Severed (2002 Video) User Reviews

How did anyone enjoy making/watching this movie?

[joelman · 1/10 · 14 September 2003]

To be brutally honest... I LOVED watching Severed. That's why I

gave it a 1/10 stars because of its starkly unimaginative

story/filming/acting/everything. This film was a RIOT to watch. If

you enjoy watching bad films in order to poke fun at them, you will

really get a kick out of Severed.

The story really doesn't matter, it involves some guy who's bald

and has a sword and goes around beheading random people.

But he has a supernatural twist... nobody ever sees him do it.

Even when, in one very memorable scene, he walks into a

jampacked night club and whacks off some girl's noodle and

nobody sees it.

Severed doesn't merely look like it was filmed on video- it WAS

filmed on someone's home camcorder. The filmmakers had

knowledge of lighting (very thin knowledge) and composition

actually holds together in some scenes. But mostly you can't hear

the actors... you can't understand what they're doing, and you laugh

when the next vicitm gets his pumpkin detatched from his body.

Go and rent this movie. Support films like this- they are a hoot and

a hollar!

Nothing short of Horrible

[lovesunicorns · 1/10 · 6 October 2003]

There was nothing about this movie that I liked. It was so obviously low-budget with bad lighting and camera work (almost like Blair Witch Project, only it wasn't supposed to be that way). There wasn't really much to the plot, and the movie just drug on and on. I actually fast-forwarded through the last 1/3 of the movies, but that did not help matters much. It looked like it might be good from the box, but I must say again: nothing about this movie even resembled good. No good actors, the special effects were so fake, the camera work was horrible, and the dialogue was painfully terrible. On my own personal scale, I give this movie a 0 of 10. Yikes!

Watch Demonicus instead.

[hoversj · 1/10 · 29 November 2003]

OK, I love bad horror. I especially love horror bad enough to make fun of. Demonicus, or House of the Dead - those were bad enough to make fun of. Severed was not.

It was worse.

(spoilers - who cares?)

My friend and I sat through the entire film, and I have a number of comments, both in the "this sucks" style and in the realm of actual critiques.

Plot (sort of) - There's a guy in this city (which is possibly Seattle, see comment below) who is running around and cutting off heads. He's been doing this for over a year (I'm not going back to get exact numbers - thank you VERY much), possibly two or three years. One head a week. And the police are JUST NOW calling in a "specialist" (who ONCE refers to himself as a psychic, but that never comes up again).

Schya right! Feds take over after, what, THREE connected homicides? After NEARLY A HUNDRED SIMILAR KILLINGS we'd be under freaking martial law!!!!!

Anyway, this "specialist" consults the voodoo chick who the police have been ignoring the entire time, and the two of them come to the conclusion that it's Baron Samedi, a voodoo spirit, who is cutting off heads to gain enough power to make himself a body (and then presumably take over the world - or possibly just go to Disneyland).

Um.

Setting - where IS this happening? Well, if you're not from Seattle, you might not realize that at the bar/rave (occupied by about ten of the movie staff and their family members), there's a poster for a local radio station, and that in the highly-entertaining, "Pulp Fiction"esqe dialog (as IF) between the two cops (yes, the ones who get their heads cut off about 15 minutes into the flick) they discuss "the new stadium" which may still have been an issue when this movie was made.

Being from Seattle, I apologize on the movie's behalf and hang my head in shame.

OK, here's where it gets really critical - being a horror movie writer (not published, don't go looking for my name in the IMDb), I do research. Lots of research. And unlike the writers of this movie, I know that Baron Samedi - while a Voudon Loa (spirit) who guards the graveyards and has traditionally been associated (by various Christian oppressors) with "Satan" - is actually a "Loki"-like trickster god.

In other words, he doesn't cut off heads.

Besides, a major part of the Voudoun religion is that Baron Samedi can have a body whenever he wants. Their religious ceremonies center around the possession of various members of the congregation by the loa.

Not to mention, if he's already possessed someone, why make a NEW body?

Also, if Baron Samedi GOT a body, he wouldn't go around cutting off heads, he'd get some good rum and cigars and par-TAY!!!

