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Severed Lives |
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A couple
of students are making a documentary for a
school project. They decide to get together one night
to work on the details, but what they don't know is
that there's an uninvited guest hiding in the house,
waiting to kill them off. Who is this mysterious,
masked killer and why does he want to see the students
dead? Could it have something to do with the documentary?
This year I've received dozens of cheap amateur slasher
flicks, which of most I haven't even been able to
sit through so naturally I was sceptical when I
received this 45 minute long slasher movie. While
Severed Lives might not be a masterpiece, at least
I made it through this one - no, not because it was
short, but because it actually took itself seriously
where as the other movies have been filled with
ridiculously immature gags.
Director Jacob Helgren is obviously a fan of modern
slasher flicks since there were several things that
reminded me of Scream and I Know What You Did Last
Summer. It looks like it was shot with a home video
camera and the dreadful acting didn't help either
(I even caught a girl staring into the camera for
several seconds), but considering the extremely low
budget that these guys had to work with, I'm still
pretty impressed. I mean, we can all say "Oh I can
do a slasher flick better than that!", but how many
of us actually do it?
But enough praising this movie now and lets get down
to the important stuff. The entire movie takes place
inside a house where a couple of friends (who don't
really seem to be friends) are having a get together
to discuss their documentary. Before we know it,
a killer shows up in a very cool mask (this is
something which I find extremely important in slasher
flicks) and starts killing the students. Generic?
Hell yeah! But at least it's entertaining.
If it wasn't for the fact that I LOVE masked slasher
flicks, I'd probably hate this movie to death. It's
cheap, it's amateurish and it's honestly not very
competent in any way. What I did like was the fact
that it took itself seriously, even though it had
a minimal budget. The fact that the mask was cool
also helped. So if you enjoy these no-budget indie
slasher flicks, Severed Lives might be just what
you're looking for.
An impalement is the goriest thing we get here.
While we do get some decent rock music and a fairly
competent suspense score (mainly piano music), there
were a couple of scenes that were uncomfortably
silent - and not in a good way. I'm especially
referring to the hot tub scene. Anyway, good enough.
It is what it is; an amateur, no-budget slasher flick.
I was just happy to see that it took itself seriously
and didn't stoop to the Sub Rosa level (if you know
what I mean). It's really quite bad in every possible
way but just like with Camp Blood, this was pretty
entertaining - and hey, it's short.
Review By: AnthroFred
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