Movies
‘Chainsaws Were Singing’ – Action Horror Musical Acquired for Fall Release
Dark Star Pictures and Red Water Entertainment have acquired North American distribution rights to Chainsaws Were Singing, the raucous and over-the-top Estonia genre mashup that combines a musical with horror, comedy, and action.
Described as “Monty Python meets Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets Les Misérables,” Chainsaws Were Singing is slated to release in Fall 2025.
The film follows “new lovers whose budding romance is shredded apart—literally—by a chainsaw-wielding killer, setting off an anarchic odyssey full of gore, grief, and musical numbers. Shot guerilla-style, the film is a full-throttle love letter to B-movie chaos and crowd-pleasing exploitation cinema.”
Check out the festival teaser below for an idea of the bloody insanity ahead.
Chainsaws Were Singing had a strong festival run, where it won Best Horror Movie at Fantastic Fest 2024, a Special Jury Mention in the New Flesh Competition for Best First Feature at Fantasia 2024, and Best Film at Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre 2024, along with official selections at Sitges, Tallinn Black Nights, Night Visions, and many more.
“We’re always on the lookout for films that break the mold, and Chainsaws Were Singing does that with a chainsaw and a show tune,” said Avi Federgreen, President of Red Water Entertainment. “It’s rare to find something this original that also connects so instantly with audiences.”
“This is the kind of insane, fearless cinema that reminds you why we go to the movies,“ said Repsch. “Chainsaws Were Singing is destined to become a midnight classic. We’re thrilled to unleash it on North American audiences together with Red Water Entertainment.”
Joe Lipsett wrote in his Fantasia review, “It’s bizarre, weirdly funny and utterly delightful. Just like roughly 95% of this odd little gem.“ And, “Chainsaws Were Singing doesn’t always work, but it works more often than one might expect. The film is a quirky delight that fans of gore, musicals, and comedy horror films owe themselves to seek out.”
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
You must be logged in to post a comment.