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"Aaah! Chainsaw! The great communicator!"
"Chainsaws historically have now probably been used more often against zombies in games than against wood in real life."
Basically, chainsaws are good. Good here having the meaning of "totally unstoppable weapons of mass destruction." Nothing can stand before their roaring, multi-toothed might; only death awaits any who challenge a chainsaw-wielding maniac.
A favorite tool of horror villains and zombie hunters alike. The reason for its coolness lies in its drawbacks. It is very dangerous, it weighs quite a bit, makes a lot of noise, and will tear through anything it touches even if it's the person wielding it. Oh, and the angular momentum of the spinning chain makes it a bit unpredictable, too.
A common way of playing with this trope is to make a chainsaw part of a Swiss Army Weapon.
See also Vibroweapon, Rule Of Cool, Awesome But Impractical. Compare An Axe To Grind and Sinister Scythe, where other gardening/logging implements are used as weapons.
While the trope name refers to chainsaws, it has mutated to include the use of circular saws as well.
Examples:
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- Buccaneer in Fullmetal Alchemist has a Chainsaw Arm style of Automail, though his is actually more realistic than most examples here in function. It consists of a chainsaw that is part of a larger pincer, and allow him to dismantle other Automail limbs. Furthermore, the chainsaw motor is used to keep the Automail warm and prevent frostbite, which is important given that he works in the far north. Also is likely to be handy what with the whole zombie army that shows up in the finale.
- Sadly the Fuhrer aka Wrath just destroyed it
- Who cares about the manipulation, bastardry,or the betrayal, he destroyed the Chainsaw Arm! DEATH TO THE FUHRER!
- In Code Geass, Humongous Mecha with Chainsaw Katanas show up about halfway through the first season. Much asskicking ensues.
- Mao also used a normal-sized chainsaw. It was presumably powered by a small
nuclear sakuradite reactor or something since he manages a Diagonal Cut on metal.
- The Urbanus in Last Exile is a Flying Battleship with massive chainsaw wings.
- Similar to the above, Uryuu Ishida of Bleach recently showed off his 'Seele Schneider' chainsaw- arrow, which is essentially a "spirit lightsabre" that can be fired from a bow and used as a sword.
- To clarify, the blade is made up of spirit particles, and they rotate at high speeds around the cutting edge like the teeth of a chainsaw.
- Cars from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure can spring chainsaw-swords from his body.
- Akutabi Gamma, of Zombie Powder, carries a chainsword as tall as he is. He wields it one-handed. Oddly, he's supposedly one of the greatest swordsmen in the world anyway, which makes you wonder why he needs to carry around an encumbering, gas-guzzling chunk of overkill as well.
- The School Days OVA Magical Heart Kokoro-chan gives us the Hello Kitty Chainsaw Massacre
 ◊. Yeah, should've seen that one coming...
- Metal Armor Dragonar features a Ace Custom mecha that has arm-mounted chainsaws as its melee weapon. Also, they can parry laser swords. And the pilot is the Dark Chick of the Five Bad Band. Sort of...
- Wedding Peach. Yes, a Magical Girl show had a chainsaw. It was still no match for The Power Of Love, but it had a chainsaw.
- Head maid Sakurazaka Hazuki in Nogizaka Haruka No Himitsu is known for whipping out a chainsaw out of blue.
- Giriko's weapon form in Soul Eater is a chainsaw, which he describes as "a truly traditional evil weapon."
- One suggestion is that the use of chainsaws in horror films is the reasoning behind the 'truly traditional' comment.
- At one point in the To Aru Kagaku No Railgun spinoff manga, Mikoto uses her electrical powers to materialize a Whip Chainsaw out of nearby iron dust. Yeah.
- Black Lagoon has Sawyer the Cleaner, a chainsaw wielding Elegant Gothic Lolita. To be fair, it's as much a tool of her trade as much as an instrument of mayhem even though she can apparently deflect bullets with it. What's her trade you ask? She 'cleans' up the many bodies that litter Roanapur by making them... More portable. Occasionally when the bodies are still technically alive in order to give the correct impression to the receivers of the bodies in their portable state.
- In Kotetsushin Jeeg, the titular Humongous Mecha can equip the "Earth Parts," granting it a pair of chainsaw arms.
- Grell the shinigami of Kuroshitsuji uses one that he supposedly customised himself. Some might say that it conflicts with the "Victorian" setting, but Kuroshitsuji doesn't really pay attention to that kind of thing.
- To be fair, the word 'chainsaw' is never used, and none of the other characters seem to know what it is.
