Trivia for
Severance (2006)

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• The CRM-114 'Platoon Buster' land mine is a reference to the CRM-114 radio in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
  
  
• A second reference to Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) it's the ending song, "We'll Meet Again," played at the end of both films. The version played in "Severance" is a hard rock version, however.
  
  
• The swimming pool full of fallen leafs that Gordon "falls in" is actually a few inches deep fountain with a diving-board installed on the side.
  
  

• The casting process lasted four months because director Christopher Smith wanted the perfect people for the parts.
  
  
• The actor who plays the irate bus driver, Sándor Boros is a Hungarian stunt driver, and it is he who drives the bus during the crash scene. In the DVD featurette Crashing a Coach (2007) (V), director Christopher Smith goes into detail about how the crash scene was staged, and in it, he points out how the Hungarian stunt team were "less concerned with health and safety issues" than British stunt teams. Smith explains that for the crash scene, the stunt coordinator told Boros to drive at 35mph, but Boros felt this wouldn't produce a good enough scene, so he hit the stunt ramp at 50mph, producing a much more spectacular crash than Smith wanted. As it was a one-time only shot, this newly spectacular crash forced a hasty rewriting of the screenplay, as due to the severity of the crash, the characters now needed to be substantially more injured than was originally planned. Smith was also amazed that the only safety equipment Boros used during the scene was a seat belt and a motorcycle helmet. Indeed, during the stunt, Boros was knocked completely unconscious.
  
  
• Toby Stephens accepted to do the movie because he'd never done a horror film before and liked the comedy/horror mix of the project.
  
  
• James Moran wrote the first draft of the script in 2003 and finished it in 2004. At that time, it was called P45, and was a serious slasher movie about a team of young interns who go away for a weekend on what they think is a team building exercise, where they start to get bumped off by a crazed psychopath in the woods. Then, at the end of the movie it turns out that everything was arranged by the company, and the whole weekend was built upon the 'whoever survives is promoted' premise. When Christopher Smith came on board as director, he suggested that the film move into the comedy/horror genre, and he rewrote both the characters and the setting extensively, in collaboration with Moran.
  
  
• Released in Spain as a double feature with Black Sheep (2006/I)
  
  
• Danny Dyer's character is fed grapes by a bevy of robed girls in a similar scene to one in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971).
  
  
• Danny Dyer spent 10 weeks toning up in the gym prior to shooting.
  
  
• Because Laura Harris had such fun on the set with her fellow cast members, she found that she was often in too good a mood to reach the emotional depths needed for her character when it was time for her to shoot. As such, just prior to filming emotionally draining scenes, she would listen to dark and depressing music, to help her get out of the mirthful mood she was in.
  
  

• SPOILER: When Maggie enters the base camp at the end of the film, you can see the word "Szeveranz" painted, but very faded, in big letters on the side of a building, in reference to the film's title.
  
  
• SPOILER: According to writer James Moran and director Christopher Smith, the film is full of references to classic movies. Three of their favorites however are: - When Steve (Danny Dyer) stands up in the cabin and walks to the doorway, he turns around and sees himself still sitting in the chair. Then when he gets outside, he sees himself already standing at a tree. This is a reference to the famous scene towards the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), where Bowman (Keir Dullea) experiences something similar. - After the bus crash, Jill (Claudie Blakley) gets up from the crashed bus and waves to Harris (Toby Stephens) before walking into the forest. This is a reference to a similar scene in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trzy kolory: Bialy (1994) involving Dominique (Julie Delpy). - At the end of the movie as the Flamethrower Killer (János Oláh) is about to stab Maggie (Laura Harris), Nadia ('Júli Drajko') shoots him with an assault rifle, and we see a slow motion shot of her shooting the rifle with her coat open and part of her breast exposed. This is a reference to the Russ Meyer classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), in which an almost identical shot can be found.
  
  

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