Fantasia Fest: Chainsaws Were Singing is a delirious musical bloodbath that never surrenders

Chainsaws Were Singing. // Courtesy Fantasia Fest

When you see a couple hundred movies a year, there’s always a worry of getting burnt out. With so many blockbusters and studio pictures coming out, a malaise or complacency could develop. All the while holding out a small hope that some brazen and audacious film could come along and break the mold. In 2024 there’s no question that that honor belongs to Sandar Maran’s Chainsaws Were Singing. It is a film that won’t just test your friend’s patience but may go down as one of the most insane movie experiences ever created.

On what will simultaneously be the best and worst day of his life, To. (co-writer Karl-Joosep Ilves) gets dumped by his girlfriend and decides the only response is to end his life. Yet just as he stands precariously on a short bridge over shallow water, he spots Maria (Laura Niils), stuck in her rut. The two instantly become smitten, and all seems right. Until they cross paths with a homicidal “f@#kface with a chainsaw” -the film’s words- named Killer (Martin Ruus). He instantly abducts Maria, leaving Tom to give chase with his new best friend Jaan (Jaano Puusepp) and embark on a perilous quest that involves incestuous brothers (Ra Ragnar & Henryk Johan Novod), a tribe of wilderness men who worship a fridge and a strange loner who calls himself “Cobra” (Kristo Klausson).

Oh and singing. Lots and lots of singing. In between the orchestral geysers of blood.

Attempting to parse through what makes Maran’s directorial debut (that took him 10 years to make) so special is difficult, based on the mere fact that it’s almost “too much” of a film. At a little over two hours, your first inclination would be that it overstays its welcome or is padded with fluff. You’d be wrong. It’s packed with jokes, at a regularity that would make the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team blush.

Chainsaws Were Singing defies description and is the bastard child of Cannibal The Musical, Dude Bro Party Massacre III, and the impulses of a young Peter Jackson. Which is to say it’s an unhinged and bloody musical with at least 30 comedic gags a minute and every single fluid known to mankind and a few that haven’t been discovered yet. It also lets you know if it’s the type of film you may or may not enjoy. Something Maran is happy to test as he opens his picture with buckets of blood, a car exploding, as well as dueling projectile vomiters. Somewhere, Troma Studios founder and lovable independent madman Lloyd Kaufman is sad to come up with a few of the things seen here.

Chainsaws Were Singing. // Courtesy Fantasia Fest

Made for less than any of the properties listed above, it’s a surprise that everything in the film looks and flows so well together. An “exploitation filter” would normally seem like overkill, but works wonders here. The unpolished aspect of some of the songs is deliberate, letting the absurdity hit fever pitch as it starts to pile on darker themes of child abuse, cannibalism, and torture. Allowing the film to unfold in chapters lets Maran and Ilves play with flashbacks, flashforwards, and wrangle a cast of several dozen. There’s never a moment where things border on overload, even as it continually flirts with the idea.

Then there are genuine pieces that don’t involve humor that are worth celebrating. As solid as the performances are across the board Rita Rätsepp stands out in the most traditional sense. She is Karen Black levels of going for it. Her symbiotic relationship with Killer is wonderful. Playing upon the idea that behemoths like Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface is more a victim of circumstance than outright evil. Even when he stops for a chainsaw solo, strangely, it’s also what makes Chainsaws Were Singing work. Every discordant beat enhances and embraces the oddness that surrounds it, such as when your most soulful character is the one causing most of the carnage, to the point where his face is permanently stained red with the blood of his victims.

Again, film lovers and critics are hoping to stumble on the next big or cult film. For better and worse, that’s exactly what this film is. Not only does it gleefully march to the beat of its own drum, but it also doesn’t care if anyone else enjoys the melody. It wasn’t made to break box office records or to chart a new course in terms of visual effects. Simply put it was made by someone who had the dream to make a film. It is a raunchy, weird, disturbing, hilarious, and rapturously joyous film. If we can’t get behind that idea, maybe we don’t deserve movies anymore.