Well, it’s that time of year again: the ground is laden with snow, the days are soul-crushingly short, and even the walk to the mailbox gives you blueballs faster than a night with a celibate hooker. It must be winter! And if it’s winter, that means that we’re fast approaching the anniversary of my viewing Sub Rosa’s Psycho Santa / Satan Claus disk, the latter film on which scarred me to such an extent that I am only now recovering from it. I’m not afraid to say that viewing that under-lit, camcorder-lensed abomination nearly put me off movies all together, and to do that, you must understand, would be a feat of Herculean proportions. Anyway, that brings us to today, almost a year later, as this fair reviewer’s scars have finally healed, and I find myself ready to take on a review of my first new disk from Sub Rosa, perpetrator of the above celluloid (well, VHS) infamy. Luckily, the item on the docket today, Severe Injuries, is everything that the above was not: a cute, fairly professional, and entertaining little indy effort that, while not exactly knock-your-socks-off good, is nevertheless a pleasant way to pass an hour or two in the dull dead of winter.

Billed as a satire of the slasher genre, Severe Injuries follows the adventures of Melvin Hubble, last in a long line of inept serial killers. After his father accidentally electrocutes himself while trying to fix the family toaster, Melvin pledges to go out and orchestrate a massacre that would make ol’ dad proud. As his location, he chooses a local sorority that just happens to be having a party that evening.

As time wears on, Melvin eventually manages to commit a murder, though, sadly, he finds that, now that success has come to him, he has found a rival; for there is another killer stalking the sorority, one just as inept as he, and between the two of these bumbling idiots, not a single sorority girl is safe.

Starting with this rather flimsy plot, director Amy Lynn Best and writer Mike Watt manage to build a rather amusing little horror-comedy by buttressing their story with numerous sight gags, one-liners and knowing references. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the film also includes a number of cameos from the likes of Lloyd Kaufman; Lilith Stabs; Debbie Rochon; and—oh lucky me!—the still-gorgeous, ever classy Brinke Stevens (whom, sadly, I can’t even post a screenshot of, for it would give away her joke). Seeing all these familiar faces (and a lot more of Ms. Stabs, who is generally very modest) lends the super-low-budget picture a lot of production value and will definitely enhance the film for B-movie fans.

Aside from that, though, the film is able to hold its own as far as comedy is concerned, which is a sizeable feat, as comedy can be quite tricky to handle. While the film, like almost every low-budget comedy, has its share of forced gags and groaners, things never take on a self-indulgently goofy quality that seems to permeate most home-grown efforts (aside from the bizarre decision to have a man in “drag” play the sorority house mother, which is like a “joke” that walked in from some other movie), and a surprising amount of gags do hit their mark rather well. I was shocked to find myself laughing out loud a couple of times, which, in my experience, rarely happens in such low-budget pictures, so on that score, things are surprisingly well-done.

Probably the greatest other thing the film has going for it—and I’ve touched on this already—is its general air of professionalism. A lot of low-budget filmmakers have a terrible tendency toward shooting their films like home movies, which wears amazingly thin amazingly quickly. Severe Injuries, thankfully, does not succumb to this trap. Its camera is always treated like a movie camera by both the crew and the actors, and, aside from the annoying fourth-wall-breaking “thumbs up”s Melvin gives whenever he’s pleased with himself, the whole project has a welcome air of professionalism about it.

As for Sub Rosa’s DVD, it, too, luckily is much more professional than the Santa disk, which, with its hand-drawn main menu and paltry six chapter stops per feature, was a bit of a slap in the face to the consumer. Here things are a lot more presentable. The feature itself, running only 64 minutes, is pretty well-chaptered with 12 stops, and, while the layer switch still makes it sound like your DVD player is instants away from exploding, at least with Severe Injuries that doesn’t seem like a welcome option.

As for extras, this disk comes packed to the gills. Starting things off is a collection of trailers (two teasers and one full-length) for the film, along with a rather ho-hum photo gallery.

Moving on, a “Behind the Scenes” sub-menu contains a variety of featurettes. The first, “Amy Lynn Best Interview” runs 15 minutes and doesn’t go anywhere all that interesting. Best touches on her reasons for making the movie and thoughts on horror and independent films in general, but a lot of time is taken up with her debating with her interviewer. The other two featurettes, “Behind the Scenes” and “Deleted / Alternate Scenes,” the latter running about 12 minutes, the former almost 25(!), are interesting, though they could have been merged together, as they both basically consist of on-the-set footage. Nevertheless, these featurettes are both fairly interesting, if perhaps a tad long, and provide a nice peek at exactly how a low-budget picture gets made.

After this comes Were-Grrl, an earlier short film by Best, which, while less technically-polished (some exterior scenes are almost entirely drowned-out by cricket chirping, and a scene at a “bazaar” takes place in a field with about four extras), proves to be a rather satisfying micro-budget comedy. The plot, in a nutshell, concerns a young woman out on a date who, after being kissed by an unattractive man/woman, finds herself, on nights when the moon is full, stricken by Sapphic urges and transformed into a lesbian seduction-machine. Happily, the topic is treated sensitively and maturely, and the short turns out to be a funny, quirky, and ultimately satisfying independent production that is further helped by just a tinge of social commentary. (And, as an added bonus, both Debbie Rochon and Lilith Stabs again popping up.)

Finally, the disk also comes with a couple of audio commentaries. The first, featuring director Best, writer Mike Watt, actress Robyn Griggs, and “glorified extra” Keith Kline is a fairly satisfying listen that, while occasionally suffering from a little too much idle chatter, at least provides some interesting insight into the background of the film. (Note to Mike Watt: I got the “kidney” joke; it was great!) Sadly, the second commentary, featuring Best & Watt again, along with actors Charlie Flemming, Tim Gross, and Jim Steinhoff, is basically a repeat of the first, only with less-interesting background information (most of which we’ve heard already anyway) and a lot more boring joking around and good-natured insulting between the participants. Rather redundant (and suffering from some rather loud mic feedback), this commentary is really only worthwhile for die-hard fans.

Still not enough? (Or perhaps you’re just smarting from the lack of Were-Grrl interviews and outtakes that are promised on the back of the box?) Either way, there’s more to be found on this disk (except these interviews and outtakes), but you’ll have to look for it. As an added bonus, Sub Rosa has seen fit to include three Easter Eggs in this package. The first—an information page on Sub Rosa studios—and the second—a trailer for Project Valkyrie, a film produced by some of the people behind Severe Injuries—are rather a bust; however, the third, a very brief interview with Brinke Stevens (looks like I got a picture of her in here after all) is, in my opinion, worth searching out, though I am, admittedly, a Brinke fan.

And so, with this rather lengthy rundown finally completed, I can bring my review to a close by saying that, all in all, Severe Injuries is a solid little indy effort that, while no masterpiece, is still a pretty good production for what it is. Sub Rosa’s fine package, which includes enough extras so that anyone should be able to find something of interest, makes this disk, overall, a pretty worthwhile buy whether you’re a B-cinema enthusiast, a rabid Scream Queen fan, or just some poor soul looking to love cheap movies again after experiencing a blow as crushing as Satan Claus.