Chainsaw Good - Television Tropes & Idioms

Aaah! Chainsaw! The great communicator!

—The Doom comic book

Ethan: So we both have a bunch of little plastic men, right? and we move them manually. Then, when we fight, we roll dice and then do math to figure out who hits who. But there are no actual battles, or explosions. We use our imaginations like a couple of savages. It sounds almost as fun as chewing used medical syringes.

Lucas: These guys here have Chainsaw swords.

Ethan: This is the coolest game ever. Hurry up and figure out how to play so my little plastic dudes can chainsaw your little plastic dudes.

—Ctrl+Alt+Del

on Warhammer 40000

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. In reality, while very dangerous to use as a tool because of the potential for severe injury, a weaponized chainsaw would have the problems of fuel supply, weight, noise, being extraordinarily cumbersome and difficult to wield without lopping off your own arms or killing yourself, and the difficulty in revving it up. And of course, if you do connect, it's gonna make a huge mess.

The coolness magic of chainsaws does rub off a bit to rapid-firing rotary guns, which are effectively chainsaws at range. (Guns that FIRE chainsaws

are just in another plane of cool.)

All the above is true because of the Rule Of Cool. Of course, everyone knows that Katanas Are Just Better. Now, chain-katanas, on the other hand... (And let's not get started with guns that fire chainsaw-katanas!) See also Vibroweapon.

Examples:

Film

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.
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.
- Actually subverted a bit in Evil Dead 2, where the pre-Chainsaw-Handed Ash is attacked by a deadite with a chainsaw. He quickly uses a metal bar to block his face, which causes the chainsaw to deflect off... into the neck of the deadite. And then most of the way down the torso.
- 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.
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.
Movie example: 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.
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.

Video Games

Fallout 3 has the Ripper, which is another version of the chainsaw sword, which is used one-handed. They even name one 'Jack'. It's very... effective, as the trope implies.
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.
- This troper heard rumors about extremely Bad Ass doomers completing the game without using any weapon other than the chainsaw but he is yet to meet one in person.
  - This is only possible in the first (shareware) episode of Doom, as weapon knockback from the Spider-Demon's chaingun and the Cyberdemon's Arm Cannon prevent the player from approaching them in melee.
  - Incorrect. 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.
- 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.
- In Doom 2, a chainsaw is the first weapon you receive. It's literally about 10 feet from where you start the game.
- Subverted in the comic, as he uses it the way that according to Jeff Cooper the handgun would be used in warfare — to fight his way to possessing a long gun.
  "Gahh! Zombies with guns! Not big guns, but they are guns! And I need guns! Ahh! Chainsaw! The Great Communicator! Allow me to communicate to you my desire to have your guns! C'mere boys. I got somethin' to say!"
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.
- The Chain Sawd reappears in the Phantasy Star Universe expansion Ambition Of Illuminus.
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-RP Gs only turned sacrilegious following Evangelion's trend.
- A Bangaa enemy in Final Fantasy XII uses a chainsaw spear, a long wooden pole with a large circular saw at the end.
The Zombie Survival Guide rather harshly subverts 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.
Subverted 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).
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 behind him until he swings it.
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.
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.
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".
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 chainsaw gas in a locker on Mars as an in-joke.
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.

Live Action TV

Subverted in an episode of Torchwood, where Rhys fires up a chainsaw to take out a rampaging Monster Of The Week, only to have the machine die on him at the worst possible moment.
One segment of the multi-part CSI episode "Toe Tags" showcased both the damage-dealing potential and the dangerous unwieldiness of the chainsaw as a weapon: one man attacked another with a chainsaw and ended up killing the both of them.
- The Killer Was Left Handed, which only added to the unwieldiness.
A few Robot Wars competitors employed chainsaws as weapons as did House Robot Matilda (though this later replaced with a vertical spinning disc in the 5th wars).
Tomica Hero Rescue Force gives us the Rescue Crusher Mantis Mode, which, surprisingly, isn't usually used for sliceing up badguys.
One episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer had Giles use a chainsaw as an impromptu skeleton key to get into a literally haunted house (a demon had caused the doors and windows to vanish). And he was awesome doing it.
John Woo's TV series Once a Thief(in turn itself a remake of his own movie of the same name) features a 'parody' episode filled to the brim with intentionally absurd situations, one of which involves a lightsaber-style duel involving chainsaws. That's right, complete with clashes and sparks flying and all that jazz. This trooper thinks that particular scene is concentrated awesome.

Anime/Manga

In Code Geass, Humongous Mecha with Chainsaw Katanas show up about halfway through the first season. Much asskicking ensue.
- 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 chainsaw- arrow, which is essentially a "spirit lightsabre" that can be fired from a bow and used as a sword.
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.
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...
Subverted in 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."
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.

Western Animation

Ash Williams-~~wannabe~~ Affectionate Parody Haas Delgado from The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy can turn his hand into a crossbow that shoots FLAMING chainsaws. No Really.
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!".

Literature

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.

Tabletop Games

Warhammer 40000 has the distinct honor of arming several troops in the Imperium, Chaos 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. 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.
- Actually, that was a lie. This being Warhammer 40000, there actually are a lot of things 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.
  - Included in the (rather long) list of more terrifying things is the Banelord Titan, a daemonically possessed Humongous Mecha with a chainsaw fist. There is also the Space Marine (Super Soldier) in Terminator armor, a hulking man strong enough to destroy armies, who, yes, is also given a chainsaw fist.
  - A chainsaw fist? This editor believes this is now the coolest page in the entire wiki.
  - Actually, the truth is a bit more prosaic; it's just (just?!?) a huge powered gauntlet with a chainsaw bolted into the knuckles.
  - Yeah, but it also shoots lightning, and can cut through tanks.
- This happily ignores the fact that "chain axes" are Awesome But Impractical, as they have none of advantages of a sword, and couldn't benefit from the weight and swing of an axe (cos its the chain doing the cutting and not a big wedge of meta)l. But, you know.
- 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.
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.

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.
- 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".

Comic Books

Comic book Anti Hero Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer carried a Chainsword. Quoth the Dalek Killer:
Abslom Daak (to a Dalek): Okay, Chuckles, take a look at this chainsword. Notice those nice whirring teeth... and imagine them ripping through your little tin body!

Other

The hyper-novel Sixgun features Abe Lincoln in a chainsaw fencing match. This is not nearly the weirdest thing going on.
This editor invented the ultimate weapon in the form of chainsaw lightsaber gunbladechucks, although they have yet to be implemented in any fiction.
- Subverted now. This Troper shall grant these to his main villain in his upcoming BESM Campaign.
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!
Version three of Survival Of The Fittest has a chainsaw in it, though the student it's assigned to has yet to do anything with it.