Johnny Applegun - CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING
What happens when The Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets Les Misérables in Estonia? Apparently, you get Chainsaws Were Singing, a gloriously deranged horror-comedy musical featuring singing serial killers, exploding vehicles, questionable family relationships, and enough bodily fluids to qualify as a plumbing emergency.
🎵 Musical November has arrived on Found on Shelf! Dustin and Patrick kick off their annual celebration of cinematic song and dance with this bizarre Estonian independent horror film that took roughly a decade to finish after filming wrapped.
The story follows two strangers who fall hopelessly in love almost immediately, only to find themselves pursued by a chainsaw-wielding maniac literally named Killer. Along the way, they encounter a constantly changing wardrobe, a heavily armed action hero, a deeply dysfunctional family, and a forest full of people whose religious practices probably shouldn't be described on Spotify.
In this episode:
🪚 Why did an Estonian chainsaw musical take ten years of post-production, and could it have benefited from another decade of editing?
🎶 Can a two-hour horror musical be simultaneously hilarious and exhausting?
💥 Exploding cars, flying babies, and chainsaw-related creative decisions that somehow made it past the producers.
🌲 A mysterious forest tribe worshipping something inside a refrigerator. We have several questions. None are appropriate.
👗 Jan, the man whose wardrobe changes more frequently than the movie's tone.
🔪 A killer named Killer, his deeply unpleasant family, and a surprisingly serious backstory in the middle of cartoonish mayhem.
🔫 And finally, Johnny Applegun, the mysterious forest wanderer generously distributing firearms to strangers. The hero Estonia deserves.
Meanwhile, Patrick struggles to survive on two hours of sleep, Dustin experiments with increasingly questionable podcast marketing strategies, Gimcrack considers involving HR, and a listener voicemail suggests our audience may be getting exactly what it deserves.
Plus, our traditional Three Things to Change, featuring a much shorter runtime and an entirely unnecessary Lin-Manuel Miranda intervention.
Is Chainsaws Were Singing an overlooked masterpiece of independent musical horror, or an elaborate test of human endurance?
There's only one way to find out.
🎙️ Found on Shelf: Technically A Movie Podcast.
Obscure movies. Cult cinema. Improvised comedy. Questionable musical numbers.
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🎧 New episodes every other Tuesday at foundonshelfpod.com.
