Severance

Up and coming Brit director Christopher Smith impressively manages to provide both laughs and frights in new horror-comedy 'Severance'. Taking us into the Eastern European woods, the straightforward narrative sees the sales division of a weaponry company lose their way on a team-bonding weekend and subsequently become hunted by an unknown evil. For the most part, Smith wisely plays things straight and knows how to walk the tight-rope between the chuckles and the scares as he peppers proceedings with ironic deaths and genuinely jumpy moments. Despite the latter stages descending into a complete gore-fest, there are still many moments that will produce wry grins as Dyer plays his staple "cockney wide-boy" character to full comedic effect. Perhaps not the funniest or the scariest movie of recent times but it does enough of both to provide pitch-perfect summer popcorn entertainment which will have your heads rolling, with laughter, in the aisles. [Stephen Carty]