In summary, the only thing they did get (surprisingly) right is that in the completely unnecessary Tarot card reading (used only to show that the voodoo chick is "spooky") they didn't screw up the interpretations of the cards the way most movies do. Again, I've done research. (Anyone remember the old late-night ad for phone-in tarot readings - "The lovers - you will soon fall madly in love..." and all that nonsense?)

If you made it this far through my comments, I congratulate you. And I'm sorry again. I'll be more sorry if you feel the need to watch the film on account of me, so please don't.

Funny, but I don't think it was supposed to be!

[oz_man · 11 January 2004]

I received a free copy of this movie from the director back when I used to run a movie review website. I actually enjoyed watching it, because it was free. However, crap acting and not being able to hear most of the dialogue did tend to p*** me off. Poor lighting throughout was another negative (actually not being able to hear or see it did have some appeal). There was one piece of decent acting however and I can't remember the guys name (and I'm not about to watch it again to get it) but the guy in the morgue was pretty good. So, if you get a free copy from the director, be happy and have a few laughs at it. Otherwise, don't waste your time or money.

I feel great

[rhodimer · 1/10 · 4 April 2007]

I own this movie. I bought it for $3.99 at a fairly major video retailer in order to do some "indie"" type movie research since I had just finished my own feature and was editing it. Now when I feel down about my skills as a first time director I just sit down with a plate of cookies and Severed. Within minutes I feel great!!!

I hate to down talk another filmmaker so I'll just use constructive criticism. 1. Find good actors. Take the time. It really helps. 2. When shooting video, over light your scenes and darken in the computer later on in post. 3. Closeups are better for Video. 4. When an actor enters a scene, wait a bit before

having them speak so that we know what's going on and who's talking. 5. Never show the back of a door while we wait for someone to come open it. Damn well worth the $3.99

The True Horror would be getting the reviews Severed has here on IMDb. And you have to give these guys credit... they did get distributed.

I wasn`t happy with Severed

[Movie Nuttball · 4/10 · 5 March 2002]

This is one of them movies that has a awesome video box but has wired camra work and unknown actors that speak with bad dialogue.Its so dark when the killings happen you can hardly see it plus the movie is hard to understand.The only star in this is WCW`s Vanessa Sanchez (Tygres in WCW before it folded) and she is a good actress. I like low budget film especialy ones that has errors because they are fun to watch but Severed unfourtunatly isn`t one of them.This movie is ok to see if you like voodoo and severed heads but this is no blockbuster but if you need something new to watch then rent Severed.

Dismal dud

[Woodyanders · 2/10 · 24 September 2012]

Vicious psycho the Baron (hulking behemoth Nehemiah) goes on a gruesome decapitation spree in a major city. The police hire rugged bounty hunter Blake (flatly played with all the charisma of moldy cheese by Peter Reh) to stop the loony. Sound good? Well, it just ain't. Boy, does this mind-numbing crapfest strike out something rotten in every possible way: The limp (non)direction, the plodding pace, a dull and talky script, the laughably fake and cheesy gore, the lousy acting from a lame no-name cast, the total dearth of any tension or creepy atmosphere, the plain and poorly lit cinematography, the generic hum'n'shiver synthesizer score, the ineptly staged action scenes, and the annoying and dissatisfying "it ain't over yet!" ending all add up to one seriously beat flick. Only the lively climactic confrontation between Blake and the Baron manages to generate a few long overdue thrills, but it's much too little way too late. A real stinker.

PORNO QUALITY

[dgrandy1012 · 1/10 · 8 March 2002]

Bad acting, bad lighting, bad plot!! This had the quality of a porno movie. I have seen more interesting home video of a boring wedding than this movie...it sucked big time!! Don't waste your time or money on this crap! It's amazing that they allow this kind of smut to even be released on video, it should be a crime!!

The Worst!

