Imagine a tiny tot joyfully jumping barefoot up and down puddles of blood, innards and sperm, singing funny street ballads. This is more or less the vibe you get from the Estonian brutal musical comedy Chainsaws Were Singing, which despite its visibly low budget offers a whole bouquet of sick ideas, inspired by cult horror films as well as the ravings of the Monty Python. Director Sander Maran and his mates apparently enjoyed the shooting to the fullest as the joy of their bestial work squirts onto the screen just as much as various bodily fluids. These Estonian guys clamped down on the sacred trio of values: love, friendship and family. And they smashed it to smithereens.
This bloody romance leans on a very simple story. A girl named Maria is kidnapped by a character aptly named Killer who takes her home in his van. And there is already a family waiting. A family which makes you sing „Get up everybody and run!“ Maria’s desperate boyfriend Tom sets off on a quest to save her and his journey is not only lined with a seemingly never-ending feed of bizarre characters but it also turns into one stream of extreme abominations interspersed with musical numbers which would often make Stephen Sondheim, Nat King Cole and Elton John bite their nails off and shut their business down.
If you are a tad more sensitive when it comes to visually explicit scenes, you can always just close your eyes and let the sound do the job. And the job strangely resembles a village musical farce. True, you may not see most of the film as the disgusting splatters stain the screen for most of the two-hour piece. Perhaps you’ll get hysterical but the whole shebang is nothing short of hysterical. Come and laugh your guts out!
