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Chainsaws, which are commonly used tools in logging and woodworking, are also a common sight in popular culture.
Chainsaws have appeared in countless films being used for their intended purpose, but this rarely, if ever, is given a prominent role in the plot. More prominent, however, is portrayals of chainsaws as weapons or torture devices.
Despite chainsaws having been around since the 1930s, they were not seen being used as a weapon in film until the 1960s, possibly due to Hays Code censorship restrictions on portrayals of graphic violence.
Among the earliest films to portray chainsaws as weapons are Dark of the Sun (1968) and The Wizard of Gore (1970). [1] Wes Craven's 1972 film The Last House on the Left was referred to as the "original Chainsaw Massacre" in advertising campaigns during later re-releases. [2]
In 1974, arguably the most famous and influential chainsaw use in a film was seen when Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was released. The film, loosely based on famous murderer Ed Gein (though unlike the killers in the film, Gein did not use chainsaws), etched the chainsaw into the public mind as an object of gruesome terror. It was followed by a direct sequel, two standalone sequels, and in 2003, a remake, which received its own prequel. Following its release, many horror films, especially low-budget ones, began to incorporate chainsaw gore scenes, a trend that continues to the present day.
The next-most famous horror film to use the chainsaw, in 1987, was Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II , where instead of being used by villains, this time is the hero uses the power tool to fight the evil and set right what is wrong (the previous film also contained a chainsaw, but it was ultimately not used for violence). In one of the film's most pivotal sequences, protagonist Ash Williams attaches a chainsaw to his stump to replace a severed hand (which he had removed with said chainsaw), marking a point where the protagonist quits running from the demon and chooses to fight. The chainsaw hand had appearances in the film's sequel and various spin-offs, symbolizing the will to fight things that (until the moment when the hero gets the mighty tool of power) were utterly undefeatable.
Due to the high level of gore associated with the chainsaw's use as a weapon, appearances as such outside of the horror genre were uncommon. One notable one was in Brian De Palma's 1983 gangster film Scarface , where a scene depicted a Colombian gangster dismembering another gangster to extract information.
In the 1996 film Forest Warrior , a scene was included depicting immortal spirit John McKenna (played by Chuck Norris) stopping a logger's chainsaw with his bare hand. The scene became memetic after being posted on the Internet, with a clip of the scene gaining over 5 million views on YouTube. [3]
In the Sharknado franchise, the protagonist is Fin Shepard who fight sharks in tornadoes with a chainsaw to protect his family.
Due to television's higher level of censorship, chainsaw violence is rare and usually only described with both the attack and the damaged body left unseen. An example of this is an episode ("Born Again") of The X-Files revolving around the ghost of a police officer dismembered with a chainsaw by corrupt colleagues; all flashbacks skip over the actual murder.
One notable exception is the series Dexter in which chainsaw attacks are occasionally seen, most notably in dreams and flashbacks regarding the protagonist's mother's death. This is due to the larger amount of content freedom given to programs created for pay television, of which the series is one. Dexter Morgan also uses a chainsaw at some points.
Chainsaws have made appearances in cartoon series, usually as a source of comedy. These have ranged from more young-adult audience fare ( The Simpsons , Family Guy ) to even children's series, for instance the series The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy contains a chainsaw-wielding character based on Evil Dead's protagonist Ash. In the manga and anime adaptation of Black Butler , a chainsaw was prominently featured as Grell Sutcliff's personalized Deathscythe. In the manga and anime Chainsaw Man the protagonist Denji can transform into a human-chainsaw hybrid by pulling a cord protruding from his chest.
CSI:Crime Scene Investigation has used chainsaws in one storyline, highlighting their potential for serious accidents. What was apparently the massacre of two victims by a third perpetrator was then revealed to be an inexperienced operator who had caused a kickback accident that killed both himself and a bystander.
In the early days of the remote-controlled robot combat shows Battlebots and Robot Wars , many robots were armed with chainsaws, because converting the tool into a remote-controlled weapon was a simple task. Their use declined as builders began developing custom-made kinetic-energy weapons that could do far more damage.
The first chainsaw appearance in a video game was the 1983 Texas Chainsaw Massacre Atari game. This game, with antagonist Leatherface chasing down victims on a highway for points, though, had low sales and limited exposure due to many stores refusing to sell it.
Chainsaws were used as weapons in the 1970s and 1980s horror film-inspired cult Splatterhouse [4] game series, and used by enemies in some "beat 'em ups" (such as the Robocop arcade game).
The Doom franchise features a chainsaw as one of the Doomguy's recurring weapons.