- In Overman King Gainer, the first important weapon King Gainer gets is the chain gun, a chainsaw sword, and gun all in one package.
- A set of robotic guard dogs in Ghost In The Shell have chainsaw teeth.
- The manga series Magic Ban Removal!! Hyde and Closer features a magic teddy-bear that actually fights using a chainsaw that is stuffed inside of him, and its name is the Texas Chainsaw. I wish I was making this up.
- One of the mecha pilots in Full Metal Panic uses a chainsaw sword to cut a hasty hole in an airliner to extract a bomb. What,you thought W40k had a monopoly?
- One of the mechs from Viper's Creed has a chainsaw-rifle combo, a villain's mech in the last episode has two mounted on extra arms.
- In the manga version of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Unit 02 uses a double-bladed chainsaw against the Angel Armisael.
- In the Kirby anime, King Dedede cuts down an entire forest with a ''laser chainsaw''.
- Axis Powers Hetalia: America is using a chainsaw for no explained reason, scaring Canada out of complaining about him to his face. He also sported a very Yandere expression with Scary Shiny Glasses. (America didn't mean to threaten him though, he was just being unintentionally scary.)
- Motorball warrior Armblessed in Battle Angel Alita has a chainsawed-out body.
- Princess Resurrection's Hime dualwields two chainsaws to fight off the Pharaoh.
- Saitama Chainsaw Shoujo takes this trope up to eleven with Fumio, a teenage Yandere who learned an American Chainsaw Martial-art from her Texan grandfather
- Priest: One of the antagonists wields a primitive chainsaw. In the Old West.
- Torikabuto is shown to Dual Wield them in the latest chapter of Katekyo Hitman Reborn. But considering the fact that the main character fights with a pair of woollen mittens and someone else fights with a dining fork, this borders on the mundane.
Comic Books
- In the movie and manga Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge, the personification of evil uses a chainsaw.
- The classic horror movie The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (sic) just might be the Trope Maker.
- Taken to a whole new level in the sequel, which features Dennis Hopper dual-wielding chainsaws in a climactic duel against Leatherface.
- And let's not forget Leatherface's drive-by chainsawing in the same film.
- Probably the most famous example is Ash Williams from the Evil Dead films (pictured above). This is a Bad Ass guy who cut off his own demon-possessed hand and replaced it with a chainsaw mounting. Obviously not to be taken lightly.
- It is to be noted that in Army of Darkness (the 3rd film), Ash apparently no longer needs fuel for his chainsaw, not that he really needs it anymore, since he now has a fully working mechanical hand built with 14th century blacksmith technology. Of course, nothing scientific makes sense in Army of Darkness, as it was much more comical than the last 2 films.
- Averted in the self-parody film My Name Is Bruce. When a rabid fan offers Bruce Campbell a chainsaw modelled on Evil Dead to fight an unleashed god, Bruce is honored but turns it down because it's too damn heavy and unwieldy to use in combat.
- A less famous, but still Badass use of this trope is in the Hong Kong film Tiger on the Beat, where the hero and villain have a final kung fu showdown with chainsaws. This is the same movie that had Chow Yun-Fat using a shotgun-on-a-string that essentially let him fire around corners to kill bad guys. Yeah. It's that kind of movie.
- In Scarface, one of Tony's friends meets a chainsaw-caused death gruesome enough to have a Gory Discretion Shot used. In the pseudo-sequel title Scarface: The World Is Yours, the chainsaw is indeed the most powerful weapon, able to one-hit-kill targets and sever extremities. The same also applies if used against Tony by enemies.
- Dawn Of The Dead [2004] subverts this harshly as well. The chainsaw was meant to be used from the safety of inside a shuttlevan, through slits. The person who came up with the idea was lauded as clever. But the vehicle was not driven smoothly on even terrain, and the results are disastrous and deadly for the ragtag band of uninfected trying to survive.
- As lightsabers in Star Wars were justified feasible by scientifically adept fans as chainsaws of high-energy subatomic particles and, hence, classify as chainsaws, swords and energy weapons, they may very well qualify as the coolest weapons of all time.
- Patrick Bateman in American Psycho chases a prostitute through an apartment building in New York City with a chainsaw while naked. Of course, the sequence may have been a figment of his deranged imagination.
- In the 2007 movie Smokin Aces, one of the Tremor brothers uses a hand-mounted chainsaw during their assault on the Nomad Hotel, woth predictably devastating results. Of course, he was then hoist by his own petard, so a possible subversion...?
