So I'm slightly obsessed with Severance (2022) and I may have spent like a week straight cutting together an Innie Cut and an Outie cut and holy shit guys it's such an experience. I watched them both straight through like long movies and
(edit: guys it's available now!! Check the notes/reblogs of this post, or check my blog, for how to access it!!)
The Outie Cut is like an obscure offbeat indie dark comedy where none of your questions get answered and there's zero resolution at the end.
You really get to focus on oMark's perspective, which is interesting because in the show it feels like iMark is the main focus. We get to focus on how oMark's depression has impacted his life, and his journey through the confusion of what's happening with Lumon and Severance. The story feels slower and more grounded. It works better than I anticipated.
The Innie Cut is like a slow and unexpected descent into madness. Honestly, I thought the Outie Cut would be spookier, but no. The Innie Cut is very unsettling.
At first, it kind of just feels like a regular kind of office life show, where it's not at all unusual that we never see the characters at home. We only see them in the office because the show is about the office.
But then there are. Things. Very strange unsettling things. Just out of nowhere. With no context from the outside world. No relief from the blinding bright white landscape of Lumon Industries. The hallways that never stop, the walls closing in on you, the fact that you can't ever leave.
And oh my god when they wake up in the outside world in the final episode it is. SO. JARRING. It's been like three plus hours of bright white office at this point. And then suddenly, disconcertingly, you're thrown into this world that is dark and warm but unfamiliar and treacherous and you have to navigate it perfectly and fast or suffer the consequences.
And iMark, at the party. When you watch Severance for the first time, the party scene is a meeting of two worlds that are familiar to you, the viewer. When you watch the Innie Cut, you're just as off balance as iMark. You don't know these people. You don't know who you can trust. You don't know the right thing or the wrong thing to do here.
Anyways I'd love to share these cuts with people but I have no idea how to go about doing that
