The opening of the madcap Estonian genre film Chainsaws Were Singing introduces a visual that any horror fan will instantly recognize: A young woman on a country road, fleeing a chainsaw-wielding maniac. It’s a familiar image in a film full of them, but as everything else in Sander Maran’s festival hit, it’s also a portal to another, much stranger world.
A musical romantic horror-comedy packed with gore and shot with vivid, kinetic wonder, Chainsaws Were Singing does a lot with its familiar trappings, and that’s precisely the point. This is a film that wants to lure you in with promises of chainsaw killers, cannibal cults, and perhaps a chase scene or two. It’s a film that wants you to recall the movie that inspired it, not just because that’s a way in, but because it wants to show you just how much is possible within those confines. For these and many other reasons, it’s one of 2025’s must-see genre movies, and you’ll never forget it after the credits roll.
Maria (Laura Niils) and Tom (Karl-Joosep Ilves, who also co-wrote the film) have just fallen in love, and everything is beautiful. Their hearts are bursting with song, they appreciate each other for who they are, and everything’s great. The only problem is a chainsaw-toting madman named Killer (Martin Ruus). When he attacks and abducts Maria, Tom has no choice but to follow, teaming up with a local weirdo named Jaan (Janno Puusepp) to pursue his beloved and rescue her at all costs.
As the title suggests, Chainsaws Were Singing is a musical, though it doesn’t go the full-sung-through route or overwhelm with songs. This is a film that picks its musical moments carefully, not just to play up the quickly developing love story that serves as its throughline, but also to give us insight into parts of this tale we might not otherwise hear. Historically, in films like this, the killer barely gets a voice, but Killer doesn’t just have a voice, he’s got pipes. We get an entire story laying out how much this guy loves killing people, completely with talking severed heads, juggling knives, and buckets of blood, and against all odds, it works. Musicals are designed to advance character and plot in a compact way, and Chainsaws Were Singing takes full advantage of that, while never straying from its otherwise intimate aesthetic.
That aesthetic begins with the gritty energy of 16 millimeter visuals, another echo of films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which made Chainsaws Were Singing possible in the first place. If you love 70s grindhouse stuff, as I do, you’re used to this look, the slightly washed-out heat of the sun, the bright green of the natural world, the dusty carpet of a dirt road. The film’s chosen setting is nondescript, its time period nebulous and occasionally anachronistic, making Maran’s movie feel like it could have come out in 1978, 1999, or even yesterday. Yet, it’s rooted in that classic indie horror, shoot-from-the-hip feel. It’s got the frenetic pacing of Texas Chain Saw down, but it’s what it does next that makes the film something to behold.
So, what does it do? Without giving too much away, Chainsaws Were Singing is a relentless exercise in wringing maximum strangeness and macabre mirth from a minimal budget and a small cast. The gore effects are often cartoonish, but the sheer over-the-top vibe they offer will satisfy both diehard fans of slashers and even lovers of fare like Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. The characters are broad, and yet Killer himself, thanks to surprising nuance from Ruus, is packed with subtlety. There are some pacing issues, as though at times Maran’s film didn’t quite know where to go next, but overall this is a movie that shows you something you think you recognize, then tilts that thing on its head with a wink and a smile. It’s designed to make you comfortable, then knock you off balance with simultaneously revolting and hilarious flights of fancy, and even when it’s dragging a little, that makes it a treat.
Chainsaws Were Singing feels destined to be one of those movies you watch with friends at midnight, whether on the couch or in a packed movie house. It’s a riotous ball of a movie, and fans of weird horror and even weirder musicals should not miss it.
Chainsaws Were Singing is now available to rent or buy on VOD services.
Summary
Chainsaws Were Singing feels destined to be a midnight movie, whether you’re watching it on the couch or in a packed house. It’s a riotous blast of a genre film, and fans of weird horror (and even weirder musicals) should’t miss it.
Categorized: Reviews
