Review Home /
Film
Severed: Forest of the Dead
- Genre: Zombie
- Release Year: 2005
- Director: Carl Bessai
- Writer: Carl Bessai, Travis McDonald
- Running Time: 93min
- Rating: R (flesh eating, tree hugging)
- Reviewed by: UncleDrax on Sun 27 Apr 08
Official Blurb:
When a forestry company's profit-driven decision to genetically engineer trees goes horribly wrong, a mismatched group of loggers and environmental activists become ravenous flesh-eating zombies. And although a few uninfected survivors remain, their chances of getting out of the wilderness alive are as remote as the forest itself. An ensemble cast stars in this undead gore fest that makes a run-in with a wood chipper seem tame.
Review:
Like alot of people that have seen this, I was expecting it to be as bad as the previous title I watched (Night of the Sorcerers.. oh gah!). Bluntly, I was wrong.. this is actually a really good movie.
The setting of this film is a remote Canadian forestry camp. By remote, I mean you have to drive 6 hours to get to town. Keeping the loggers busy is a camped out group of tree-hugging environmental activitists. I don't mean tree-hugging as an insult here.. I mean they chain themselves to trees. I don't need to tell the reader what will happen if you chain yourself to a tree when the zombies come out, do I? The Company is also using sections to conduct experiments to make trees grow faster, and thus more profitable.
All of these elements combine early on with a logger goes to cut down one of these research trees. The tree, spiked by the Activitists, causes the sap-covered chainsaw to get kicked back right into the logger chest, saw first. Once the strange sap from the experimental tree enters the loggers bloodstream, it's zombie time.
When the camp isn't heard from for a few days, the Companies heir-apparent, Tyler (Paul Campbell) is dispatched to check it out. What he discovers is a small group of environmentalists, lead by Rita (Sarah Lind), and loggers, led by Mac (Julian Christopher), held up together in a small shack. When they organize and attempt to make an escape in Tyler's truck, they find that The Company has enacted a containment procedure, not making it easy for the cast to escape from the forest.
What follows is a series of events following this unlikely band as they move to find a way out of the forest and back to civilization.
The zombies are well done, and are sort of like 'normal pace shamblers'. They aren't as slow as what you'd expect for a shambler, but aren't near the running zombies that many modern 'zombie' films have.
The action sequences are shot in the same style you'd get in 'Gladiator'. I know some people have a strong dislike for the fast-pan/skip-frame technique, and if this is you, then you might not enjoy this movie. The SFX are pretty solid and 'fun' styled, and you can have all sorts of fun with zombies and a logging camp.. unfortunately I wanted more, but there's enough there to whet your appetite. 'Fun Styled' is just my way of saying they have alot of blood spray. Many 'excessive blood spray' movies might make you think this is a 'squishy foam rubber head exploding every 10 minutes' type movie.. this is not that type of movie.
The overall plot tugged with some similarities with 28 Days Later, well, one particular locale later in the film anyhow; and also several elements that remind me of 'Aliens'. So be ready for a few plot ideas you might have seen before. This film is pretty far from being all cliche.
The director of this film, Carl Bessai, went to later on make the award winning film 'Normal', which stars Carrie-Ann Moss (read: 'real-name' actress). Only reason I'm mentioning this is to illustrate that this movie is actually really well made... and yes, I know about Peter Jackson's previous works.. don't remind me :]
What I liked:
- Good mix of blood-spray but without the cheesy rubber-head effects.
- Only a few moments where you wonder why the characters are doing what they are doing
- Pretty good ending (by good, I mean not really what you might expect it to be)
What I didn't like:
- Couple of character stereotypes like 'The Slimly Lying Field Scientist' for example (think Burke from Aliens of how he acts)
- few places where you can identify zombies you've seen killed before... but how much can you really bitch about recycling extras?
Rating:
Final Scoring:
5.0 Zombie Heads of a possible
5 Zombie Heads
Personal Recommendation: I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, you might be too.
Availablity:
Netflix Amazon
Powered by Flesh eating zombies.. oh and Simple Review
