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1979 - USA Directed By: Abel Ferrara. Starring: Abel Ferrara (as "Jimmy Laine"), Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, Harry Schultz, Alan Wynroth, Maria Helhoski, James O'Hara, Richard Howorth and D.A. Metrov.
Current Availability
Currently available on an uncut UK R2 DVD from ILC Prime. This release is not only dirt cheap, but also includes an infamously bizarre commentary with a seemingly drugged up Ferrara. For those just wishing to own the film this is a perfectly serviceable release, especially at such a low price. Die hard fans however will surely wish to own the US R1 2-Disc SE from Cult Epics which features an exhaustive range of extras including a handful of early Ferrara shorts. Availability of the 2-Disc Cult Epic's release is strictly limited to just 10,000 copies, although it was still in print at the time of writing. Avoid the older UK R2 DVD from Visual Entertainment (with a picture of a drill on the cover) as this version is cut by 54 seconds.
Recommended?
Those approaching The Driller Killer expecting a power tool gorefest are in all likelihood in for a serious disappointment. For those however, willing to take Ferrara's film on its own terms The Driller Killer is well worth a look. Although the ultra-rough production and underground/punk aesthetics will not endear themselves to all tastes, Ferrara paints a powerful, violent and sometimes shocking picture of squalor, despair and psychosis on the streets of New York City.
Review
An early and (it could be said) unjustly notorious low-budget feature from maverick filmmaker Abel Ferrara. Shot intermittently throughout 1977 and 1978 on an estimated pittance of around $20,000 The Driller Killer met initially with indifference upon its 1979 release and would probably have faded swiftly into obscurity had it not been for the integral part it eventually played in Britain’s most infamous censorship furore during the interim of the eighties.
Looking for an angle to market Ferrara’s almost experimental vision of destitution and insanity on the harsh streets of New York City, British video distributor Vipco opted to misleadingly promote The Driller Killer as a brutal, gorefest by utilising the films infamous “head-drilling” sequence on the UK video cover and promotional materials. With the British tabloids already instigating public concern over the availability of so-called “Video Nasties”, it was Vipco’s outrageous full page adverts for The Driller Killer (along with GO Video’s similarly tasteless ads for SS Experiment Camp) that proved the catalyst for a national tabloid led witch-hunt, which eventually led to Ferrara’s film and numerous other horror and exploitation titles being banned as “Nasties” and the introduction of the Video Recordings Act. For this reason and this reason alone The Driller Killer would enjoy a lasting infamy remaining banned outright inn the UK until 1999 and outlawed in its uncut form until 2002.
The Driller Killer stars director Ferrara himself – under his acting pseudonym “Jimmy Laine” – as struggling New York City based artist Reno Miller. Living in a rundown apartment building together with his two “girlfriends” Carol (Marz) and Pamela (Day), frustrated Reno struggles to find the capital to pay the bills and rent whilst working on his “masterpiece” painting of a buffalo, which he hopes, will generate enough money to alleviate their financial burden for awhile. Adding to his woes a talentless punk band known as The Roosters take up residence in the apartment below Reno’s and disrupt his concentration day and night with the incessant racket of their rehearsals.
Outside on the streets of New York City Reno observes with a mixture of horror and fascination the day to day activities of the City’s homeless community. As the grip of impending ruin tightens around Reno something in his increasingly troubled mind finally snaps. By purchasing an electrical Port-A-Pak, Reno turns his trusty power drill into a portable killing device and takes to the night-time streets murdering homeless bums in a series of random drill attacks. Reno’s life subsequently collapses as he fails to sell his buffalo and Carol duly leaves Reno and returns to her estranged husband Stephen (Howorth). Finally tipped over the edge into complete psychosis, Reno takes his drill and embarks on a rampage of drill-assisted slaughter and mutilation.
Although often erroneously cited as Abel Ferrara’s debut feature, The Driller Killer actually constitutes the enigmatic filmmakers second full length feature following the little seen hardcore effort Nine Lives Of A Wet Pussy (1976). Over the years The Driller Killer has fell victim, or perhaps benefited depending on your point of view, from false perceptions (here in the UK especially) based on Vipco’s grisly UK promotional campaign and is subsequent status as a banned “Video Nasty”. This had led most to approach The Driller Killer expecting a power tool assisted gorefest, but in actuality Ferrara’s film constitutes an altogether more sophisticated beast. Representing a male riff on the principal themes of Roman Polanski’s classic Repulsion, Ferrara’s film paints a soured, depressing portrait of impoverished artist Reno’s descent into despair and eventual psychosis set against the backdrop of the grim, poverty stricken streets of New York City.