- In Bad Taste, the Ax Crazy character Derek (played by director Peter Jackson) gets hold of a chainsaw. Cue much gore and a Crowning Moment Of Awesome or two. Cast members Craig Smith and Pete O'Herne admit in a web interwiew that it was an homage to Evil Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Parodied in Braindead (aka Dead Alive), where the protagonist fends off a horde of zombies with a lawnmower.
- In Godzilla: Final Wars, Gigan eventually receives a pair of double-pronged chainsaws instead of hands.
- A Chainsaw arm shows up in The Machine Girl alongside a Machine Gun one.
- In Phantasm II, where there is a scene with a chainsaw duel.
- Motel Hell ends with a chainsaw duel between a sheriff and a crazed farmer wearing a pig's head as a mask.
- In a case of a victim using a chainsaw against the killer occurs in Maniac Cop 2, where the heroine of the previous entry is thrown through the window of a hardware store by Officer Cordell. Grabbing a chainsaw, she tries to attack him with it but he just nonchalantly grabs the blade, wrenches it from her grasp and snaps her neck.
- Buzzsaw from The Running Man. Ends up Hoist By His Own Petard.
- Dawn Of The Dead - painfully subverted during a high speed zombie car chase. One of the characters accidently looses his grasp of the chainsaw, which cuts into another survivor. This causes their getaway truck to topple over.
- Open Season - Beavers + chainsaws = Crazy Awesome!
- Dark of the Sun, based on the Wilbur Smith novel, featured two men in a chainsaw duel.
- The Wizard of Gore
- Last House On The Left
- Michael Z. Williamson's novel Better To Beg Forgiveness features, among other equally awesome things, the esteemed yet extremely enraged President Bishwanath of Celedon driving off a mob of bloodthirsty rioters with a chainsaw. Yes. The PRESIDENT.
- Possibly one of the very earliest Chainsaw Swords in literature is the Diskos from William Hope Hodgson's seminal 1912 fantasy-horror novel The Night Land. (The hero's survival ration pack also includes literal Dehydrated Water, which if it isn't a TV trope darn well ought to be.)
- The heroine of Eric Flint and Dave Freer's Rats and Bats books, Virginia Shaw, adopts a chainsaw as her personal weapon.
- The Zombie Survival Guide deconstructs this, noting all of the above reasons not to use a chainsaw against the undead, and adding that you're throwing infected bodily fluids all over the place if you do get it to work, and that the loud noise is just going to attract more zombies.
- Lieutenant Karrin Murphy in The Dresden Files uses one to down an ogre. With the added bonus that The Fair Folk really, really don't like being attacked by metal.
Live Action TV
- The song by the Arrogant Worms that begins as follows:
Billy solves his problems by calling up his Ma,
Heather solves her problems with drugs and alcohol,
Daniel solves his problems with a doctor and the law,
But Malcolm has his own way, and it's better than them all...
'Cause Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw, Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw, And he never has the same problem twice!
- In "The Curse of Millhaven", by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, the Enfante Terrible protagonist uses a circular saw (close enough) to decapitate a handyman, and then leaves his severed head in the mayor's fountain.
- In the song 'Break Stuff' by Limp Bizkit, Fred Durst points out that he 'packs a chainsaw' and politely suggests that people get out of his way.
- W.A.S.P have a song called 'Chainsaw Charlie' and lead singer Blackie Lawless used to wear various saw blades on his costume in the eighties. (it's possible this no longer qualifies as 'good')
- All of the above are beaten by 'The Lumberjack Song' by US rockers Jackyl. Lead singer Jesse James Dupre actually plays a chainsaw as an instrument during the song, including a chainsaw solo. When played live he would chop things up on stage during this number.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40000 has the distinct honor of arming several troops in the Imperium, Chaos, Orks and Eldar forces with Chainswords. That's right, Chainsaw swords. In fact, the priests of the Church Militant are often given extra-large chainsaws to carry into combat. In addition, there are the chain-axes wielded by Khorne Berserkers(and sometimes Orks, too). There's not much more terrifying than a squad of 9-foot-tall insane Super Soldiers in Powered Armor swinging screaming axes and thinking only of separating your head from your shoulders. The Space Wolves (being something of a good guy counterpart to Khorne) also have Chain Axes, which are even more powerful then the vanilla brand due to the blades being made from kraken teeth. How this works who the hell knows, but it's awesome.
