Powerful

Fantastic!

Admirable film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

As a complete fanatic for zombie movies Severed is better than,shall we say Stripper Zombies or Redneck Zombies but nowhere near as good as my personal favorite Dawn of the Dead(1978).Yes it is cliché filled and predictable,but is well paced.I give it 8 stars for the standout performance of Sarah Lind and the fact she is absolutely HOT!Fighting caged zombies ala Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead is not an original idea as shown in Severed.Character "Carter" played well by JR Bourne seemed awfully similar "Carter J. Burke" in Aliens as the sniveling company man but was still entertaining.As usual the likable black guy "Mac" played by Julian Christopher is killed off.The action although well paced is also familiar to 28 days Later.Oh yeah did i mention Sarah Lind is HOT!!!

Well there are a few good things I can say for a free movie on YouTube, but having great gore ain't one of them. In one of the scenes where zombies are feeding on a corpse, there was an OBVIOUS time they used spaghetti. Yes, spaghetti. May I also add that was the only time there was gore in the movie. Characters swinging axes and various weapons never show the impact, but show profound amounts of blood. Acting was bad, the storyline at the cabin house was just dreadful, and I don't mean in a scary way... or maybe I do. The storyline overall was just milked--tree sap that induces zombie syndrome? Overused props and sets, the only fair actors were Carter, the paranoid person of the group, and Mac, the leader. Rita had clearly acted screams, and so did the first person who got infected. Terrible gaining in the footage, as well.

When contact with their workers on an island is lost, the CEO of a logging company sends his inexperienced son Tyler to the island to solve the problem. Tyler arrives at the camp, only to be attacked by flesh-eating "zombies". Falling in with a few terrified survivors, comprised of loggers & activists, Tyler learns that a logger was exposed to genetically engineered tree sap after being injured by a spiked tree, causing him to turn into a flesh-eating creature. The survivors attempt to escape, only to find that all exits have been closed. They find another group of loggers, who have built a stockade & who present a much bigger problem than the infected.Before I begin this review, let me point out that "Severed", a low-budget Canadian horror film, is a third-generation zombie film, that is a film ripping off another film (in this case the British zombie film 28 DAYS LATER) which in turn was a rip-off of a third film (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD). "Severed", for all intensive purposes, follows the plot of 28 DAYS LATER quite closely, with a group of environmental activists unleashing a virus that turns all exposed into flesh-eating monsters (technically they are not undead, so the word "zombie" cannot be used… oh what the hell, I guess it's okay). The survivors then fall in with a group of organized survivors, who then pose as a much bigger threat than the "zombies", hell, they even do the same thing that their counterparts in 28 DAYS LATER do for fun, inventing a blood sport that involves some poor sap (sorry, bad pun) locked in a cage with the creatures & having to shoot his way out.While it copies its source material so much as to the extent that Danny Boyle would have a strong case if he ever decided to sue, "Severed" does have some things going for it. The acting is surprisingly good, with the actors giving performances that are realistic & engaging. This is no doubt helped by the script, which throws a unique spin on the survivors' characterizations – you can't go too far wrong with a hero who is not a scientist, a cop or even a soldier, but an experienced lumberjack whose only goal is to return to his family.That said, the film does have its faults. There are numerous plot holes – why does the CEO send his son, who doesn't have any skills, to the camp when he has much better suited people on his payroll? Plus there are some clichés that frequently appear in these sorts of films & don't make any real sense: first the "infected" (filmed in a jerky motion so bad you'll expect Michael Jackson to appear & pull off some slick dance moves) move about in a spastic fashion yet manage to "teleport" when you least expect it & show up in large numbers to surprise the humans & overcome them; all of the characters cannot take a few steps without falling down; Paul Campbell, who plays Tyler, parks his truck, gets out, gets attacked by one of the infected, & RUNS AWAY FROM HIS TRUCK; the survivors escape in the truck but are stopped by a metre-high gate (this happens not once but twice); & split up.Not to mention the fact that the infected are not zombies & can be killed with little-to-no-effort on the survivors' part, yet overcome them; the fact that the tree sap induces a metabolic change in just a few seconds (as is the case in 28 DAYS LATER) is ridiculous, from a medical point of view; & the infection can be spread through bites but not through the spraying of infected blood into people's mouths.Taking all that into account, "Severed" is a film, that for all its attempts to create a different slant on the old zombie film, is nothing more than a passable way to spend an hour-&-a-half.

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.