HorRHIFFic 2026: ‘Severed Road’ Review
Stars: Kane Hodder, Rory Gibson, Tetona Jackson, Hank Northrop, Tom Woodruff Jr., Taylor Foster, Natalie Otano, Dane Majors, Briana Kennedy, Pamela Chau, Scott Barrows | Written and Directed by Benjamin L. Brown
Billed as a “masterclass in indie horror tension,” Severed Road arrives with the kind of festival buzz that suggests something raw and nerve-shredding. What it actually delivers is a solid, old-school backwoods slasher – competent, occasionally brutal, but rarely as daring as its mountain-sized marketing promises.
The setup is about as straightforward as they come: on a mountain trip, a group of college friends stumble into the hunting grounds of a massive and brutal killer. Simple. In fact, if you’ve seen Wrong Turn, you’re probably going into this knowing exactly what you’re going to get.
And that familiarity ultimately defines the film.
The Mountain Man, played by former basketball player and professional wrestler Scott Barrows, certainly looks the part. He’s physically imposing, moves with weight, and convincingly sells the brute-force brutality required. The design is rugged and grounded rather than flashy, which works in the woodland setting, even if it never quite achieves the kind of iconic slasher silhouette horror fans gravitate toward.
Where the film falters is in motivation. There’s little rhyme or reason behind the killings beyond the well-worn “stay off my land” trope (Wrong Turn… again). Even classic slashers, however silly, usually offer some psychological hook: revenge, trauma, a curse, a past wrong. Here, the menace feels functional rather than personal, which keeps the threat from ever becoming truly memorable.
The gore is another mixed bag. Early on, the violence feels surprisingly restrained for a backwoods slasher operating in an era where the genre has become increasingly extreme. There are moments of brutality, but several potential standout set-pieces are edited so quickly that the impact never quite lands. It feels as though the film is holding back when it should be committing.
The soundtrack, meanwhile, does a lot of the heavy lifting. It’s not particularly distinctive, but the score injects a sense of ominous dread and looming danger that the film itself occasionally struggles to sustain. When the music swells, the tension follows – even if the visuals don’t always match it.
Ironically, it’s only deep into the third act that Severed Road finally unleashes the kind of over-the-top practical carnage the material calls for. A late-film kill delivers genuine grindhouse energy and briefly transforms the movie into something far nastier… and far more fun. It’s a glimpse of the version of this film that could have existed had it pushed harder, earlier.
Then there’s the self-awareness.
References to films like Severance and The Green Inferno pop up throughout, alongside nods to cannibal hillbillies and “bad horror movie plots.” Self-awareness can work in horror; it can even heighten tension, but here it begins to feel laboured. The moment that really sums it up comes when one character panics about their surroundings, only for another to snap, “Will you two calm down? The real world is not like a movie.”
That’s the line the film crosses.
Because in a backwoods slasher, the world very much is like a movie. We’re here for heightened reality, escalating danger, and genre logic. By undercutting its own premise so bluntly, Severed Road doesn’t build tension – it deflates it. Instead of leaning into the nightmare, it keeps stepping outside of it to remind us it knows the rules. Awareness isn’t the problem. It’s the lack of commitment that follows.
But what about Kane Hodder, you may ask? After all, he’s first-billed on the film’s IMDb page. Well…
Despite being heavily featured in promotional material, Hodder’s involvement amounts to a brief late-film appearance rather than a central role. It’s not a poor performance – he does exactly what you’d expect in the limited time he has – but marketing a film around horror royalty naturally sets expectations. When those expectations aren’t met, it’s hard not to feel slightly misled.
The ending attempts to push into darker exploitation territory with a late revelation that reframes the villain’s actions (and explains a random scene in which the killer seemingly feeds his victims). It’s clearly designed to shock, but it arrives so late that it feels less like an organic escalation and more like a last-minute attempt to add depth. Stick around for a post-credits scene that seems to exist largely to take a swipe at millennials and their reliance on social media accounts while teasing the possibility of a sequel – perhaps a cops-versus-Mountain Man escalation next time around? Whether that’s a promise or a threat will depend entirely on how much you enjoy this one!
Severed Road isn’t a disaster. It moves at a decent pace, Barrows delivers a solid physical performance, and there are flashes of effective practical gore. But for something sold as bold, unforgiving, and headlined by horror royalty, it feels surprisingly safe: a backwoods slasher that knows the rules, references the rules, and occasionally teases breaking them, yet rarely follows through when it counts.
**½ 2.5/5
Severed Road screened as part of this year’s Romford Horror Film Festival.