- Then there's the Banelord Titan, a daemonically possessed Humongous Mecha with a chainsaw fist. There is also the elite Space Marine (Super Soldier) in Terminator armor, a hulking man strong enough to destroy armies, who, yes, is also given a chainsaw fist.
- Games Workshop displays a distinct affinity for chainsaws - one of their lesser efforts in the 1980s basically spun this trope into an entire (terrible) boardgame.
- Several commissars are noted for their skill with chainswords. Such as Dan Abnett's Ibram Gaunt and Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!.
- The chain-axes are an even more bizarre example than the chainsword, because the main point of an axe is to make brutal impacts with the weight of the head, while chainsaws require careful pressing. But, of course, the Rule Of Cool is 40K's physics.
- Tellos of the Soul Drinkers loses his hands quite early on, and the Healing Factor he picks up when the Chapter begins mutating won't give him his hands back. So what does he do? He attaches chainswords to the stumps.
- Ork Nobs take this Up To Eleven with one one-handed chainsaw axe, two two-handed chainsaw axes, two two-handed circular saw axes, and a circular saw bionic hand.
- One White Dwarf shows off a customized Ork with a Power Klaw that consists of a single metal blade as the top "finger" and has two semi-circular saws as the bottom "fingers".
- There's a chainsaw scythe in Necromunda, wielded by the Spyrer Matriarch. Only Warhammer 40000 could take Sinister Scythe up to 11.
- In Rifts, Armor-shredding Chainsaws are a favorite weapon of the chemically-augmented Juicer Warriors.
- Mind you, Thanks to the Mega-Damage combat system, those chainsaws CAN slice through a tank..
- Anti-tank chainsaws wielded by suicidal-steroid-freak-supersoldiers are not among the top forty weirdest things in Rifts. Which tells you something of what you need to know...
- In Unknown Armies, chainsaws give a +9 damage bonus in melee, the highest in the game. As do katanas.
- There is a Chainsword (a unique magic sword that quite literally is a cross between a sword and a chainsaw, described in DRAGON Magazine #132) in AD&D.
- Cyberpunk 2020 has the Husqvarna Chainripp - a chainsaw which you can install into your bionic arm.
- Dragonmech, a steampunk take on a d20 fantasy world, has, as part of the new 'steam tech', chatterswords (which, in addition to 2d6 damage, can inflict a bit more damage later on as the victim's own movement rips open their words), and the terrifying buzzaxe, which does 2d8 damage.
- Munchkin has the card called Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment. It is, of course, Exactly What it Says on the Tin.
- Exalted characters are well known for their daiklaves. How do you go one better? With a chainklave. It's not just a chainsaw sword...it's a magical chainsaw sword about the size of a man. Unsurprising, really, since Exalted actually has a Rule Of Cool game mechanic.
- Averted in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer RPG. They do acknowledge the desire to use them given their prevalence in horror movies, and they deal great damage, but they are dangerous. If you roll a Critical Failure, you'll hit yourself.
- In the game Mutant Chronicles, they have a chainsaw attachment for various firearms called a "Chain Bayonet." There's a picture of one on an Ahhnold style Minigun that might as well have the word mainly stamped on it.
- d20 Modern has the Decapitator, which is essentially a Vorpal Chainsaw, and the Chain Saw of the Psycho, which is an enhanced-damage weapon that inflicts negative levels on good-aligned users.
- In GURPS chainsaws do more damage than any other melee weapon. Unfortunately they're terribly difficult to use.
- Both versions of The World Of Darkness grant chainsaws terrible accuracy penalties... but if you can land that hit, they deal great damage.
- Even Dungeons And Dragons has gotten in on this trope. With the second Adventurer's Vault sourcebook, anyone who wields a Heavy Blade, Axe or Polearm can find a Fleshgrinder version, a demon-developed magical weapon that the text and sidebar make clear is a chainsaw-bladed version of the greatsword, battleaxe, scythe, glaive or whatever's appropriate.
Video Games
- Evil Dead: Hail To The King and its sequel.
- Fallout has the Ripper, which is another version of the chainsaw sword, which is used one-handed. In the third game they even name one 'Jack'. It's very... effective, as the trope implies.
- The Pitt DLC adds the "Auto-Axe" (with its own unique variants), which scales things up to industrial strength.
- Dead Space also has a weapon called the Ripper: it takes it up a notch by being a buzz saw that projects a spinning blade about a foot in front of it. It can then shoot the blade at distance. It's also
arguably the best weapon in the game.
- Gears Of War features the chainsaw bayonet. Interestingly, while it is as lethal as one might imagine — essentially an instantaneous kill for the poor bastard on the receiving end — it takes time to rev up.
