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 have seen worse in my time, what initially got my attention on this one was on the back of the DVD, it said the special effects were created by the same studio that did the Final Destination FX so I thought at least I would get decent gore fx, well I was disappointed that most of the bloody fx were just a lot of chunky spraying blood in the face kind of stuff, almost all the zombie biting scenes were just them clamping down on odd sections of the body with just a little blood around the mouth, you never actually see them pull off pieces of flesh, there were maybe two shots of the zombies feasting on a body, those ones were okay but the shaky camera made it difficult to see much detail, the overall film isn't bad and it kept me interested and not bored, however it is a "zombie flick" it just lacked in the gore score.

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.

Another zombie movie with a different twist, tree huggers and lumber jacks join forces protect themselves from the undead and the corporation that put them in the line of fire. The CEO of a lumber company sends his son to check on a camp that mysteriously stopped sending wood out of the deep forest. Tyler is sent out by his father to a lumber camp that is too quiet. Tyler falls upon zombies and some survivors and they try to escape the area while avoiding the bite, and killing zombies. The company then discovers that the zombies were caused by their own experiments to induce faster tree growth. The only question is, who will survive? Camera work much like 28 days later, jerky and too close in during the action scenes. Zombies are a cross between 28 days later and night of the living dead, slow but loud and growly. Many of the cast are solid character actors who help make the movie more palatable. If you don't like zombies, skip this. Otherwise it is worth the time.

In a remote Canadian forest, a group of protesters raise a manifestation against the deforesting. When one worker uses his chainsaw to saw a large tree, its sap drops on his body and he immediately becomes a zombie. When the senior management of the company does not receive any information about the production, the owner and chairman sends his son Tyler (Paul Campbell) to the location to investigate what is happening. Tyler sees both the protester's camp and the sawmill completely abandoned and sooner he finds that the area is surrounded by zombies. He meets a group of survivors leaded by the foreman Mac (Paul Campbell), the protester Rita (Sarah Lind) and the coward biologist Carter (JR Bourne), and Carter explains that he was ahead of a genetic project to increase and improve the production of trees in the area, and the experiment unexpectedly had gone wrong transforming human beings into flesh-eater zombies. Their fight for survival begins.

"Severed" is an entertaining zombie movie, with an original and good beginning. The lead characters are well developed along the story, and with exception of Mac and Tyler, the others are basically scum. The plot point is the revelation of Rita that she had spiked the tree, but the movie becomes dull and boring when the survivors meet Anderson's team. The open conclusion is also very frustrating; maybe the intention of the writer is to give a hook for an unnecessary sequel, but it dos not work. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Infectados" ("Infected")