Saturday, November 10, 2007

Ooh, i get high (with a little help from my friends)

After a shitty day, i did what i had to do, lifted my mood and put on Severance. Always wanted to watch it but somehow never got around to it. And what the hell, it got me cracking up and freaking out!

The movie revolves around the sales team of Palisade Defence, a multi-national firearms corporation and their team-building weekend retreat in the Hungarian woods. After a series of unfortunate events that includes but is not limited to being abandoned by their Hungarian bus driver, getting lost in the woods, a bad mushroom trip, seeing strange figures in the woods and losing a leg to a bear trap, the team realise there are some twisted killers on the loose and blood starts splattering.

The best thing i like about this movie is that it is so hilarious. In terms of humour and brains, this script is one level higher than the usual comedy-horror. Maybe it's the fact that it makes fun of office workers and the stereotypes, or the stoner humour by way of Danny Dyer's character Steve, or the irony that their somewhat awkward, geeky yet obnoxious superior Richard eventually steps on a landmine manufactured by Palisade themselves.

Things start getting gory 30 minutes into the film, while still keeping it funny, with a lot of blood, body torture, a rolling head that is conscious for a while (fitting nicely with an earlier conversation between owner of said head and another colleague), etc.

The cast did a splendid job with the acting, portraying the office geeks, prudes, arrogant bastards, slackers, etc perfectly. For such a suspenseful movie, it wouldn't have worked with substandard acting or unconvincing horrified expressions.

It's also wonderful how the identity of the perpetuators is never firmly concluded, but the film does provide some theories and hints while leaving most parts to the viewer's interpratation.

Seriously good - bloody funny, rather original plot, interesting characters, laughter-inducing dialogue, gruesome, what else does it take for a movie like this to work?

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

You and I, could touch other

Sleep is what happens when your head is at its heaviest, hence you nod off.