Christal Films is hoping a solid track record for British films in Canada, positive early reviews and well-located screens will help draw audiences to the horror-comedy Severance, which arrives Friday on 20 screens across the country.

The Montreal distributor put a respectable push behind the film — about a ‘team building’ weekend gone horribly wrong for a group of coworkers — with grassroots and Internet promotion, sneak previews, and a press day in Toronto featuring Vancouver-born actress Laura Harris.

But Christal VP Joanne Senécal admits she is wary about opening the latest by U.K. director Christopher Smith (Creep) in the midst of big Hollywood titles including the latest Pirates of the Caribbean and Shrek the Third.

‘I would have preferred a late-August release,’ Senécal tells Playback Daily, adding that Christal had to follow the lead of U.S. distributor Magnolia Pictures, which ‘absolutely insisted’ on an early summer opening. Magnolia opened Severance in the U.S. on May 18 with a per-screen average of US$5,721, according to Variety.

‘We tried to pull back a little to open with the U.S. expansion of Severance,’ says Senécal, noting that she’s very pleased with the screens they got, including the Scotiabank Theatre Toronto and Tinseltown in Vancouver. Severance also opens in markets including Montreal, Calgary, Halifax and Ottawa.

Meanwhile, the thriller Mr. Brooks, starring Kevin Costner and William Hurt, opens in English Canada amid mixed reviews on 160 screens via Odeon Films, in cities including Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Kingston and Montreal.

Odeon’s sister, Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm, is handling the film, about a well-to-do man with a need to kill, on 48 screens in Quebec, with 35 prints dubbed in French. Vivafilm is also cautiously releasing the Hong Kong crime drama Election on one screen at Montreal’s Cinéma du Parc.

This week will also see Toronto’s KinoSmith Films open Dutch director Rolf de Heer’s drama Ten Canoes on two screens, Toronto’s Cumberland and Vancouver’s Fifth Avenue. A KinoSmith spokesperson says there are ‘tentative plans’ to expand, though they will wait to see how the 2006 Cannes special jury prize winner performs over the weekend.

Other U.S. releases for the frame include the comedy Knocked Up, from director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), which opens wide via Universal Films, and the supernatural thriller Rise: Blood Hunter, handled here by Equinoxe Films.

Coming up, Mongrel Media will release the French comedy Angel-A on June 8, alongside another French title, La vie en rose from TVA Films, which arrives opposite the star-studded Ocean’s Thirteen from Warner Bros. and the Sony Pictures animation Surf’s Up.