Severance

They trudge through the Hungarian forest, viewing the circumstances through their own personal filters (middle-management claptrap, toadyism, drug haze, social ineptitude, nascent insanity, corporate conformity and — rarest of the rare — basic common sense). They find a building that they take as the company lodge, but uncover files that evidence its earlier uses: insane asylum, prison, Nazi torture chamber. Their internecine bickering turns to uneasy awareness of the forces around them, as they uncover some buried history about Palisade itself.

Unsurprisingly, these purveyors of sophisticated weapons of mass destruction find themselves on the receiving end of some rudimentary weapons of individual destruction. Methods of execution are varied and inventive, and there’s no shortage of blood. It’s totally derivative and hackneyed, but grudgingly redeemed by some pretty good performances, some clever ideas, some snappy editing and a total lack of pretension. If you can take the gore, Severance can be a guilty pleasure.

But I have to ask: It was a team-building weekend, right? Why didn’t they just join together and move the damned tree?