Catshanghai

Severance is a dark satire poking fun at modern British corporate culture. Palisade’s motley crew of sale staff have been busy touring Eastern Europe selling weapons to their former enemies. As a reward for their hardwork, they are taken to the Hungarian countryside for a weekend teambuilding retreat.

The first half of the film plays like The Office. There is the ineffectual boss spinning platitudes from a management textbook. He is surrounded by a dysfunctional collection of colleagues including a strung out clubber, a sexy neurotic chain smoker, an argumentative feminist, an arrogant ex-public schoolboy, an earnest shy African man and a bearded cub scout who tucks his trousers into his socks.

This buildup sets you up for the fall, because you as the viewer enjoys spending time with these characters and seeing them for all their flaws and comic mishaps. Then it lurches into horror as the Palisade team begin to get mamed and killed by the weapons they have been selling. One minute you are laughing out loud and the next you are hiding in horror behind your cushion.

Viewers are going to draw similarities to Hostel and Wolf Creek, but it is not as nasty and exploitative as these other films. A good choice of soundtrack injects a little bit of romantic levity into the proceedings so you can go to bed afterwards without too many nightmares.