As far as I’m concerned, the term Team Building is an oxymoron – like fun run, or military intelligence or any sentence that juxtaposes the word good with the name of a religious affiliation. I’ve mentioned before that I am not a Joiner, and the idea of a Team Building weekend is so completely excruciating for me that I’d really rather stick pins in my eyes. Hence I found the small Brit film Severance starring some thesps, a red head, an oik, and a beautiful blonde Canadian, really rather entertaining.
The premise is that the marketing department of an International Arms Dealer is on a promotional tour in Eastern Europe and stops off at an isolated mountain lodge for some fun with paintball and other lekker japes. But they haven’t factored in the former inhabitants of the premises – a bunch of militarized psychos who proceed to hunt them down in the most brutal manner.
It’s billed as a horror-comedy, which doesn’t quiiiite work – almost, just not quite. Because though it does take some simple movie conventions (the hero with his foot on a landmine, for instance) and flips them for laughs, it’s actually much more scary than amusing. Severance filmed in Hungary – probably using their now famous film incentive programme, I would think, and the rest of the dosh and therefore the locations came from the Isle of Man.