- The sequel is set to have chainsaw duels, according to the two currently-released trailers. A boss named Skorge wields a two chainsaws at the ends of a staff. Yeah.
- In Doom, the chainsaw replaces your fists as the Emergency Weapon once you find it, and works quite well as a way to save ammo when dealing with lesser enemies.
- Extremely Bad Ass doomers are known to complete the game without using any weapon other than the chainsaw and, when absolutely needed, the pistol this is known as Tyson style, preferably done on ultra violence (UV Tyson). The COMPET-N has demos of all four boss levels from the original Doom being played "Tyson" style, with only the fists. The Cyberdemon can be punched to death, but it takes patience, dexterity, precision, strategy, and a very long time (28 minutes 10 seconds is the record). The two Spiderdemons can be lured into being killed by other monsters.
- Touching on the Awesome But Impractical angle, an ex-forestry worker points out that the marine left the safety cutout intact.
- Doom's successor Quake doesn't give you the chainsaw, but does give the weapon to the Ogres as a melee weapon against you.
- While the chainsaw was eventually reintroduced in a number of quasi-official mods for Quake, the default melee weapon in Quake III was the gauntlet, a wrist-mounted circular saw. Along with Quake's nailgun, this raises the question of which powertool Id will weaponize next.
- The game would yell "Humiliation!" to all players whenever someone scored a kill with it.
- The chainsaw makes a return in Doom 3. "Somebody ordered it accidentally" serves as the excuse as to why there are chainsaws on Mars. It's one of the best weapons to use when you're in Berserk mode.
- The order was screwed up on Earth. Somewhere there is a group of lumberjacks wondering how they're expected to cut down trees using jackhammers.
- In Doom 2, a chainsaw is the first weapon you receive. It's literally about 10 feet from where you start the game.
- The chainsaw in Doom RL not only does a whole whackload of damage per strike, it's apparently Good enough that picking it up for the first time gives you a free Berserk Pack effect.
- Unreal Tournament paid homage to Doom with the pickup message: "It's been five years since I've seen one of these."
- Heretic features the Gauntlets of the Necromancer, functionally identical to the chainsaw of Doom, but made more practical by the limited number of enemies that possesses ranged attacks. When powered up using a Tome of Power, not only do they rip into enemies with red magical lightning, they also vampirically heal you.
- Popular Indie Game Tremulous has a human weapon called the Painsaw. It is a chainsaw with a blade made of electricity.
- .hack//G.U. has angsty Anti Hero Haseo Dual Wielding short swords (some which are mini-chainsaws, some have spikes on them), a Sinister Scythe and because he is cool enough, a big Chainsword. In fact, he tries to be so cool he cuts off an opponent's head during a skirmish. Of course, that all happens in the Virtual World, so he can do it as many times as he wants with impunity. It's just a game after all.
- Phantasy Star Online has a hidden weapon known as the Chain Sawd, which is a lightsaber-toothed chainsaw BFS. In practice it's not as effective as the trope would indicate, but its HP-steal special, along with the fact that it IS still effective in combat, mean it has a lot of fans.
- Edgar from Final Fantasy VI can use a chainsaw. Against normal foes, he sometimes pulls on a hockey mask and lands an instant kill.
- In Final Fantasy VII, Vincent's third Limit Break uses a chainsaw.
- The instant kill chainsaw is even more powerful in Final Fantasy Legend. A bug in the code that was supposed to make it only work on low level enemies but not bosses makes it do the exact opposite, leading to a rather anticlimactic final battle. This was also incorporated into an Axe in Romancing Sa Ga: Minstrel Song (It turns into a chainsaw). The Final Battle in Final Fantasy Legend is even mentioned as a story in the Library.
- Even if they didn't intend it, the fact that you could murder God with a chainsaw in Square's first Gameboy title is pretty awesome. And some people thought J-RPGs only turned sacrilegious following Evangelion's trend.
- Ba'Gamnan, a Bangaa Bounty Hunter in Final Fantasy XII wields a chainsaw spear, a long wooden pole with a large ring-shaped saw at the end.
- In Dead Rising, although it's one of the best all-around melee weapons in the game, being incredibly powerful without the extreme clumsiness of weapons like the sledgehammer, and possessing dangerous 360 degree spin and charging attacks, the chainsaw is too heavy and clumsy to store in your inventory, has to be started up before use, and its fuel supply only lasts a fairly short time after starting. The game also features a smaller, slightly weaker, but far more portable version... which, barring the Infinity Plus One Sword, is commonly recognized as the best overall weapon in the game.
