SEVERED (2005)

SEVERED (2005)
By Aine

Lumberjack zombies?! Yes, you heard right, there are lumberjack zombies in this movie, many of them in fact, and I couldn’t be happier. The zombie genre is one that is frequently tapped into because it is so easy to do: grab some friends, put mom’s old eye shadow on them, some fake blood, and poof, instant zombie. Just because it’s easy, though, doesn’t mean it should always be done. Too often lately zombie movies have become the porn of the horror genre. Severed, however, is a perfect example of just how good a zombie movie can be if you actually attempt to have a plot.

Not only does Severed bring lumberjack zombies to the front lines, it also gleefully destroys the tree-hugging environmentalists at every turn. One scene in particular seems to take great delight in the slow, blood-spurting death of a hippy girl who has chained herself to a tree. MMMM….mmmm….hippy on a stick.

I’m not sure how this happened, but somehow, genetically altered trees that grow at super speeds are to blame. Of course there is an evil corporation that wants to make big money with their super lumber. Unfortunately one of the protesters has spiked a tree, and when one of the lumberjacks attempts to cut it down, his saw hits the spike. He is severely wounded and the tree sap mixes with his blood. And that, my friends, is how you make a lumberjack zombie. Does it make sense? No. Is it new and awesome? Yes.

So as we all know, one zombie begets another, and another, the damn flesh-hungry undead just can’t keep their hands to themselves….ever. The big corporation decides to send a man to the logger camp to “see why production has stopped.” The head of the company decides to send his son. Not long after said son’s arrival at the logger camp, he is chased by many a hungry lumberjack and whisked away to safety by one of the surviving workers. He then meets up with a rag-tag group of hippies and loggers who have joined together to….cower in fear I guess. The group seems large, and we all know they will have to be thinned out, by being eaten.

Oh yes, zombie mayhem a plenty, as friends struggle to come to terms with their friends now being flesh-eating monsters, running, and eventually coming to another logger camp full of something much worse than zombies. Now a smaller number and isolated completely in a camp full of pure anarchist…ummm…lumberjacks, they must find a way out. The only problem with that is the way out is through tons of zombies and corporate entities that want this all to go away quickly and silently.

Our tiny survivor group’s decision to flee is made for them one rainy night when the inevitable happens: someone goes friggin’ crazy and let’s the zombies in. Now there’s no choice to escape. I should mention now that there is a strong black character throughout the film, not at all different from the original Night of the Living Dead. This point in the movie is his time to shine, to be truly heroic, and he does it well. Come to think of it, Severed is very much like Night of the Living Dead. It manages to portray the same horror and desperation, the same political points, the same outright loss of all hope. I won’t give away the ending, it’s too special and I know you’d be happier seeing it for yourself. I would really love to see more new horror come out like this instead of just being slopped together. At the end of Severed, my heart was heavy, which just doesn’t happen with zombie movies anymore, and it’s high time.