Chainsaws in popular culture


Chainsaws, the common logging and woodworking tool, are also a common sight in popular culture.

Film

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 and The Wizard of Gore. Wes Craven's 1972 film The Last House on the Left, would be referred to as “The original Chainsaw Massacre” in advertising campaigns during later re-releases.
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, would etch the chainsaw into the public mind as an object of gruesome terror, even though actual chainsaw to flesh contact was only seen once in the whole movie. It would be followed by a direct sequel, two and in 2003 a remake which would receive its own. Following its release, many horror films, especially lower budget ones, began to incorporate chainsaw gore scenes, a trend which continues to the present day.
1987 would bring the next most famous horror film use of the chainsaw with Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II, where instead of being used by villains, this time is the hero the one who uses the power tool to fight the evil and set right what is wrong. In the film's greatest sequence, protagonist Ash Williams attaches a chainsaw to his stump to replace a severed hand, marking a point where the protagonist quit running from the spirits and chooses to fight. The chainsaw hand would have appearances in the film's sequel, various spin offs and would be parodied often, symbolizing the will to fight things that were utterly undefeatable.
Due to the high level of gore associated with the chainsaws 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. The scene in question 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 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.

Television

Due to television's higher level 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 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 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 anime and manga adaptation of Kuroshitsuji, a chainsaw was prominently featured as Grell Sutcliff's personalized Deathscythe.
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 him and a bystander.
In the early days of the R/C combat shows Battlebots and Robot Wars, many robots were armed with chainsaws, because it was a simple task to convert the tool into a remote-controlled weapon. Their usage steadily declined as builders began developing custom-made kinetic energy weapons that could do far more damage.

Video games

The first chainsaw appearance in a video game was the 1982 Texas Chainsaw Massacre Atari game. However this game, with antagonist Leatherface chasing down victims on a highway for points, would see low sales and limited exposure due to many stores refusing to sell it.
Chainsaws were used as weapons in the 1970s/1980s horror film inspired cult
Splatterhouse game series, and used by enemies in some beat-em ups. In 1993, pioneering first person shooter Doom included a chainsaw as a weapon for the player. Some horror games in which chainsaws are used as weapons include the Resident Evil series, Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, the Silent Hill series, Manhunt, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead 2, MadWorld, No More Room in Hell, and the Evil Dead spin off games.
Chainsaws also appear in organized crime themed video games. These include the Grand Theft Auto series, ', Saints Row 2, and.
Chainsaw-inspired weapons have also made appearances in sci-fi war games. Some examples are 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.
Some real-time strategy games, for instance ' have units which use chainsaws to fell trees, though few video games portray chainsaws in any context other than a weapon.
Lollipop Chainsaw utilizes a chainsaw as a primary weapon of the game.
The character Dorothy in Stella Glow utilizes a chainsaw as one of her primary weapons
In Shadow Warrior 2 the Player Character can use multiple types of chainsaws, including ones resembling swords.
In Um Jammer Lammy, a rhythm game, stage 5 involves Paul Chuck, a Lumberjack, helping the player character Lammy play a chainsaw like a guitar to carve a tree to create a replacement guitar.

Object of comedy

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. 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 have a song called "Malcolm", in which the title character "solves his problems with a chainsaw and he never has the same problem twice".

Sports

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.

Relation to reality

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 very 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. DePalma described the murder as part of his appeal that Scarface should be passed with a 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 and actual drug traffickers.