Severance (2006) is a British comedy horror film, written by James Moran, directed by Christopher Smith, and starring Danny Dyer and Laura Harris. In 2009, media interest in the film was revived following the alleged copycat murder of a UK teenager.
The film opens with George (David Gilliam) and two women running through the woods. The women fall into a large pit trap while George, after refusing to help them, continues running only to be caught in a snare. As George hangs helplessly, a masked man approaches and disembowels him with a knife.
What is later revealed as some days prior to this, the European Sales division of Palisade Defence are on a bus to a team-building weekend at a "luxury lodge" in the Mátra Mountains of Hungary. When a fallen tree blocking the road halts the bus's progress, manager Richard (Tim McInnerny) tells the bus driver to take a dirt road through the woods. The driver refuses and, after some heated words in Hungarian, drives off leaving the group to walk the remaining distance to the lodge.
Eventually the group reaches the lodge, which is old and in serious disrepair. They argue that this cannot be the luxury lodge they have been told about. Richard attempts to convince them this is the correct lodge. The group decide to enter, but mostly because they are tired and weary. When searching for the generator, Harris (Toby Stephens) discovers a file cabinet full of cryptic Palisade documents, written in Russian. The group discusses the ...
