Review: Chainsaws Were Singing (Fantastic Fest 2024)

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Title: Chainsaws were Singing
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Sander Maran
Starring: Rita Rätsepp, Mart Toome, Karl Ilves
Runtime: 1 hour 57 mins

What It Is: A musical following a deranged serial killer (Mart Toome) who sings as he kills his victims with a chainsaw. But the killer is awfully misunderstood—he’s just a big guy with a heart of gold… sort of.

What We Think: There’s a song—a whole musical number—dedicated to bukkake. There’s a scene where someone’s eyes get replaced with their severed testicles… ’cus eyeballs. Someone basically gets jizzed to death by a talking box.

Will, am I allowed to write this stuff? (Editor’s note: Yes!)

Holy crap, this movie is… a lot. I crack up because it’s very goofy, but this movie is too much. It’s basically one gigantic meme. I love it, and I love that this film got made. You can tell the cast had a great time making it, and it revels in just how absurd it can get. It’s hard to critique the acting because it’s clearly intentionally bad, but the singing is good. The killer’s first song, about how much he loves killing, was arguably my favorite musical number in the whole thing. The levels of dumb humor remind me of 2000s spoof movies, and the homages to Star Wars and Texas Chainsaw Massacre were priceless.

That said, there were times when the movie wore me out with how weird and crazy it gets, and some jokes are almost too corny or don’t land at all. The, uh… incest twins? Easily the weakest characters and gags. They felt like a product of an earlier draft and should have been cut. Some of Jaan’s jokes also felt too goofy at times. In its worst moments, the film feels like a comedian laughing at their own jokes, which isn’t always appealing. However, while the absurdity can be exhausting, it always finds a way to circle back to being funny again.

If you and your friends want to knock back some beers and enjoy ridiculous goofiness, this is the movie for you. It’s dumb with a capital D, and it revels in that. It’s so dumb that I’ll probably try to own a copy eventually so I can watch it at special events with friends, like I do with Kung Pow. I laughed a lot. Upon reflection, it feels like a fever dream, the kind you’d have during a Sopranos Season 2 finale-style fever. I couldn’t tell you why some things even happened, but there’s a beauty in that.

Our Grade: B+, This movie is for a very particular type of moviegoer. There’s a chainsaw solo during a musical number fairly early in the film, and if you can’t appreciate how glorious that is, you probably shouldn’t bear witness to this fabulous and weird monstrosity.

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