Some horror games in which chainsaws are used as weapons include the Resident Evil series, Dead Rising , Dead Rising 2 , [5] the Silent Hill series, Manhunt, Dead Space , Left 4 Dead 2 , [6] MadWorld , No More Room in Hell , [7] and the Evil Dead spin-off games.
Chainsaws also appear in organized crime-themed video games. These include the Grand Theft Auto series (starting with the Scarface-inspired GTA: Vice City ), 50 Cent: Bulletproof , Saints Row 2 , and Scarface: The World Is Yours . [8]
Chainsaw-inspired weapons have also made appearances in sci-fi war games. Some examples include the chainsaw bayonets in the Gears of War series, the "Ripper" chainsaw-knife of the Fallout series, and the "chainswords" seen in games based on the Warhammer 40,000 franchise. Chainsaw-based weaponry can be seen in the popular Facebook game Battle Stations, where it exists as a large-scale, ship-mounted melee weapon.
In Lollipop Chainsaw , the heroine Juliet Starling uses a chainsaw as a primary weapon of the game.
The character Dorothy in Stella Glow uses a chainsaw as one of her primary weapons.
In Shadow Warrior 2 , the player character Lo Wang can use multiple types of chainsaws, including ones resembling swords.
Although the original portrayals of chainsaw violence worked on its capacity to inflict gory damage upon a human body or sadistically produce pain, its prominence in low-budget B-movies has since produced a separate image of the chainsaw as a comedic, often campy expression of over-the-top terror.
This image is often drawn upon in cartoons, comedy series, and comedy films. It has appeared occasionally as part of the post- Scream wave of self-referential horror, for instance David Arquette's The Tripper .
One of the most famous stereotypes of comedic chainsaw portrayal is that of the chainsaw-wielding lunatic in a hockey mask (seen for example in the Simpsons episode "Cape Feare"). Ironically, horror cinema's archetypal hockey-mask killer Jason Voorhees has never actually been portrayed wielding a chainsaw in a film, though chainsaws have been used against him in some films.
The band Arrogant Worms has a song called "Malcolm", in which the title character "solves his problems with a chainsaw and he never has the same problem twice".
The Portland Timbers soccer team's mascot, Timber Joey, cuts off a slab of wood from the team's victory log using a chainsaw after each Timbers home goal. The players who scored the goal get to keep the slice of wood. [9]
Despite their substantial ability to inflict damage on living creatures, real-life chainsaw attacks and murders are uncommon. This likely is due to their heavy, unwieldy weight, loud noise, risk of user injury, and high price compared to other potential close-quarters weapons, although those same drawbacks make them weapons with a formidable value of intimidation.
One real chainsaw murder is referred to in interviews with Brian De Palma as having been the inspiration for the chainsaw scene in Scarface. The real case, which De Palma apparently saw crime-scene photos of while researching the film, involved multiple victims and bodies stuffed into metal drums. De Palma described the murder as part of his appeal that Scarface should be passed with an R certificate on the basis that graphic content was based in reality as screenwriter Oliver Stone had gleaned from months of research with both police officers (some of whom testified in the film's defense) and actual drug traffickers. [10]
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American horror film produced, co-composed, and directed by Tobe Hooper, who co-wrote it with Kim Henkel. The film stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen. The plot follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. The film was marketed as being based on true events to attract a wider audience and to act as a subtle commentary on the era's political climate. Although the character of Leatherface and minor story details were inspired by the crimes of murderer Ed Gein, its plot is largely fictional.
Edward Theodore Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer, suspected serial killer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned keepsakes from their bones and skin. He also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957.
Scarface is a 1932 American gangster film directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Hawks and Howard Hughes. The screenplay, by Ben Hecht, is based loosely on the 1929 novel by Armitage Trail, which was inspired by Al Capone. The film was developed and released during the pre-Code era of Hollywood. The film stars Paul Muni as Italian immigrant gangster Antonio "Tony" Camonte who violently rises through the Chicago gangland, with a supporting cast that includes George Raft and Boris Karloff. Camonte's rise to power dovetails with his relentless pursuit of his boss's mistress while his own sister pursues his best hitman. In an overt tie to the life of Capone, a version of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre is depicted.
A slasher film is a subgenre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools such as knives, chainsaws, scalpels, etc. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a generic term for any horror film involving murder, film analysts cite an established set of characteristics which set slasher films apart from other horror subgenres, such as monster movies, splatter films, supernatural and psychological horror films.