[jazza923 · 1/10 · 28 November 2006]

0.5/10. This movie has absolutely nothing good about it. The acting is among the worst I have ever seen, what is really amazing is that EVERYONE is awful, not just a few here and there, everyone. The direction is a joke, the low budget is hopelessly evident, the score is awful, I wouldn't say the movie was edited, brutally chopped would be a more appropriate phrase. It combines serial killings, voodoo and tarot cards. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. It is not scary at all, the special effects are hopelessly lame. laughably bad throughout. The writing was appallingly bad. The cinematography is real cheap looking, and very grainy sometimes, and the camera-work is dreadful. Again, what really does the movie in is how badly all the actors are. Cheesy.

The viewers who love this garbage worked on this film

[jordondave-28085 · 1/10 · 19 August 2023]

(2002) Severed HORROR

Straight-to-rental horror flick edited, co-written and directed by Matt green that has an unidentified serial killer, Baron (Nehemiah) running amok on the streets of Seattle, Washington, where an unknown figure chops heads victimizing supposedly crooked businessman, which happens often so frequently that the police had to name it the "Headhunter". This single officer's task unit's job was on the line was so crucial, that it resulted to Det Miller (Mark Harris) to resort involving a bounty hunter, Blake (Peter Reh) to find the serial killer.

In order to fully appreciate this, one would have to ignore total idiocy amongst the actions of the people, especially the police as well as to be oblivious about proper police procedures. This is low budget at it's best! Bomb.

Painful To Watch.

[drownsoda90 · 1/10 · 30 December 2006]

I was searching through Hollywood video last night with a friend trying to find a good-looking horror movie to watch over the New Year's weekend. As I was looking through the shelves, "Severed" spotted my eye, and I grabbed it off the shelf and it looked like it might be a decent B-grade horror movie. The cover looked fairly good. The plot sounded semi-interesting. So I rented it. What a mistake. Don't be fooled by the cover, which actually looks decent. I'm thinking that more money was spent on the cover artwork than the movie itself. The film follows two police detectives who are tracking down a voodoo-inspired, ritualistic serial killer called "The Head Hunter", who is decapitating victims left and right in some unnamed city (probably Los Angeles), and they become drawn into his world of ritualized murder.

Story sound somewhat good? Well, it is, and this movie could've been halfway decent. But good God, it was bad! Almost everything about it was laughable. The opening scene features some redheaded actress in a car trying to talk on this huge, outdated cell phone, and for whatever reason, she goes outside and talks to some guy. Then, a shadow comes up behind them, hacks off his head, and the girl drops to the ground and starts crawling (for absolutely no reason) while trying to dial 911. Sound ridiculous? Yep, you bet it is. The entire movie looks like it was filmed on a VHS-quality camera, and I'm assuming it was. The acting was mostly awful, and the special effects were far from believable. And the scenes with the policemen on the phone were awful - the voice on the other line was echoing and it sounded like it was being recorded in someone's bathroom. Everything about this movie was simply amateurish and tedious, and it didn't hold my interest for very long, and I often found myself bored and tired, mostly because of the bad acting and the horrible cinematography. The pacing was bad. Everything was just bad.

Overall, "Severed" is a failed attempt at what could have been a decent B-movie. The plot was good and I think if this film had been handled better and had a higher budget, it could've been alright. But this movie fell flat on it's face. If you're expecting something semi-decent, you'll be sorely disappointed. Only recommended if you can tolerate D-grade horror flicks. Otherwise, you'll probably want to stay away from this straight-to-video garbage. It had a little potential, but it was beyond a mess. 1/10.

Can we please go into the negatives with this one?

[mcoatta · 1/10 · 9 July 2018]

While I don't know how many movies I've seen over the course of my life, I DO know that I have never seen a movie as bad as this. There are no redeeming qualities to be found here, not even the "so bad it's funny" charm that some movies have. So what's this atrocity all about? There's a guy going around decapitating people and from what I remember from the barely audible dialogue, he's been doing this for a few years. Apparently, the police didn't seem all too concerned because only recently, they decide to get some help from a bounty hunter named Blake, who might just be the most unlikable character in anything I've ever seen. Blake gets help from a woman who specializes in voodoo and things just go from there.

