Chainsaws Were Singing (Fantastic Fest 2024)

I mean what more can you say? If you hadn’t guessed already, Chainsaws Were Singing is a madcap comedy splatterfest from the country that brought you… anyone else seen November? That’s a good one, and in fact is also a certifiably odd film and yet it doesn’t come close to the brash, vulgar stupidity [compliment] of Chainsaws Were Singing, a film with a strong running for best title of the year. The mastermind behind this madness is *deep breath* director, producer, writer, editor, cinematographer, camera operator, visual effects artist, composer, sound designer, colour grader, AND title designer Sander Maran, who has remarkably spent the last 10 years slaving away on this film in post-production. Half of you will be staggered by this, curious as to how a film like this ever came to see the light of day, the other half will be all too familiar with this sort of film festival story. It’s still wild, but every year there’s always space for one one-of-a-kind anomaly. Still, most of these sorts of elongated production stories never even reach the finish line so credit where credit’s due.

Destined to be a cult classic, Chainsaws Were Singing works on a similar register of cartoon logic and relentless absurdity as Hundreds of Beavers (last year’s obligatory “No fucking way!” one-of-a-kind festival feature miracle), though even more barebones in its execution. Maran’s film boasts a heady mix of charming digital effects and ridiculously gloopy practical gore; the fake blood order for this film is likely in the gallons. And there are songs! Which thank god are actually good, leading to some of the film’s best laughs. When it comes to low/no budget film a musical is a deceptively challenging genre to attempt, arguably the MOST difficult to tackle under the circumstances, but they merge wonderfully with the rest of the pandemonium. There’s black and white flashbacks, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it costume change gags, cannibal dinner scenes, forest sex cults, a war anecdote involving an ABBA cassette, and a baby. To go through this film’s plot is irrelevant; you’re either down to see a man scream and vomit blood uninterrupted for 30 seconds as a chainsaw is plunged into his guts or you’re not.

A film that swings as wide as this does and is the result of such a wild grassroots production is always going to have flaws. A comic strip film like this always strives on high energy and brevity, but at a smidge under two hours Chainsaws Were Singing really stretches its ideas out to the limit. The film’s peaks have a near constant stream of gags and wonderful visual ingenuity behind them, but often these highlights are often followed by far weaker segments where the style dries up. And for a film that relies this heavily on its absurdist vibe and likeable zeal, it at times left me feeling it was all a bit silly for the wrong reasons. In any ordinary circumstances I would have hoped the weaker parts were cut out to allow for the stronger parts to flow together seamlessly, but clearly that’s easier said than done when it comes to this kind of cinema. This is an ardently personal film for Maran, a film that outside of festivals is never going to break records or win mainstream adoration but is instead an unfiltered vision straight from the heart, and even if that vision contains a love scene between two twin brothers and a guy who has his testicles pulled out of his sack and shoved into his eye sockets, it’s still one that demands respect. To nitpick and voice suggestions would be reductive to say the least, this is simply an experience that you take or leave. Even without the context of its journey to the screen you can tell Chainsaws is a labour of love that has the fullest commitment from everyone involved. I liked it, but that bears no relation to what the next person will make of this.

Jake’s Archive – Chainsaws Were Singing