Severed

Take George A. Romero's immortal horror classic "Day of the Dead"; simply replace the brainless macho military men with brainless macho woodchoppers and, ta-da, you've got "Severed". Oh, and the zombie-virus here is inflicted by genetically altered trees that got injected with a growth serum that clearly doesn't function very well. This is a watchable new horror movie with tons of splatter and a handful of effective filming locations, but it's still miles away from being any good. "Severed" completely lacks originality and tension, and I wonder if writer/director Carl Bessai deliberately endeavored to insert every possible cliché of the genre! Any cliché, you name it and "Severed" has it! From the cowardly scientist over the boisterous team-leader with a heart of gold onto the completely implausible romance sub plot, it's all there! Tyler, the son of a forestry company tycoon, is reluctantly sent to a remote testing area to find out why the tree-cutting business has stopped there. Shortly after his arrival there, he vividly discovers that the company's brand new & unethical invention to make trees grow faster turned the majority of lumberjacks into drooling zombies. Before he properly realizes it, the area is hermetically sealed of with Tyler, the remaining cutters and a handful of tree-huggers still in it. There are hundreds of zombie movies out there, and "Severed" simply isn't very memorable. It gets tedious very quick and just when you think the movie is almost over, director Bessai suddenly comes up with a whole new plot about another community of survivors that spend their days aiming guns at the zombies. The amount of gore and bloodshed is satisfying, though. Since we're dealing with lumberjacks here, the undead opponents are attacked with chainsaws, large industrial band saws and, of course, axes. For some reason, the camera makes wild spastic moves whenever there's a massacre going on and, as to be expected, there are no real shock-moments throughout the entire film. The ending is just stupid, everyone around here seems to agree on that, and the majority of the cast-members shouldn't anticipate successful acting careers. "Severed" is a weak film, but enthusiast fans of nowadays horror-smut might consider it worth the price of a rental.

I sat down to watch this film not expecting much, but I have to say that despite the Z-list cast and the over-use of the still (unfortunately) fashionable-among-filmmakers "wobblycam" (to the point where at times it's impossible to see what's happening or to whom), this wasn't a bad little zombie flick.

Aside from the aforementioned headache-inducing camera-work, the main weakness of this movie was the ending. It seemed like the scriptwriters suddenly ran out of ideas and just thought "okay we'll just wrap this up here". But the preceding 90 minutes were entertaining enough. If you enjoy the zombie sub-genre, check it out. Though perhaps rent rather than buy this one.

Please disregard most of the negative reviews here. I'm a 35 year-old horror fan, so I've been around the block and back. I LOVE horror and zombie movies... I love Romero, but also understand that Romero isn't the be all and end all (in fact watch "Last Man on Earth" and then try telling me that "Night of the Living Dead" is original ;) ).

Severed is a GREAT film - the ending is unfortunately rushed, probably due to budget, but PLEASE watch this film and enjoy it for what it is... fun, frantic and suspenseful.

The teens dissing this movie probably reckoned there weren't enough sh!t Saw-style death scenes.

Well done, filmmakers... I'll be looking out for your other efforts.

This film surprisingly has many good young actors in it. The character development however is awful, and one is left feeling that you just don't "feel" for any of the characters. Decent production is wasted by poor dialogue , and unusually melodramatic lines.I don't mind watching a film that isn't firing on all cylinders, this one doesn't spark most of them. I must admit that I am a fan of Argento, Romero and Fulci and I expected more from this attempt at a zombie film.The formula isn't hard, give us decent acting, lots of tension,of course good effects and you're halfway here.I truly believe that most U.S. horror is being shot for the "MTV generation." At least I feel comfortable knowing that we still have some good editors, and sound production left.The camera work is the very frenetic and hand held stuff that we have been fed lately...please rent a Stedicam! At least.

This is just another poorly made zombie movie ripping off the great George A.Romero. And even though the ripping off is bad enough this movie offers nothing original or even very interesting along the way.

While working in a remote logging camp some workers become zombies after being exposed to some sort of experimental tree growth hormone that the logging company is testing.Yeah I know.This may be the silliest reason any zombie movie has ever used to explain why people are turning into zombies.

The writing is about par for a lousy horror movie,some of the actors are decent and some are just awful.The plot is just stupid.This zombie outbreak is very local yet the people in this movie decide to hold up in a rundown shack and later in a fenced compound rather than just hike out of the woods.The special effects are lackluster and unimaginative.Most of the zombie killing is done off screen with blood spraying all over the people doing the zombie slaying.I guess it's easier to spray fake looking blood in someone's face than to fool with showing all the zombie heads being bashed in.Most of the gore in this movie consists of a few bland shots of zombies eating what look to be hunks of Jello off of torsos.People run around and fall in the mud a lot in this movie--I guess the director thought muddy clothes counted as a special effect.

Needless to say this movie is not one to add to your horror collection.It is just another boring and weak horror movie in a long line of such movies.