- While there is a slightly more powerful weapon than the small chainsaw in Dead Rising, it suffers from Breakable Weapons just like everything else; however, the game's durability increasing power-ups for weapons can be applied to the small chainsaw more than any other weapon in the game, turning the small chainsaw into the game's Disc One Nuke (relatively speaking, since the game's still crazy hard even with this exploit).
- The sequel will apparently take this further, with a zombie-killing reality game show were the climax involves riding through hordes of the undead with motorcycle-mounted chainsaws.
- In the Fighting Game Time Killers, the 21st-century fighter Rancid uses a chainsaw as a weapon.
- The Chainsaw weapons in Silent Hill are generally useful weapons... except they're all New Game Plus-only. One thing many gamers seem to forget about them is that you don't actually have to swing it, just rev it up - the monsters will ignore this completely and kill themselves on it.
- Unless said gamers are playing Silent Hill 2, in which case their memory is spot on; James holds the chainsaw off to his side until he swings it, making it useless when stationary.
- Wild ARMs 4 has an anti-tank chainsaw. Considering it shreds a train cart to itty-bitty pieces and overkills your characters many times beyond their max Hit Points, it likely does what its name implies. It avoids the usual depiction of the chainsaw though; the character that wields it is one of the slowest bosses in the game, and he needs to waste one turn to start up the chainsaw every time he uses it.
- Heavy Metal FAKK2 lets Julie wield the mighty chainsword. Unfortunately, you can't use it with the game's Dual Wielding / Guns Akimbo system. Plus, the damn thing gorged fuel like crazy.
- The chainsaw found in Serious Sam has its fuel problem Handwaved by the existence of an advanced fuel cell. There is also a type of enemy mook that uses chainsaws.
- In Resident Evil 4, there are chainsaw-wielding Ganados that can kill Leon in one hit. (Though it is worth noting that there are many things in RE4 that can kill Leon in one or two hits, especially during boss battles.) Capcom clearly thought the chainsaw was so cool that the limited edition RE4 game controller was a chainsaw, even though the player never uses one in the whole game. Moreover, one piece of official artwork shows the player character being killed with said chainsaw.
- Just for overkill, the Waterworld level in the Mercenaries mini-game features an exclusive enemy who wields a double chainsaw and swings it around nonstop while advancing at decent speed, which will automatically decapitate your character at any opportunity.
- Chainsaw-wielding enemies also return in Resident Evil 5, and while they are still lethal, there's a chance that they may just deal high damage to the player instead.
- The Assault Blade weapon in Super Robot Wars Original Generation is a Humongous Mecha-sized Chainsword. Quite a number of mecha feature it as a weapon, even the cute Elegant Gothic Lolita Fairlions. In the Original Generations Videogame Remake, Ryusei uses the ART-1, a mecha armed with chainsaw tonfas. In MX, the Garmraid has buzzsaws for knees.
- The Grand Theft Auto series after Vice City has a couple of chainsaws scattered around the map. As the guns dealer from San Andreas would say: "works best in a crowded area".
- Fittingly, one was in an out of the way hick-like town. This troper pureed the natives, then started chasing cars on the interstate.
- While not precisely a chainsaw, the video games Half Life 2 and Half Life 2: Episode 2 provide a saw blade that can be launched at enemies using the gravity gun, nicely slicing them in half.
- Not to mention the Manhacks (think flying, homing circular saws), which you can grab in place with the gravity gun and slice into enemies with.
- In the game Armored Core-For Answer, there exists a number of Arms Forts which act as the main adversaries, which include a six-legged aircraft carrier, a giant hydrofoil...and a gigantic tank named Cabracan which has 4-5 multi-story chainsaw blades on the front!
- In Ninja Gaiden II for the 360, one type of enemy is a zombie with a chainsaw for one arm and a cannon for another. Ya rly.
- In the old adventure game Maniac Mansion, you can find a chainsaw in the house but there is no fuel to make it run. In a subsequent (not a sequel) game Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders you find a can of gas ("For chainsaw use only!") in a locker on Mars as an in-joke, with the player character refusing to pick it up because "It's for another game". a
An Updated Rerelease of Maniac Mansion included a reference to Zak McKracken in the form of a poster in the arcade room, examining which makes your character wonder why anyone would need chainsaw fuel on Mars.
- In Disgaea 3, Ax Crazy Princess Sapphire threatens to open Mao's heart with a chainsaw to save Almaz from being turned into a demon.
