Watch it at Amazon
9 out of 10 people found the following review useful: The Revenge of the Living Dead Woods, 2 December 2006 Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls
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.
8 out of 11 people found the following review useful: Entertaining Zombie Movie, 7 May 2008 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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")
9 out of 13 people found the following review useful: lifeless zombie movie, gets duller and duller, 22 August 2006 Author: HEFILM from French Polynesia
28 Days later in the woods, or in Canada. Good location and interesting lumbering footage at first, then the main character and some of the zombies act rather stupidly, then everything starts to sort of seem like the same scene over and over and you aren't even half way to the end of it all. Characters are happy to find a truck, try to leave, can't, then go back to call on the radio for help.Then they find another truck easily even though the first truck was supposed to be the only one. It's stuff like this, the movie perpetuates rather than develops, no one takes any logical approach to trying to save themselves.Then the whole things grinds to a halt in the middle and suddenly they meet a bunch of new characters so we can have people sit around and talk and talk and wait and wait and wait.Extremely grainy looking, the highlights on actors faces crawl with grain. Actors are okay, zombies seem very very hungry but the attack scenes all look like someone watched Saving Private Ryan too many times, which is easy to do I suppose.Zombie fans will know all the rip off moments in this film, none are homages this just doesn't have much to offer after the novelty of the location runs out. Also slowing things down are several, we are so sad we just hacked a zombie to death for 2 minute type of scenes. Great drama this is not, please stop stopping to try to make us feel their pain at killing zombies? Canadian tax shelter dollars again at work, like the old days, result is pretty dam dull. Movie seems really long finally grinds to a halt right at the magic number 93 minutes. One of those shortest lengths a movie can be to be sold as a feature. It's a long ass 93 minutes.
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Exquisite scenery… to bad about the bloody mess though., 27 October 2007 Author: lost-in-limbo from the Mad Hatter's tea party.
Bahumbug. After the initial set-up I was thinking that it looked liked it was going to be competent and hopefully amusing low-budget Indie horror effort. My perception changed when the jerky, in-your-face camera work came to the party. Why do that! There's better ways to get the adrenaline pumping. It was like the person behind the camera was having a mental fit, and it did become aggravating and hard to make-out what was happening. And the story just couldn't escape its formulaic staples and messy structure, despite a surprisingly effective conclusion that I didn't see coming. Still I was left unsatisfied. To bad that it sets up one vanilla flavoured, over-used cliché after another and then it drags on. Then when you thought it couldn't get anymore the same, they chuck in another sub-plot that is just as worthless and poorly drawn up. Even the clunky script leaves a lot to be desired about the token characters and their rash reactions. Pretty much the premise goes onto steal ideas from other horror movies. It wants to be serious, but the over-the-top nature of its erratic mayhem and many unintentionally laughable sequences destroy that aspect. The film has a slick look with beautiful location choices, and Carl Bessai's tight direction is dry, but it's undone by the overall execution where it succumbs to repetition and static build-ups. It seemed to want to rely on some extreme blood splashing about, and having everything move so fast. But the shocks are weak, and the suspense is never there. I thought there were some fine-tuned performances amongst the slack-jaw ones though. Nothing great, but adequate. The music surprised because it was one of the few things that clicked with its eerie chimes in a nicely arranged harmonious score.
7 out of 10 people found the following review useful: Stopped it after 50 minutes..., 13 October 2006 Author: fyrekracker from United States
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.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Dreary and derivative zombie film, 27 February 2009 Author: t-birkhead from United Kingdom
I had hopes for this film, which sadly it did not really live up to. It puts up a good effort and though unoriginal, takes its inspiration from good sources, but ultimately does not succeed in creating much more than a kinda lame, vaguely watchable but unimpressive time. The plot sees experimentation on trees give rise to a zombie outbreak, and the son of the head of the logging company involved heads into the forest to find out whats going on when contact is lost. Hooking up with a bunch of loggers and anti logging protesters, the film then becomes about survival. The film seems to be sourced from a number of superior films, with the final block somewhat reminiscent of 28 Days Later. It also has the unfortunate recent staple of shaking the camera around like a mad thing during the zombie attacks, which is perhaps the main thing that sunk the film for me. The performances are fair enough at best, the script is OK if predictable, and the photography has a nice bleak look to it, but the film is not only fatally low on gore, but the majority of the zombie attacks are ineptly filmed and irritating to watch. The film denies the viewer even the satisfaction of clear sights of people being dragged away screaming to their doom and there are only a few shots of innard munching on the already dead, certainly none of the fun nastiness of any of the classic zombie films. The film didn't even need to be especially gruesome but the crazy shaky cam work ruins a lot of supposedly exciting scenes. By the end, I really wasn't that interested in the film, nothing is surprising, there is little depth and the characters aren't intriguing enough to carry the film. Aside from the characters of Tyler, the executives son and Mac, the head of the loggers, nicely played by Paul Campbell and Julian Christopher respectively none of the characters are even very sympathetic either. The main environmentalist is kinda lame and there is a character called Carter who is eminently punchable throughout. There are a few gruesome bullet wounds to keep this just above the threshold of inordinately anaemic, but it doesn't do too much good. If you can get around the poor camera work in some of the scenes there is some fun to be had and there are a few cool moments splashed over the course of the film but in the end I found this to be a pretty weak film. Not terrible, but still not a film that I can recommend, sadly.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Nothing New/Nothing Different, 24 December 2006 Author: Santhosh Krishanmoorthy from United States
