Anomaly Film Festival Coverage
Chainsaws Were Singing review
You’ve never seen anything quite like Chainsaws Were Singing.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Chainsaws Were Singing
Directed by Sander Maran
Written by Sander Maran and Karl Ilves
Starring Karl Ilves, Laura Niils, Martin Ruus, Janno Puusepp, Rita Rätsepp, Ra Ragner Novod and Henryk Johan Novod
Chainsaws Were Singing Review
The Friday night feature at this year’s Anomaly Film Festival was the Estonian musical/comedy/slasher/romance movie Chainsaws Were Singing. It was preceded by the short film You Wake to Find Yourself Alone in the Woods by writer/director Brad McHargue. The short is about a man who…wakes to find himself alone in the woods. That’s a lie. He wakes up to find that he can hear a narrator voicing his every thought and movement…and that a masked killer is on his tail. The killer follows his own narrator like an inner voice guiding him. It’s a funny short that eventually sees all four parties crossing paths humorous results.
Then there is Chainsaws Were Singing. Before the movie began to roll, director Sander Maran and his brother/producer Peeter appeared on screen to warn everyone about what they were about to see. Shot in 2013, Chainsaws Were Singing is finally making its way around the festival circuit 11 years later. The brothers seemed genuinely excited for people to experience their work…and equally unsure if anyone outside of themselves would even enjoy the thing. Well, having seen Chainsaws Were Singing with a crowd…I can assure them that people very much did.
Chainsaws Were Singing is a wild movie. It’s full of crazy moments that feel like a crew figuring out in the moment what they could pull off and get away with. That’s (probably) not what happened, of course. But the fact that it feels like it is a massive win for the picture. There’s something here for everyone…even if the combination won’t be. Yes, it’s a musical. And it’s a comedy. A romance. The story of a cannibal family led by an evil matriarch and highlighted by strangely sympathetic, blood-soaked, chainsaw wielding maniac.
If that pitch sounds like a musical version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre…that’s still only half the story. It’s also a romance and an absurdist comedy. More importantly…it all works. Individually and in concert with each other. It feels so uniquely like its own thing that normal rules cease to apply to it. Anything can, and probably will happen…and you’ll be right along for the ride.
The story involves Maria (Laura Niils) on the run from a killer with a chainsaw…literally named Killer (Martin Ruus). Maria’s new love Tom (Karl Iives) pursues them with his new friend Jaan (Janno Puusepp). They meet colorful, and expendable, characters throughout their journeys including Killer’s domineering mother (Rita Ratsepp), a pair of inept cops (Thomas Kolli and Olavi Saar), and cult in the woods that you have to see to believe.
Body parts are dismembered, cars explode, people burst into song. That’s Chainsaws Were Singing. There’s also a surprisingly deep examination of Killer’s psyche. That it manages to be somewhat moving after two hours of watching every ridiculous impulse director Sander Maran and company throw at the screen might be Chainsaws Were Singing’s greatest trick. We’re talking about nearly 120 straight minutes of pure, unchecked absurdity. In the best way.
Chainsaws Were Singing has boundless energy to fill the time with. Between juvenile humor, over-the-top gore, and a few musical numbers…the whole thing threatens to go off the rails at any (and every) moment. Underneath the chaos, however, is the solid template for a slasher film. A girl is pursued and captured by an evil entity. She must use her wits and find her strength to stay alive. A hero is in pursuit. Things come to a fittingly violent, bloody climax. The movie layers a ton of fun, and some unexpected character depth, on top of it. Not only doesn’t Chainsaws Were Singing go off the rails…it builds a new track out of familiar pieces.
Chainsaws Were Singing throws so many gags at the screen it’s impossible to imagine you won’t find enough that hit to be enjoyable time. Does everything work? Of course not. The sheer volume of attempts makes that a statistical impossibility. The Maran brothers even made that clear in their pre-screening video. Perhaps the best way to watch their movie is exactly how they described it. Sing along…laugh when you think somethings funny…cheer when you like it…yell at it when you don’t. They’ve thrown everything they could think of at you…go ahead and throw whatever you have right back.
Scare Value
Chainsaws Were Singing feels like the culmination of a film production that asked “what’s the weirdest/funniest/craziest thing we can do today each time they showed up on set. And then answered that question correctly most of those days. It’s a musical/slasher/comedy/romance/family drama with plenty of gore and even more laughs. A success born out of the pure joy of doing whatever the hell you want.