- Paul Chuck from Um Jammer Lammy has a song dedicated to how his chainsaws are better than those of his rival, Joe Chin.
- Another Circular Saw Good example: the serrated metal discs in Dwarf Fortress. Entertainingly, their usage usually triples the amount of dumping required to get rid of each goblin, because of the small pieces scattered everywhere.
- A new class in Atlantica Online uses Chainsaws... despite the modern chainsaw not having been invented until the early 20th century — there were chainsaws earlier, but they were quite different from the device we know and love today — and the game seeming to take place in the 19th century at the latest. This only adds to the already bubbling Anachronism Stew of the setting.
- Of course, the Chainsaw person has retardedly high stats, save for Dexterity, and can only be made by someone with a level 100 character already made.
- The Aqua Teen Hunger Force golf game, Zombie Ninja Pro-Am, features a chainsaw pickup on certain levels. While it is slow and unwieldy, it does a lot of damage.
- Madworld more or less eats this trope for breakfast. The main character has a gauntlet with a retractable chainsaw built into it. The first miniboss carries a giant dual-bladed chainsaw, which you can pick up as a weapon of your own after you beat the game at least once. Revolving buzzsaw blades are a common environmental weapon. Some of the tougher gangmembers in the Downtown stage carry chainsaws. The Shogun boss uses a Blade On A Stick that consists of a huge staff with two massive buzzsaws at either end. And then there's Kojack, who also has a retractable arm-chainsaw.
- This is the signature weapon of Mika from the Daiku no Gensan video game series — better-known in the US as Hammerin' Harry. The manual for Hammerin' Hero even mentions that her nickname is "Chainsaw Mika"... despite the fact that she actually uses a fan in that game. The cover art has a nice picture of her using a Chainsaw, though.
- There's a Chainsaw in Survival Crisis Z. However, it's one of the worst weapons in the game, only slightly above the knife. It inexplicably doesn't require fuel, but it's clumsy, not particularly damaging, and you have to get in close, easily allowing the Infected and zombies to mob you, or counterattack if you don't line it up right. Even low-end guns like the revolver or SMG are better than it if you have the choice.
- The latest edition of Sauerbraten replaces the old completely worthless melee weapon with a chainsaw. It's mostly there to serve as your Emergency Weapon in the single-player modes, although it is more damaging than the pistol and has enough range to serve as a semi-useful crowd clearing weapon if you're out of grenades or rockets.
- Tetsuya Nomura stated in a recent interview that the original weapon design he showed to Disney for Kingdom Hearts was a chainsaw-like weapon. Upon seeing their scrunched-up faces and the dead silence that followed, he resigned to the Keyblade, thus averting this trope entirely.
- In Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, the PTX-class Vital Suit has one of these mounted to its left arm.
- This troper sucked scoring goals in Mutant League Hockey, so resorted to chainsawing the opposition to death when one was thrown onto the ice.
- Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia among the playable characters is the cute mechanic Krusche who attacks using a chainsaw. My favorite attack consists of her spinning around before attacking the enemy.
- Indie game The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai features a chainsaw used like a heavy sword. Is not used to cut through enemies, only to hack and slash at them, though cutting through an enemy is an optional finishing move. Beaten only in cool factor by the triple-weilded Uzi/Shotgun/Sword combo.
- The second Left 4 Dead game features a chainsaw. It doesn't have infinite-use (has a gas tank), but you can just hold the fire button down and walk forward and wipe out everything in your path. The character wielding the chainsaw will also taunt appropriately as they lay waste to the horde. Not to mention the player will inevitably be cackling maniacally as they do so.
- And it does pretty heavy damage to everything. Even a Tank; you can kill him in about 5 seconds if you can stay close that long. And if you still have gas left in it by then.
- Splatterhouse 2 is the only game in the Splatterhouse series to date to feature a chainsaw as a weapon.
- That Rick gets to use, in any case. The infamous "Biggy Man" boss from the original game has two chainsaw blades in place of his hands.
- There are logger-bot enemies in Jak And Daxter: The Lost Frontier with chainsaws. A boss, the Uber-Bot 888, comes with circular saws about the size of Jak's torso.
Web Comics
- The Adventures Of Doctor Mc Ninja. Chainsaw Nunchuks.
- This strip of Keychain Of Creation has a villain using chainsaw katars. As he remarks to the hero in a later strip, "the point is to intimidate you."
