British director Christopher Smith works from a wickedly-twisted script (co-written by himself and James Moran) that follows a group of European sales representatives for an international weapons contractor called Palisade Defence on a "team building" pleasure trip in Hungary. They are supposed to be staying at a spa built by the company, but, after their bus is halted by a fallen tree, things go awry. They wind up at a rundown building with Palisade signage ... but it is clearly not a fancy retreat.

Severance does a terrific job of establishing characters that we can all recognize from either current or past jobs. There's the by-the-book, all-for-one, rah-rah boss, here played by Tim McInnerny (Notting Hill). We've all worked for a guy like this. At one point he says, "I can't spell success without 'u.' " Get it? There's also the suck-up assistant, Billy (Babou Ceesay); earnestly nerdy accountant Gordon (Andy Nyman); the good-looking golden boy, Harris (Toby Stephens from Die Another Day); chatty brunette Jill (Claudie Blakley, last seen in Pride & Prejuidice); casual drug user Steve (Danny Dyer from The Business); and sharp-as-a-tack blonde Maggie (played by Laura Harris from The Faculty and Fox's 24).

This is a dysfunctional group, constantly arguing, sniping, debating and conspiring -- just like in the average office. Once they've arrived at the ramshackle building in the heart of some Hungarian forest in the middle of nowhere, they sit down to dinner. Accountant Gordon has found a fresh meat pie that he pops into the oven and begins serving up. They all start to offer theories about how Palisade might have used the old lodge. These over-the-top tales -- one involving vampires and another, a Cinemax-style soft-porn sequence worthy of Russ Meyer -- are shot imaginatively and with a snarky sense of humor.

The silly storytelling ends, however, when someone comes across a human tooth in their meal. They quick figure out that trouble has found them, and soon they are getting picked off one-by-one by an unknown killer. The deaths are far more clever than in your average teen horror pic. Early in the film, ace salesman Harris describes the process of beheading in detail. He claims that when Marie Antoinette was guillotined, she was able to look back up at her body for a few seconds before brain death occurred. I probably don't need to tell you how he dies, but he finds out he was right about Antoinette with a funny sight gag.

The dialogue in Severance is razor-sharp. In describing how to pick up a British girl, Harris tells a co-worker, "English broads aren't complicated. You buy her a Bacardi Breezer, and she'll ride you like Seabiscuit." This is a bitterly sarcastic group, and they are at their deadpan-best when faced with death. This is the kind of movie where a guy loses a leg in a bear trap and is given a tab of Ecstasy to help with the pain. I can't think of another film where a one-legged man is both inappropriately professing his unspoken love for a co-worker and bleeding to death. It's one of many killer gags that elevate this little flick far above recent Hollywood horror movies like Vacancy (Sony) and The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Fox Atomic).

Severance is a good time because, chances are, a person just like the co-worker you hate will wind up getting their comeuppance.

FantasyMoguls.com Lowdown on Severance
Original FantasyMoguls.com Projections for Severance were for a 6.2 IMDb User Rating and $2.1 million in total domestic box office. Steve Mason's revised projections based on seeing the film and reviewing its updated release plan are as follows:
Box Office: $3.9 million
IMDb User Rating: 6.7
Top 5: 0 points
PTA: 4 points