Review of Chainsaw Sally (2004) by Robert B — 01 May 2013

Chainsaw Sally (Jimmyo Burril, 2004).

Man, I should have loved this movie. I should have loved everything about it. I mean, come on-it's a SEXY LIBRARIAN SERIAL KILLER MOVIE. This is one of those concepts that's so ridiculously amazing that I can't believe no one thought of it before this. And yet, as far as I can tell, Chainsaw Sally is the first, and only, sexy librarian serial killer movie. What a terrible, terrible thing that is; someone could really make a good one, if they set their mind to it, came up with a killer script, and cast the right folks. All things that Jimmyo Burril seems to have overlooked in this attempt.

Plot: do you need a plot? Sally (April Monique Burril) is a quiet, timid, bespectacled... oh, stereotypical... librarian with a secret: she's severely emotionally damaged, thanks to witnessing the brutal murders of her parents. And in lieu of therapy, she's come up with an alternative means of treatment: attempting to track down the murderers and introduce them to her chainsaw-themed brand of justice. Meanwhile, she's taken it upon herself to raise her younger brother, who if anything is even more messed up than she is...

The movie has any number of problems that keep it from being watchable, most of the big ones mentioned in the first paragraph, but the movie's biggest shortcoming is that Burril never seems quite sure whether he wants to play the movie straight or for laughs. The compromise is that he switches between the two on a frequent basis. When done correctly, and on a much more limited basis, this can work (The Evil Dead being the classic example), but it's far too frequent here to have (what I assume is) the intended effect, leaving us with heads spinning, and not in the good way. While it's developed something of a cult following, this is one you can safely give a miss. *.