I believe I read on here from another reviewer that this looks like something from a high school video production class. Now, I'm not a teacher but had it actually been a high school project, I would give it a D Minus, maybe a D and make every student involved revise it, which someone should've made the director do.The lighting, if you can call it that, is awful. As I mentioned above, the dialogue is barely audible. The acting is practically non existent and no one has an ounce of charisma. The effects and camera work are by far the worst offense and I want to provide one scene in particular as an example. I don't know if that counts as a spoiler but I'm going to give a spoiler warning just in case. After meeting with the Voodoo lady, Blake heads home. He sits down to read a magazine and suddenly, the camera cuts to the image of a very fake severed head on top of his TV. The camera then "zooms" in to Blake's very fake startled expression three times. The head looks like a basic styrofoam head sloppily painted and covered with a cheap wig and dollar store fake blood. The "zooming" looks like the editor(s) took a screenshot of Blake's startled face and messed around with it to give the illusion of zooming in.

To wrap things up, just avoid this movie and watch something else like Battlefield Earth or House of the Dead. Hell, even the old Sci Fi Channel Original Movies are better. Sure they're awful but at least you'll be able to have some good laughs with a group of friends. Watching this with a group of friends will make them never want to speak to you again.

Pure Junk!

[spoonfedlawngnome · 7 March 2002]

I work at a video store and I was quite excited about seeing this film for i am a true horror movie fanatic, but after viewing about 5 minutes of this movie i wanted kill myself! It looked like something filmed for a high school video production class! it had shaky camera work, poor acting and special effects which consisted of an aray of headless dummys...not to mention a horrid plot.

I would not wish this film upon my worst enemy! please please please avoid at all costs!

Acting...? Plot...? Frivolous devices used to tell a story...?

[jde123 · 2/10 · 22 January 2009]

Hm. While an enjoyable movie to poke plot holes, point out atrocious acting, primitive (at best) special effects (all of which have caused me to view this movie three times over the past six years), Severed ranks among the worst I've ever seen. I'm never sure who the protagonists are, all I know is that the killer uses a portable guillotine, as seen in the dance floor murder scene. All in all, I don't really like the movie, because only the first 30 minutes are enjoyable, the rest is a mishmash of confusing dialog and imagery that fail to progress the story to a logical conclusion (which I can't remember anyway).

Who makes this crap?!

[JBoze313 · 28 May 2002]

Possible spoilers, but trust me, it does not matter whatsoever!

Okay, I could only take 10 mins of this movie…maybe less than that. I feel dizzy from trying to SEE what on earth was taking place on screen. Word of advice to the half wits who made this poor excuse for a movie, get jobs at mcdonalds! Your careers are over!! From watching 10 mins, I can tell you this much- the production values are horrible…99% of what I watched was so dark, you couldn't tell what was going on.

In the first few minutes, a killer who must be invisible and make no sound whatsoever sneaks up on two people and kills them…the woman is trying to crawl away (I guess she suddenly went paralyzed below the waist?) and then she props her head on her arms like she's about to read a good book on the ground, and dials 911…

Two cops sit on the side of the road- of course, all the undercover cops read the newspaper and chat on the side of dead end streets! Also..what is with their car? It's some piece of junk that looks 10 years old…I guess the police budget must have been cut off in their city! They get a call over the radio about a homicide in a parking lot (the two I mentioned before)…good timing by the police, seeing as how the killer just got em oh, say 30 seconds ago!! And, I highly doubt there was a witness in the middle of the night in some parking lot! If so, I think the killer would have went after them too! So, the bumbling cops speed off in the crapmobile of a police car without a flash bar (again, the small police budget)…and what do they do when they get to the area (which they just so happen to reach within 10 seconds of getting the call?) They ram the killer with their car! I'm sure the ACLU would have something to say about that! Then, the killer who they think is dead jumps off the ground and takes off…running with superhuman speed, seeing as how the cops who must be driving 50 mph can't even catch him…

More darkness, so dark, I have no idea what happened really…plus, the camera work was so shaky, I was about to get sick…all I DO know is that both cops are killed…dummy heads covered in blood are dropped to the ground (they were decapitated.)

