacturer called Palisade Defense, and they’re on a business trip through Eastern Europe. While passing through Hungary, they’re invited by their boss (the man we just saw get disemboweled) to join him for a team-building exercise weekend over at a mountainside lodge owned by the company. And so, this team of seven co-workers begrudgingly join together on a bus ride far into the depths of the Hungarian forest when they all would clearly much rather be far away from each other. It’s that typical set-up we would see in episodes of The Office, where our cast of characters with clashing personalities is forced into a situation together where things will inevitably go wrong… Except here, the wild card is a bloodthirsty murderer we know to be waiting in the depths of the forest, not a Michael Scott social faux pax.
We won’t spoil much more as the twists and turns that the film takes are well worth watching blind, but in summary, Severance remains feeling like a The Office holiday special for a convincingly long amount of time by continuously tricking the viewer with horror red herrings that turn into lighthearted gags, such as fake-out slasher origin stories or weird happenings being put down to the effects of drugs. Until the pin drops that is, when the slasher from the opening makes his sadistic, beheading return. Once “shit hits the fan,” the film turns brutal, gruesome, and grimy, leaving behind the cheeky sensibilities of office humor and replacing them with a mean-spirited brutality so harsh, so violent and vile, that you would think that Eli Roth suddenly walked on set and did a hostile takeover behind the scenes.
‘Severance’s Humor Is Just as Strong as Its Horror
Horror comedy is very much an acquired taste when it comes to horror subgenres, and a really hard genre to make work on top of that. For a lot of people, it can be quite odd or even twisted to try and find humor in the sort of situations horror films explore, situations usually involving death, suffering, and grievous bodily harm. For that reason, most comedy horrors that want to be funny will sacrifice being truly scary to not dampen the mood too much before the laughs come. Besides the Scream franchise, there are not that many horror classics that are as equally well-known for their sense of humor as their scares, which is why it’s such a crime that Severance is so damn underrated.
Severance could quite possibly be one of the greatest examples of a horror-comedy in cinema, and it’s easy to explain why: It’s not just funny, it’s hilarious, and it’s not just scary, it’s terrifying. The film gets genuinely brutal once the masked, trenchcoat-wearing killer shows up at the lodge at night. Although some jokes are still subtly delivered between scares, the second half of Severance goes almost entirely serious as its characters are brutalized, traumatized, tortured, and murdered. It’s truly harrowing stuff, made all the more disturbing because these characters were just making us pleasantly chuckle a few minutes before.
The greatest source of humor is definitely the character interactions and behaviors of the cast. Again, these people are your average office archetype parodies: You have your cold, detached nihilist, your smug, snooty salesman, and your nerdy, boot-licking manager’s pet. There’s also the goodie-two-shoes, resentful type, your awkward, verbally clumsy manager; and of course, the office clown and enjoyer of recreational drugs. Everyone has met at least one of these archetypes, and the script and acting lend themselves to relatable conversations and observations between the characters. The main comic relief character, stoner slacker Steve (Dyer), in particular, is just a powerhouse of charisma and comedy. Dyer plays Steve as both douchey and sympathetic, boisterous but with a soft side, and constantly high. (One of the funniest gags in the first act is Steve’s increasingly intense hallucinations from eating magic mushrooms.)
They’re innocent, jolly good chuckles of jokes that are suitable for daytime TV while also being deadpan and subtle. And the humor in no way slows down once shit hits the fan. In one scene, the killer gags and ties one of the characters to a tree douses her in gasoline, and goes to set her on fire with a match. She screams for help, but the match doesn’t light, and the killer throws the matchbox down in frustration. She sighs through her gag in relief, thinking she’s spared the human barbeque, only for the killer to pull a ridiculously giant flamethrower out of his backpack, shrugging at her like a dastardly prankster and setting her ablaze.
Much like the scene of Grandad not having the strength to lift his hammer in Texas Chain Saw Massacre, this moment contrasts horrific sadism with a monotonous inconvenience to hilarious effect, all while not once ceasing from being distressing and disturbing. Another scene involves a character getting his leg cut off and Stoner Steve trying to force the amputated leg into a mini-fridge while being so high he can barely see straight, his drug-addled mind thinking that keeping the leg cold should make it easier to re-attach. Again, it’s believably violent and disturbing, while still being twistedly funny. All in all, Severance is a painfully underrated cult classic of quintessentially British sensibilities. Its comedy is brilliantly written and meticulously constructed, and its horror is grimy, dirty, and very much of the grindhouse style. What more could you want?
Severance is available to stream in the U.S. on Amazon Prime Video.
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