Same old story line with a bad ending makes up Severed. If you have not seen a zombie movie before (in very unlikely case) then you might enjoy the suspense and horror. Otherwise one can pretty much say what is going to happen next! But it is not horrible, better than many movies, with different settings Don't except lot from this as you will be little disappointed especially with the ending which was done in a hurry (may be since it is a low budget, there was no more money left!) I find hard to understand that at the end when Zombies try to enter the protected area not even a single soul was put on guard for the gates, with all the weapons they have, everyone was sleeping as if they are in warmth of their home!Can be tried once and that's about it.3 out of 10 for me
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: lame movie, 21 October 2006 Author: lilmenso101 from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
this movie happened to be on-demand and i was bored and decided to rent it. That was a big mistake. Not only was this movie lacking in story but also in special effects. The trailer for this movie made it seem so cool and pretty entertaining but i had wished i had stopped there. The ending scene of this movie was perhaps one of the worst i have ever seen. It is way to dark and jumpy to even know who is being killed exactly and doesn't even give you an answer as to what is the outcome of the outbreak. I am a huge fan of the horror movie genre, and i know not to have huge expectations of great movies when watching one but even this movie let me down. I just want people to know it is better left at the preview rather than wasting two hours of your life that you will never get back. Go rent dawn of the dead if you want a zombie movie. I hope this wasn't to leave an opening for a sequel because that would be a great waste of money. 1/10 awful movie
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful: New edition to the Old Fashioned Zombie Genre, 29 December 2006 Author: jake-179 (jakeb610@aol.com) from VEGAS
This movie is not as bad as you might expect! I liked it! It is very much in the style of the old fashioned zombie movies of the late 1970's and early 1980's. Movies come to mind like Fulci's "Zombie" and Romero's "Dawn of the Dead." If you are a fan of basic zombie movies, you will enjoy this movie. The script is pretty good, and I liked the conflict amongst the characters involved. Tension between the living and the constant horrific attacks of the undead make for an involving movie. Plenty of blood, good gore effects, and convincing zombie make up are all more than I expected from a low budget zombie flick! Of course, like all low budget zombie movies, this movie has it's flaws. That is to be expected with this genre. But the biggest problem I have with this movie is the fact that it just suddenly ENDS! The movie is going along great, the tension is building, the terror is escalating, and then...ROLL CREDITS! No resolution, no apotheosis. I was expecting more from the ending, but it just suddenly stopped. It didn't seem to me that it would have been all that hard to end this movie. For example: The girl thinks her boyfriend has been chomped by the zombies, goes to the road and is rescued by a passing truck, and at the last second, her boyfriend appears from the woods! He hops in the truck, they kiss and ride off to safety. There ya go, the classic "Freedom to Live" ending. But maybe they ran out of film or something? I don't know. Anyway, if you are a zombie fan, you will probably like this movie. So go rent it!
9 out of 16 people found the following review useful: Very Bloody, Very good., 18 December 2005 Author: Ash from Australia
Here's a little zombie gem with a difference, we know exactly what turns these humans into zombies to start with. A multi - national logging firm is experimenting on a remote island with scientists altering the genetic makeup of trees to produce a faster yield. Our story comes about as a group of protesters booby-trap a tree in the path of a logging crew, and the sap released is highly infectious when mixed into human blood. When all contact is lost with the crew, the CEO of the firm sends his son in to investigate. While his son is finding out what went wrong, the lab finds out the hard way they are responsible for the accident. The story then follows the son as he tries to find what's left of the crew and protesters as flesh easting zombies soon start taking over the island, while the CEO isolates and covers up the whole episode.This is a very good movie, very gore ridden and back to basics zombie stuff. Our zombies here moan, walk like they have sticks wedged up their butts and are very mindless to the tasks at hand. No-one in particular stands out in the cast as everybody has a good set of strengths and weakness's. If you like your zombie movies bloody, this is for you. The cast doesn't mind wearing blood everywhere as they fight their way out of one dangerous situation to the next. While there are not good close-ups of bodies been torn apart like Romero would have, splatter is everywhere and no-one is spared. The plot is fairly tight and the only real problem I have is the shaken camera used quite often is off-putting. Severed is a nice little movie that doesn't take itself too seriously and will find an audience among the zombie fans out there.
Add another review