Scarface is a 1983 American epic crime drama film directed by Brian De Palma and written by Oliver Stone. Loosely based on the 1930 novel of the same name and serving as a loose remake of the 1932 film, it tells the story of Cuban refugee Tony Montana, who arrives penniless in Miami during the Mariel boatlift and becomes a powerful drug lord. The film co-stars Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Robert Loggia. De Palma dedicated this version of Scarface to the memories of Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, the writers of the original film.
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Willard Tobe Hooper was an American filmmaker, best known for his work in the horror genre. The British Film Institute cited Hooper as one of the most influential horror filmmakers of all time.
Freddy Krueger is a fictional character and the primary antagonist in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He was created by Wes Craven and made his debut in Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as the malevolent spirit of a child killer who had been burned to death by his victims' parents after evading prison. Krueger goes on to murder his victims in their dreams, causing their deaths in the real world as well. In the dream world, he is a powerful force and seemingly invulnerable. However, whenever Freddy is pulled back into the real world, he has normal human vulnerabilities and can be destroyed. He is commonly identified by his burned, disfigured face, dirty red-and-green-striped sweater and brown fedora, and trademark metal-clawed, brown leather, right hand glove. This glove was the product of Krueger's own imagination, having welded the blades himself before using it to murder many of his victims, both in the real and dream worlds. Over the course of the film series, Freddy has battled several reoccurring survivors including Nancy Thompson and Alice Johnson. The character was consistently portrayed by Robert Englund in the original film series as well as in the television spin-off Freddy's Nightmares.
Antonio "Tony" Montana is a fictional character and the villain–protagonist of the 1983 film Scarface. This character is portrayed by Al Pacino in the film and is voiced by André Sogliuzzo in the 2006 video game Scarface: The World Is Yours. Embodying the possibility of a person rising from the bottom of society to the top, Tony Montana has become a cultural icon, as well as one of the most iconic film characters of all time.
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Robert Sawyer, better known as "Chop-Top" is a fictional character from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise; created by Tobe Hooper and L. M. Kit Carson, Chop-Top makes his first appearance in the film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) as one of the film's villains and the main source of its black humor.
Gun fu, a portmanteau of gun and kung fu, is a style of sophisticated close-quarters gunfight resembling a martial arts battle that combines firearms with hand-to-hand combat and traditional melee weapons in an approximately 50/50 ratio. It can be seen in Hong Kong action cinema, and in American action films influenced by it.
Ashley Joanna "Ash" Williams is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Evil Dead franchise. Created by Sam Raimi, he is portrayed by Bruce Campbell and is the only character to appear in each entry of the series, including a post-credits and audio cameo in the 2013 and 2023 soft reboot films, respectively. Throughout the series, Ash faces off against "Deadites", evil creatures possessed by the ancient evil of the Kandarian Demon. Ash, since his debut, has been considered a cultural icon and an iconic horror hero. In 2008, Ash was selected by Empire magazine as the 24th greatest movie character of all time, and in 2013, was voted by Empire as the greatest horror movie character ever.
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Splatterhouse 3, known in Japan as Splatterhouse Part 3 (スプラッターハウスPART3), is a horror themed beat'em up video game released by Namco for the Mega Drive/Genesis in 1993. It is the sequel to Splatterhouse 2 and was one of the first games to be given a rating by Sega's own Videogame Rating Council. In North America the game was given an MA-13 rating by the council for its graphic violence and gore. Unlike its predecessors, it was not originally released in Europe. The game was included as an unlockable extra in the 2010 remake, with new artwork replacing the digitized photographs due to legal reasons.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an American horror franchise created by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper. It consists of nine films, comics, a novel, and two video game adaptations. The franchise focuses on the cannibalistic spree killer Leatherface and his family, who terrorize unsuspecting visitors to their territories in the desolate Texas countryside, typically killing and subsequently cooking them.
The popularity of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre film-series and of its main character, Leatherface, led to the publication of several comic books based on the franchise. In 1991, Northstar Comics released a miniseries titled Leatherface — a loose adaptation of Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III — that ran for four issues. In 1995, Topps Comics released Jason Vs. Leatherface, a three-issue miniseries that had Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame moving in with Leatherface and his cannibalistic family.
Leatherface is a character from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. He first appeared in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) as the mentally disabled member of a family of deranged cannibals, featuring his face masks and chainsaw. Created by Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel, Leatherface was partially inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein, in addition to confessions by serial killer Elmer Wayne Henley. The character has subsequently been represented in various other media, including novels, video games, and comic books; appearing in all nine films in the series.
A horror game is a video game genre centered on horror fiction and typically designed to scare the player. The term may also be used to describe tabletop games with horror fiction elements.