- Starting here, 8-bit Theatre has Fighter using the "Glorious Chainsaw Method"; this enhances his swords with "radiant chainsaw auras", which he uses to make short work of some dragons. Which itself is a Shout Out to Exalted.
- Now imagine if he combined that with his signature "Sword Chucks". Eat your heart out Dr. McNinja!
- He seems to make a reference to this very page in this comic, with the inexplicable phrase "chainsaw wrong". Probably intentional, since the same comic's title happens to be "Nightmare Fuel".
- Yet another circular saw: Exterminatus Now. Lothar Hex can turn his bionic arm into one.
- As of early 2010, after his run-in with a Fernex daemon caused his bionics to be... forcibly removed... he's upgraded - to a chainsaw.
- In Gunnerkrigg Court, a tree-dog creature gets loose in the Court. The robots sent to subdue it have chainsaw-arms.
- Alluded to in Backward Compatible here.
Web Original
- The hyper-novel Sixgun features Abe Lincoln in a chainsaw fencing match. This is not nearly the weirdest thing going on.
- Version three of Survival Of The Fittest had a chainsaw in it, which was used to carve up a student in one particularly gruesome scene, but subsequently abandoned.
- I Am Not Infected features what, in the first shot, appears to be Paul decked out with chainsaws on both arms. Then it turns out to be a "Chainsawsuit" including the aforementioned arm chainsaws, leg chainsaws, and a back chainsaw. It's awesome.
- In Chapter 18 of Shinji And Warhammer 40 K, NNHIS shows off several mods for the Evas to the pilots and team, among them the IN HIS Name Prog Chainsword and IN HIS Name Mighty Chainaxe. Need more be said?
Western Animation
- Ash Williams-
wannabe Affectionate Parody Hoss Delgado from The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy can turn his hand into a crossbow that shoots FLAMING chainsaws.
- He also has a chainsaw for a peg-leg in the Underfist movie.
- In the South Park movie, the Canadians were using chainsaws as melee weapons.
- In ''The Batman", Batman wields chainsaw tonfas at one point to fight Poison Ivy's plant monsters. This troper found it awesome.
- Lilo And Stitch: During Jumba's invasion of Lilo's house, Stitch picks up a chainsaw to fight him off - prompting Lilo to remark, on the phone to Cobra Bubbles, "Oh good, my dog's found the chainsaw!".
- Beast Wars' Dinobot has an angular 'sword' that rotates. Functionally a chainsaw sword, as proven when he used it to cut Inferno from shoulder down to mid chest. Sparks could be seen flying as the sword gradually cut deeper and deeper into Inferno's body!
- While it was fairly rarely used, Tanya's Weapon Of Choice in The Mighty Ducks is a small wrist-mounted chainsaw, one of many tools in her armour.
- Buzzer, one of the Dreadnoks from GI Joe, wields a diamond-toothed chainsaw which allows him to cut through ANYTHING, including bank vaults..
- On Swat Kats, the Shredder Missile fired by the Turbokat has its front end pop off in flight, revealing it to be a pair of chainsaws with a rocket booster for thrust. Used in "The Deadly Pyramid", the giant mummies shot it down before it hit, tho.
- In Dexters Laboratory, while Dexter is picturing Dee Dee destroying his lab, the first Imagine Spot is his sister with a chainsaw.
- Played with in American Dad. Francine has a dream sequence in which Stan threatens her with various objects. At first (or possibly second), he chooses a chainsaw. He changes his mind, walks offscreen, then comes back holding a lion. Apparently having decided this is not threatening enough, he repeats the act, this time returning with a lion holding a chainsaw.
Other
- The antihero of the Madness Combat videos is especially excited by a chainsaw in the seventh installment. This despite the fact that he's a Person Of Mass Destruction even without any weapons. Give a chainsaw to someone who can already stab people through the skull with a nightstick from across the room...
- In the Live Role Play scenario Final Voyage of the Mary Celeste, Johan Martens (a character on the edge of insanity) has a chainsaw, inherited from his uncle. During the game, it is accessible to the player of Martens - it can be used for various things, including killing people/things/sea monsters. Now consider the fact that another character, who wants everyone on board dead, can make attempts to mind control Martens...
- Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the first USB-powered chainsaw in the world! It's a fake.
- Wrestler Terry Funk had that silly "Chainsaw Charlie" gimmick.
- Real Life: A Wyoming family man out camping fends off a mountain lion attack with the only available item present with him....a chainsaw - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31951883/
- HOLY SHIT! A rocket chainsaw! http://www.geekstir.com/holy-sht-its-a-rocket-chainsaw
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