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88I prefer my horror with a chaser of wit, and Severance, a modest but very lively British import, serves it up in harsh but high style.
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The result is a cathartic hoot, relishing its own carefully doled out carnage.
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80What's more refreshing about Severance is how the movie's humor offsets the violence, and even that is pretty restrained (at least by modern standards).
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75Director and co-writer Christopher Smith, mischievously blending "The Office" with "Friday the 13th," keeps things fierce and funny enough to give Steve Carell ideas.
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75Suffice to say it's got plenty to do with corporate karma. And the word severance is more than just a double play on words - it's a triple whammy.
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75It's both very funny and very scary, and never descends to the level of spoof.
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75Compared with the recent spate of blockbuster sellouts, Severance is a worthy package, and fair compensation for time spent. Best to watch on the big screen, of course.
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75Severance still seems a few rewrites away from living up to its potential, but it's remarkable how much just a modicum of wit can spice up the standard backwoods slice-and-dice. Scaring people with a horror film is easy; entertaining them takes a little skill.
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70A winning combination of laughs and genuine shocks.
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Along with lots of pitch-dark humor, James Moran's often clever script is peppered with winks and nudges about the war on terror that helps distinguish the film from the recent spate of torture flicks.
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70A lively romp through terrain less traveled than you might think.
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70Escalating blend of black humor and grisly goings-on in the wilds of Hungary fully delivers in its latter half.
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For horror fans who crave a few laughs along with their ritual decapitations and limb severings.
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67The chintzy characters, hair-raising deaths, and one spectacular rocket-launcher joke aren't enough to give "Hostel" a run for its blood.
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67It's modestly effective at creating a mood and at critiquing both business place mores and the evils of Western hubris. But, chiefly, it's about gory scares and sniffling laughs.
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63You'll need a strong stomach, but director Christopher Smith mixes lots of laughs into the gore. Despite its predictable finish, Severance is bloody good fun.
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63Half hearted in its mockery of corporate culture and schlock. The filmmakers want to have it both ways -- the funny and the sadistic -- but rarely do so at the same time with any success.
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63Manages to mix in a few good gags with the requisite gore.
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50Definitely worth your time, if not your $9.50. In other words, wait a few months and definitely check it out as a rental.
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50Severance is a British horror-comedy that, from the get-go, has two distracting strikes against it.
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When Smith's Grand Guignol tableaux are strung together, they lack any forward momentum. Some take inspired comic flight. The rest crash to the ground and, like so much else in Severance, go splat.
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40None of the killings has any suspense, and the capital I irony -- that these people make their living selling death in small mechanical packages and munitions to the world and are now being hunted down by the same devices -- never begins to produce any results. Put it on a level with a mid-series "Halloween."
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38There are a few scares, but not enough to make up for the murky script.
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PaulineM.8Not as good as Shaun of the Dead in the comedy horror but a really good film all the same.