Musicals are something of a unicorn in the horror genre: a rare beast that can be extremely hit (Phantom of the Paradise, The Lure) or miss (Stage Fright). So when a film from Estonia called Chainsaws Were Singing comes along, it feels like a reason to pay attention.
Director Sander Maran and co-writer Karl Ilves (who also stars) have crafted something extremely silly and fun. Think Cannibal! The Musical meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, albeit with several extraneous side plots and a too-long runtime of ~1 hour 50 minutes.
The film is split in three parts, divided between its central lovers and the aptly named Killer who antagonizes them. The film opens in media res as Maria (Laura Niils) runs up to a man frantically asking for help from a Killer (Martin Ruus) pursuing her with a chainsaw. The man fails to believe Maria because he can’t believe someone would be using a chainsaw (“It’s off-season!”). Naturally he’s brutally killed and so Maria continues running.
The film is filled with this kind of irreverent humorous interactions which is both charmingly silly and extremely effective.
It turns out that the woods are the hunting ground for Killer, whose backstory and perspective are explained in Part 3. Maria gets the middle section, while her newfound lover Tom (Ilves) claims Part 1. The division is slightly arbitrary because none of the backstories are all that substantial and most of the main characters appear in each part, but Chainsaws Were Singing tends to default to an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to, well, everything.
In short: Tom is a suicidal man who meets meet-cute meeting with Maria at a river encourages him to give things another go. The pair proceed to spend a single day cavorting romantically through the woods before Tom is knocked unconscious by Killer and Maria is abducted in a white murder van. Tom flags down a passing driver, Jann (Janno Puusepp), a quirky individual who immediately becomes Tom’s sidekick. They pursue Killer and Maria, with sporadic side adventures, including losing Jann’s car, alerting the inept police, and – in one of the more unusual side quests – getting abducted by a bukkake woodsland cult who sacrifices victims to a refrigerator god every Wednesday.
It’s that kind of film.
Oh yes, it’s also a musical! Everyone sings their own songs with the exceptional of Ruus (Mart Toome provides his singing voice). The quality of both the singing and the songs is solidly amateurish, but there’s an endearing folksy/rustic charm to these sequences. If anything, the film could do with more songs, which – like all musicals – offer glimpses into the characters’ psyches and/or advance the plot.
The best example is arguably the film’s big finale, which finds each character individually singing about their hopes and dreams (think: “One Day More” from Les Mis). This includes wistful longing from Tom and Maria to Killer’s Mother (Rita Rätsepp) staring forlornly out a window and wishing her enemies dead.
The fact that the whole film is essentially a series of increasingly ridiculous developments only makes it more enjoyable. There’s a running gag that every vehicle Tom and Jann get into explodes. An inspired visual joke is that Jann is forever changing clothes, seemingly out of nowhere and even when the situation is at its most dire.
And then, of course, there are the kills, most of which are gruesomely violent and completely without motivation or precedent (Killer’s song is quite literally about how much he wants to kill everyone just because). The homicidal urge more or less applies to anyone he comes across: from an environmentalist guitar player who is left with a hilarious deathly facial expression to a car of aggressive young men who think that their bravado can compete with a chainsaw.
It doesn’t hurt that the gore is all practical and extremely over the top. Entrails, eviscerations, and exploding body parts are all part of Chainsaws Were Singing, including one confronting scene in which a man in Killer’s musical montage is seen having a chainsaw inserted in his rectum.
This does reinforce a minor trend of homophobia and misogyny that runs through the film. Maria is called all kinds of derogatory comments by Killer and his extended family, and the film cycles through a lot of gay jokes about Pepe (Ra Ragnar Novod) and Kevin (Henryk Johan Novod), real life identical twins who, in the film, are both brothers and lovers. The film is silly enough that these elements don’t need to be taken too seriously, but it is nonetheless an uncomfortable undercurrent.
The film’s biggest flaw, however, is that it’s simply too long. The saggy second part could have been abbreviated down (everyone loves a good bukkake joke, but the cult sequence could have easily been removed without affecting the plot). Unfortunately the drawn-out runtime compromises the integrity of both the songs and the jokes, which means the extended (and conventional) TCM homage involving Killer’s cannibalistic family fails to stand out from other generic imitators.
Chainsaws Were Singing is far more creative, enjoyable, and yes, innovative when it plays to its comedic strengths. Seeing Maria threatened with sexual assault and cannibalism feels oddly familiar and uninspired compared to silly, offbeat moments like the reveal that Killer’s younger brother Pelle (Peeter Maran) has been working on a painting of himself painting the same painting painting the same painting, etc.
It’s bizarre, weirdly funny and utterly delightful. Just like roughly 95% of this odd little gem.
Chainsaws Were Singing doesn’t always work, but it works more often than one might expect. The film is a quirky delight that fans of gore, musicals, and comedy horror films owe themselves to seek out.
Chainsaws Were Singing had its international premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival.