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CHAINSAW SALLY
Produced by Stuart Voytilla
Directed by Written by Jimmy O Burril
Edited by Sean Paul Murphy and Jimmy O Burril
Director of Photography - Mike FlanaganSally - April Monique Burril
Steve Kellerman - Mark Redfield
Cynthia Prescot - Kristen Hudson
Daddy - Gunnar Hansen
Mr. Gordon - Herschell Gordon Lewis
Of all the movies screened at the 2006 HorrorFind convention, Jimmy Burril's CHAINSAW SALLY was the only one I was determined to catch. While my review of Burril's horror musical, SILVER SCREAM, is lukewarm, I've grown to appreciate it over the years as taped performance art. Originating as a horror musical for the stage, Burril opted to maintain the stiff and stylized performances of the stage production to allow viewers to experience the play as closely as possible for years to come.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I became sidetracked and missed Burril's screening. Afterwards, three separate groups of friends later told me that they attended but all left before the 20-minute mark. The words "painful" and "sucked" were used by all. To hear my friends tell it, I'd lucked out and missed the Second Coming of MANOS, HANDS OF FATE.
It's hard for a movie to live up to that sort of hype, especially when it's overwhelmingly negative. A filmmaker has to be either 100% inept or is trying to make a movie that badly. When the official DVD release arrived, I was prepared for the worst, but surprised to see someone quoted on the box calling the film "a masterpiece." A friend of the director calling the film "a cult classic," as is also quoted on the box, is expected, but a friend of mine calling the film "a masterpiece" came as a shock. Perhaps my other friends at HorrorFind simply weren't into microcinema, which admittedly is an acquired taste.
Suffice to say, the movie is neither good nor bad, but instead pretty average. The problem with an average movie is that it really doesn't give a reviewer much to discuss. Something that falls at either end of the spectrum generates critical examination in the same mass-produced fashion that McDonald's produces burgers, but bland movies leave reviewers and critics limp.
The plot is a riff on THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and Burill even pushes the joke so far as to include the original Leatherface, Gunner Hansen, as Sally's father. Sally, herself, is a sort of riff on the fetishism of cult cinema. Librarian by day, hellcat by night - an old cliché. Only this hellcat has Leatherface's chainsaw oil flowing through veins and is just as likely to slay you as she is to lay you. Which is odd when you consider how a-sexual and childlike she is. Actress April Burill has a youthful speech cadence which lends the Sally character an unintended sense of limited development and social skills similar to a feral child (only not so ferocious), as well as a Lolita-like fetish in need of an older John. The script even calls for Sally to drop an innuendo or two, but when confronted with a possible love interest there's a sort of nonchemistry reminiscent of a father/daughter relationship instead of a romantic union.
As a child, Sally witnessed her father's murder as he defended his family and home. Following his example, Sally has guarded her brother and the house for years. Through heavy doses of Tom & Jerry and Springer, Sally has learned to assimilate herself into society and find gainful employment at the local library to support herself and her brother Ruby (a living embodiment of homoerotic cliché). Try as she might to blend, Sally comes across as uncomfortable in her Librarian persona as a black man at a Louisiana lynching. We're supposed to find it funny when Sally grows tired of Dewey Decimal Perpetrators, Due Date Offenders, and Quite Please Violators, and forces them to confront the error of their ways with roaring saws and pointy objects, but April is so uncomfortable before the camera that the humor never hits its mark.
By contrast is D.C. area actor Mark Redfield who first came to attention with Philip Cook's THE DESPISER. Whether playing an Average Joe, as in THE DESPISER, or SALLY's rebel-billionaire-esque Steve Kellerman, Redfield exudes a stately regalness that commands attention. When viewers first meet Kellerman he arrives in town to personally oversee a real estate transaction. As fate would have it, he owns the land that Sally and her brother have been squatting on all these years. As anyone who has ever watched any of the TEXAS CHAINSAW movies knows, family has to come first.
As April herself mentions during one of the DVD featurettes, the only relationship she has in the film that borderlines on believable is the one with her brother Ruby, and that's mainly due to her relationship with the actor off screen. Years before the movie made its debut, April was bringing the character to life on the internet. With so much practice I'm not sure why she never looks comfortable in her role. Even as Sally, when April is allowed to cut loose and have fun, she feels like she's forcing the performance. The trashy pop-star costumes Sally sports attempt to glamorize a character better off left in the dark where she can simply exist as an anti-hero rather than be forced to parade as one.
To save the family farm, Sally hatches a Judy Garland that involves cops even more inept then those found in Wes Craven's LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, Kellerman's thirst for money, and the roar of a buzzing blade. Given that this is suppose to be a comedy, viewers are supposed to root for Sally and her antics, but it's hard to root for someone that comes across so unlovably annoying.
Perhaps, if CHAINSAW SALLY hadn't relied so heavily on in-jokes for its humor the movie would have faired better in the comedy department. Perhaps, if Sally weren't such a two-dimensional caricature the movie might have faired better in the fright department. Being a film made by horror fans for horror fans, I get the joke, but only find it mildly amusing. Unlike my friends, I was able to finish the movie in its entirety in a single viewing, and as I've stated before it's definitely not the worst I've seen, but I do wish it was better.
The PopCinema/Shock-O-Rama dvd release screened for this review featured numerous spots of unbalanced audio and three video glitches. It's possible that the glitches were a fault with the dvd replication, but the audio is simply poor quality control. The DVD features a number of behind-the-scenes featurettes including an interview with Gunner Hansen and why he found his character so enjoyable to play. You'll also find a commentary with both Burril's.
Chainsaw Sally
Shock-O-Rama
PopCinema