Isolation (film)

A group of seven employees at the Palisade Defense, a weapons manufacturing company, travels to a vacation home during a trip to Europe. The lodge is located in the forests on Mount Matra in Hungary, and team leader Richard hopes to play corporate games there that support team spirit. However, the main road through the forest is blocked off by a fallen tree, the Hungarian driver refuses to take a detour, and the group continues on foot. The house that they find looks half-abandoned, and oddities soon begin: the archives of the secret medical station are found in the basement, when eating a pie left by someone in the house, Steve comes across a human tooth, and when he goes to bed, Jill sees a man in a tree outside the window.

The next day, Jill and Harris go up the hill to catch a cell phone and ask the driver to pick them up, and the rest have fun with paintball . After the game, Gordon falls into a bear trap and loses his leg. Jill and Harris discover a bus and a driver’s corpse is nearby. Connecting with the rest, they try to leave, but because of the " hedgehogs " laid on the road, the bus turns over. To a half-dead Harris, a stranger who appears appears cuts off his head, and Jill, who has fallen into a trance and wandered into the forest, burns him, tied to a tree. The rest return to the house and wait for dawn, but in the middle of the night one of the strangers drags the wounded Gordon into the basement, where there are many camera rooms. A sadistic stranger carves the Palisade logo on Gordon's stomach (he dies) and kills Billy from a sawn-off shotgun.

In horror, Richard runs into the forest, where he steps with his foot on a land mine . Steve and Maggie manage to kill the killer of Gordon and Billy, however, at the doorstep of the house they meet several more masked killers (they speak Russian). They run through the forest, meeting Richard along the way. Richard, realizing that he is doomed, undermines a mine, when two of the killers pass by him. Meanwhile, Steve and Maggie resort to a beautiful house in the forest, where they are waiting for the head of the company George and two Hungarian girls from the " escort services " (this is the house they should have come to initially). After an unsuccessful attempt to repel the killers attack with a hand-held rocket launcher, everyone rushes to flight. The girls fall into the pit trap, they kill George, Maggie and Steve fight the pursuers and kill them, although they are both wounded. By chance, the wounded Steve finds a hole where the girls are sitting.

Fleeing from the last killer, Maggie finds himself in an abandoned prison, where he sees the logo of his company. Having broken her leg, she cannot escape from the pursuit, but one of the girls who came to the rescue destroys the killer from the machine gun. At the end of the damsel, Steve and Maggie get to the lake and sail away in a boat.

• Danny Dyer - Steve
• Laura Harris - Maggie
• Tim McInerney - Richard
• Toby Stevens - Harris
• Andy Nyman - Gordon
• Claudie Blackley - Jill
• Babu Sisei - Billy
• David Gilliam - George

On the DVD edition of the film there are 7 scenes cut from the final version with a total duration of 8.5 minutes. One of the reviewers of the picture, who gave her a negative review, noted at the same time that some of the scenes should be included in the film, because “they have more humor” ^[1] .

One of the scenes is a conversation between Steve (taking hallucinogenic mushrooms ) and a talking deer. In an interview with the director, when asked about the reasons for the removal of this scene, he said that he didn’t want the feeling that this film was about drugs at the beginning of the film, or that one of the characters (Steve) would get too out of the group ^[2] .

General list of cut scenes ^[3] :

1. "Quarrel in the forest": after the bus leaves and the group begins a hiking trip, Harris and Maggie bicker.
2. “Who wants to sing?”: On the way to the house through the forest, Gordon begins to sing to brighten the journey, but Harris asks him to shut up and kill himself.
3. “Steve’s Glitches in the Forest”: after the group arrives in the house, Steve retires to the forest and meets a talking deer reproaching him for his drug addiction (the deer was voiced by actor Leslie Philips ).
4. Beer Talk: During a game of paintball, Billy and Steve quote dialogues from the films Deer Hunter and Platoon .
5. Jill and Harris Conversation: Jill and Harris discuss whether Harris is a good person on the way to the drop-off point.
6. "The Cant for Richard": after the remaining members of the group barricaded themselves in the house, Richard asks Steve to let him smoke marijuana.
7. "Lottery": when the wounded Gordon is given ecstasy , he half-delirious tells Maggie how he will spend the lottery.

• On the building shown at the end of the film, the inscription SZEVERANZ is visible (cf. the original name of the film).

• There are roll-calls between this film and Dr. Strangelove :
  • the name of the CRM-114 land mine is a reference to the (fictitious) type of radio equipment in the film "Doctor Strangelove." ^[four]
  • both films end with the song “ We'll Meet Again ”. ^[five]

• In 2009, the British media discussed the murder of a student, allegedly made under the influence of the film and copying one of his scenes. ^{[6] [7] [8]} According to the BBC , the student was doused with gasoline and set on fire in the forest, where his body was later discovered. At the trial, it turned out that the killer had seen Smith's film, and while watching it occurred to him to carry out something similar in real life. ^[9]

• Official movie website
• Interview with director and screenwriter on the occasion of the release of the film
• Screenwriter Interview on Film Release
• Severance on the Internet Movie Database
• Severance on allmovie
• Severance on the Metacritic website
• Severance on Box Office Mojo
• Severance on Rotten Tomatoes
• Palisade Defense Campaign Site