Today’s tale of tubular terror is a short titled CHAINSAW written by Andrew Alter, David Dinetz, Dylan Trussel, directed by David Dinetz and Dylan Trussell and brought to you by the gore maestro himself Eli Roth. The film follows a no-named individual who finds his way with his chainsaw into the makeup chair at a local carnival in preparation to work at a cheesy haunt. Meanwhile, young adults pay the ticket to “ride” but the ride is on the wrong side of the Reapers scythe.
As we all know, Eli Roth never holds back from the use of practical effects and attempts to create realism. This short, of course, does not stray from that same line of handiwork. I mean, Roth is pretty much the face of the “torture porn” genre (yes, yes, I used the term torture porn). With that said, I knew going into this short that I wasn’t going to be let down if he was backing it. At least in terms of gore. Let the blood and guts fly!!
As I mentioned before, I am a huge fan of practical effects, and these guys definitely exercised their shock value into an art form, if I do say so myself. The use of practical effects were brutal to say the least. Considering the run time was less than 7 minutes, it was most definitely chalk full of blood and gore. You also get to see someone get sawed in half, like from the waist up, and then see the legs still standing there. Things like that are always so comical but I love it.
In terms of acting, well I mean the actors were super short lived but the young couple, who seemed to be the secondary focus, played the type of people I was glad to see die. I mean who doesn’t watch a good slasher to see the kills?
One thing that this short does is really play off the fear of haunted attractions. I know for myself when I walk through them I’m constantly thinking, “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if one of these people was actually a killer?” Then you would die in a haunted attraction going unnoticed or unrealized like the beginning of SCREAM 2.
Honestly, CHAINSAW doesn’t hold a lengthy premise, it fits perfectly as a short so I couldn’t really see it being a feature length film. With that being said, I still really enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of overkill style gore flicks, Grindhouse, CryptTV or any Eli Roth flick, you’ll definitely be down for CHAINSAW.
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- [Movie Review] ALONE WITH YOU - February 1, 2022
- [Indie Memphis Film Festival Review] THE PILL - October 27, 2021
