Severance 2007

The European Sales division of Palisade Defence undertakes a team-building weekend at a remote lodge in the Mátra Mountains of Hungary. A fallen tree blocks the road, and after a quarrel, the driver refuses to take a dirt shortcut through the woods and drives off, leaving the group to walk the remaining distance to the lodge. The lodge itself feels old and poorly maintained, but the manager, Richard, Tim McInnerny, manages to coax them inside.

Inside, a file cabinet filled with Palisade documents written in Russian stirs memories and theories among the team about the place’s dark history. Harris recalls hearing that the lodge was once a mental institution, where a Palisade-made nerve gas was used to clear it out after inmates seized control. Jill recalls a different version, describing the site as a “reeducation center” for Russian war criminals and poachers, and claiming that after an escape, the gas was employed to flush escapees from nearby buildings. Both recollections mention a lone survivor who swore revenge on Palisade. As tension rises, Steve begins to share his own version of the lodge’s past as a clinic when he discovers a human tooth buried in the meat pie served for dinner. The group chides Gordon for serving the pie and heads to bed, uneasy with what they’ve learned.

That night, Jill, Laura Harris glimpses someone watching the lodge from the trees. No one else is found outside, and all but Richard agree that they should leave at first light. The next morning, Richard dispatches Harris and Jill to the hill to call the driver back. When they reach the hill, they find the bus abandoned and the driver dead in a nearby creek. Back at the lodge, Gordon steps into a bear trap, and after failed attempts by Steve and Billy to pry it open, Gordon’s left leg is severed. Harris and Jill return with the bus, loading everyone aboard and heading toward town. A spike strip is deployed on the road, causing a crash that throws Harris clear, only for him to be decapitated by a masked poacher wielding a machete. Jill is bound to a tree, doused with gasoline, and burned alive. The rest retreat to the lodge to regroup.

Gordon is later captured, and when a newly opened door is discovered, the remaining four enter the basement, which reveals an underground prison. They discover the now-deceased Gordon with a Palisade logo carved into his torso. A poacher fires a shotgun through another door, forcing the group to hide in a cell, where Billy dies from a chest wound. Richard escapes to the woods as the others deal with the threat. While attempting to kill the poacher, Maggie falls through a fragile floor. The poacher falls and becomes stuck, and Maggie retrieves his gun and kills him.

Believing they are safe, Maggie and Steve step outside, only to confront five more armed, Russian-speaking poachers waiting for them. They flee into the woods and encounter Richard, who has stepped on a Palisade land mine and cannot move without detonating it. Richard guides Maggie and Steve through the minefield as the poachers use a fallen branch to cross the danger zone and taunt him with insults and stones. Accepting his fate, Richard steps off the mine, taking out himself and two of the intruders.

Steve and Maggie reach another building—the real Palisade lodge. Inside, they find their boss George, who is partying with two escorts Steve had previously ordered. George unveils a prototype missile launcher, but the missile locks on a passing commercial jet, destroying it instead. The five fugitives race back into the woods, where George becomes the next casualty.

Maggie and Steve press on, increasingly separated from the others. Maggie is captured by one of the poachers who attempts to rape her, but sheOverpowers him and smashes his head with a rock. After a struggle, Steve manages to kill two more attackers. Maggie at last finds herself cornered in what appears to be an abandoned military complex, where the last poacher with a flamethrower corners her. She breaks her leg while fleeing, but is saved when Steve and two escorts arrive, one of whom shoots the attacker. The trio—Steve, Maggie, and the escorts—make it to a rowboat and paddle to safety, leaving the brutal conflict behind them but haunted by what Palisade’s legacy has wrought.