Chainsaws in Popular Culture - Relation To Reality

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.

The chainsaw is also seen many times as the iconic weapon against zombies, inspired partly from the example above of the Evil Dead series.

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 its graphic content was based in reality as screenwriter Oliver Stone had gleaned from months of research with both police officers (some of whom testified in the films defence) and actual drug traffickers.