Next, we see badly done credits with shots of blood in between each credit. After this, we go to what is supposed to be a police station (very bad set design!)…one cop comes in and tells another cop they need to nab this murderer! And..get this…one cop tells the other to sit down, you're making a scene (yes, he's making a scene in the empty office in the dark), the other cop replies with, `I can't sit down. Got no ass left. Chief just chewed it off.' LOL. This alone tells me that my next 60 mins or so will be filled with nothing but sheer boredom and dread.

That's a mere ten minutes of this garbage! Take into consideration that the rest of the movie is occupied by a former female wrestler from WCW (I have no idea who she is, not being a fan of wrestling!)…just think about it. Whoever wrote this movie should be exiled!!

I made better movies with an 8MM when I was 13!

[luddifisk · 22 May 2003]

I was suckered into renting this piece of trash by the DVD cover, this is obviously where the budget was spent. It looks like it was filmed by an 8th grade drama class and the acting is even worse. I only watched the first 15 minutes of this and knew right off the bat that I had made a major mistake, I should have gone for Pee Wees Big Adventure, that would have been scarier. I don't know who Matt Green is but if I ever see his name on another DVD cover I will toss it into the garbage. Movies like this make Ed Wood look like John Houston!

Award for worst cell phone ring

[regencytr1 · 10 March 2002]

I love B or even C type horror movies. Much of this one is filmed in the dark, most of it so dark you cannot see what is going on. The acting at best is sub standard with nearly every character filled with some unexplained anger. Finally in this day and age of custom cell phone rings Blake the bounty hunter could have done much better than the one he had.

Hmm. Watch Severed again, or chug a gallon of bleach.

[saucylad · 22 June 2005]

Gotta go with the bleach.

I registered here just to warn people away from this movie. I love bad movies. This movie is not bad. It's not even a movie, except in the sense of there's a lot of pictures that make the illusion of movement on screen.

I wouldn't be saying this much about it, except for the guidelines. Here's a spoiler that will save you the trouble: the bounty hunter kills the bad guy and becomes the voodoo god at the end. Dare we hope for Severed II? I'm going to go bite my own fingers off for making that suggestion.

I made better movies when I was 13 with an 8MM.

[luddifisk · 22 May 2003]

I also only could stand the first 10 minutes of this movie. It is flicks like this that make Plan 9 From Outer Space look like Gone With The Wind. It appears that the budget for this was spent on fake blood and the flashlight the two cops use to look for the killer.

Required viewing

[TRUFFARD · 17 September 2003]

If you wish to produce your own feature, please pause a moment to take in the intoxicating brilliance of 'Severed'. I am glad I own a copy of this DVD for my own personal collection, so I may review it at my leisure when I feel particularly low in my fine-culture fuel tank.

As a film about Coup de Etat attempts in Eastern Europe, I find 'Severed' to be both insightful and magically realistic. Certainly it's producers have in depth knowledge of behind-the-scenes political machinations and bring them to bear metaphorically in the form of a deranged mass decapitator loose in society. It is refreshing to see such high-brow culturally hedgmonic ideas come to bear in low-budget fare. As a result I carry my copy of 'Severed' with me while lecturing in the former Eastern Bloc "Schools Du Cinema" and have shown excerpts on my Austrian talk show "Cinemachten es Machinen du Changen Regimen!!!"

The picture bears witness to the director's mistrust of the instability often caused by the political vaccum left following a Coup. As an uber-marxist multicultural talisman of the zeitgeist present in collective schemas, 'Severed' performs admirably supplanting the role of neo-camp metadata with a post-modern serial killer/police procedural Brechtian signpost with Plathian undertones. Of course, none of this is particularly profound as it should be obvious to the most casual of viewers.

To be fair, the film has it's downpoints. The acting is a notch below that of your low-budget local cable commercial, and to say the film is directed as unevenly as a 3-legged table is insulting to 3-legged tables everywhere. However you can not completely fault a film as nakedly ambitious and political as this.

As such, I highly recommend 'Severed' between sips of triple-chai-mocha-goat's milk-latte and as a break from a steady diet of Nietzche.

Severed from my copy of 'Severed'? Ye Gods, don't let this come to pass!!