FANTASTIC FEST 2024: “CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING!” (2024) All Through Fantastic Fest! (REVIEW)

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Having made a bloody splash at this year’s Fantasia and Sitges Film Festival, the (deep breath) Estonian musical horror comedy “Chainsaws Were Singing!” wreaked havoc on this year’s Fantastic Fest.  The hype for Sandar Maran’s blood-soaked DIY labor of love has reached a fever pitch, but is it worth the buzz (I apologize for nothing)?

Maria (Laura Niils) falls in love with Tom (Karl Iives) via a musical montage. Life is great until, as Tom says, “it’s all ruined by some fuckface with a chainsaw.” The fuckface in question (Martin Ruus) kidnaps Maria after eviscerating an innocent bystander.  Tom attempts to rescue his lost love with the help of Jaan (Janno Puusepp), a friendly weirdo he meets on the road.  But who is this killer?  He’s just Ke, er, “Killer” (yes, that’s his legal name, as evidenced by a close-up on his ID), a redneck who sings a jaunty tune about his love for murder, complete with a chainsaw solo.  But like Jack Skellington and the “South Park” version of Satan, he has to wonder, is there more to life than this?

Even Killer stops to smell the flowers.

I bring up “South Park” because it’s an obvious point of reference along with the previous Parker/Stone joint “Cannibal! The Musical.”  Killer is the enforcer in a family of cannibals, which includes his abusive “Mama” (Rita Råtsepp), Pelle, the younger brother who would rather paint than murder (Peeter Maran), and who can forget Pepe and Kevin (Ra Ragnar Novod and Henryk Johan Novod), the homicidal, incestuous gay twins, and a baby they stole.  You definitely won’t.  Same with the bukkake-worshiping tribe of hill people that Tom and Jaan encounter, but they’re never mentioned again.  There’s a lot of random ridiculousness in Maran’s opus, likely due to the fact that he shot it in 2013 and just recently finished post-production.  As a result, the film’s in-your-face aesthetic feels handmade and sometimes amateurish.  The camerawork is so rampant, it sometimes feels like you’re watching found footage.  And if you haven’t been laughing steadily at everything listed above, there’s a chance you’ll find the almost 2-hour runtime oppressive.  If you have, you’re gonna LOVE what happens with the baby.

And yet, there’s an undeniable charm to all of it.  The film is just as much a satire of musicals as it is of horror films.  The medley towards the end is a standout, along with Killer’s early “I want” song. Plus, the third-act appearance of a character named Matt the Gunman made me laugh out loud.  The horror references are mostly direct, knowing homages to, of course, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”  Not only in visual motifs but in characters, as well.  Killer and Pelle are reminiscent of the different sides of Leatherface (the guy just wanted to make art!), and the twins seem to answer the question “What if we got to see Chop Top and the Hitchhiker furiously make out?”  Maran really did his homework.

Maria and Tom: a love story. With chainsaws.

The practical gore effects are legion. “Evil Dead: The Musical” is known for having a Splatter Zone in the audience due to the blood spray, but if there’s ever a stage adaptation of “Chainsaws Were Singing,” they should just cover the theater in plastic to resemble a Dexter Morgan murder room.  Maybe it took 10 years to make because they kept wearing out chainsaws.  Right now, everyone’s talking about THAT kill from “In a Violent Nature,” but there’s one here that had me howling at probably one-third of the budget.  “Chainsaws Were Singing” might be the best Troma Film ever made. Like “Cannibal!” and the best of Lloyd Kaufman’s oeuvre, It’s kind of a mess, but it’s an inspired mess.

Reviewed at Fantastic Fest 2024

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