The result is an exceptionally downbeat film. As the grip of impending poverty closes is around the hapless Reno we share his heightening sense of revulsion and horror as he looks upon the homeless bums and destitute’s residing on the city streets with the impending realisation that he is soon destined to join them. In Reno’s warped mind the only way of delaying his fall into the world of homelessness and destitution is by obliterating that particular world via the random act of murder. Ferrara to his credit conveys this skewed logic behind Reno’s murderous drill related antics with an eloquence that belies his at the time slight directorial experience.
Indeed, although Ferrara’s filmmaking career was only in its fledgling years he shows an accomplished aptitude for conveying Reno’s systematic mental collapse through disarmingly subtle and memorably effective use of visual allegory. In one particular recurring motif Ferrara makes striking use of Reno’s buffalo painting. As the troubled artist stares into the illustrated creatures vacant eye it unnervingly seems to be staring back at him almost accusingly, offering a chilling reflection of Reno’s increasingly warped psyche. In another fine allegorical refection of Reno’s growing psychosis, Ferrara shows him hacking at the skinned body of a rabbit in an escalating frenzy. In the next scene we see Reno purchasing the Port-A-Pack attachment that will ultimately turn his drill into his murder weapon of choice. At this point we know that Reno’s disturbed mind is finally made up.
In addition to his commendable grasp of psychological subtleties, Ferrara shows an equally impressive eye for the foreboding night-time streets of his native New York City. It is not exaggeration to say that few other films either before or since have reflected the grime, squalor and destitution of the City’s sleazy underbelly in quite the same manner. The viewer leaves the viewing experience that is The Driller Killer with the overwhelming sense of New York City as a rank, unforgiving urban hell that has no love lost for its underclass denizen, who in turn have no real love lost for it. It should be pointed out that Ferrara would go on to utilise his feel for the sleazy, intimidating aura of night-time NYC to equal effect in his next feature, the masterful rape and retribution saga Ms.45 (aka - Angel Of Vengeance) released in 1981.
Although The Driller Killer never quite lives up to its infamous reputation, its much heralded drill murders still make for fairly grim viewing. Reno’s first attack in particular is stark and unnerving in its sudden and unexpected brutality as Reno falls upon his prone victim and drives the whirring drill deep into his chest resulting in a startling fountain of blood. The pinnacle of the films brutality however, comes just shy of the hour mark when Reno leaves a Roosters gig and embarks on an impromptu massacre. This culminates in the films most notorious moment (immortalised on the aforementioned Vipco artwork) where Reno drills through the forehead of a sleeping bum in the films most protracted instance of bloodletting. However, despite the moderately graphic nature of Reno’s attacks the violence is deemphasised by the films relentlessly dour tone and comes across as coldly mechanical in its execution. The sole exception to this rule proves to be the murder of the homeless man residing in Reno’s apartment stairwell. This sequence differs from the other attacks in that it features the traditional combination of a horror film build up and a forebodingly dark setting. Additionally the sequence culminates in uncharacteristically theatrical Grand Guignol fashion as Reno appears like your everyday cinematic bogeyman and protractedly drills his victim to the wall in a subliminal mockery of crucifixion. Worthy of note is Ferrara’s masterful use of sound during Reno’s drill onslaughts. The almost fetishistic emphasis on the whirring of the drill and the jarring discord of the soundtrack perfectly conveys both the savagery and psychotic frenzy of each attack.
In recent years the notorious reputation that The Driller Killer has enjoyed/suffered here in the United Kingdom been shattered somewhat. After being officially banned for over fifteen years Ferrara’s second feature was eventually certified by the BBFC in 1999 and re-released onto video, this came after the board (getting over the dark days of James Ferman) had passed both The Exorcist (1973) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) uncut the previous year. The Driller Killer was not cut by the BBFC for its 1999 re-issue, but had already undergone a fairly unobtrusive 54 seconds of cuts by its distributor prior to its BBFC submission, which toned down the most graphic instances of drill mutilation. In 2002 when the full uncut version of The Driller Killer was submitted for the first time to the BBFC the board passed it without batting an eyelid. As is the case with most of the “Video Nasties”, the newfound availability of The Driller Killer has more or less vanquished the stigma of obscenity it had been saddled with during its fifteen years of the Department of Public Prosecutions’ blacklist. Indeed, upon its 1999 re-release many eager British horror and exploitation fans seeing The Driller Killer were underwhelmed and very vocal in their disappointment having found Ferrara’s grim portrait of urban destitution and psychosis a very different film to the power tool bloodbath that tabloid infamy had led them to expect.
Over the years certain critics have made much out of the fact that all of Reno’s (onscreen) victims are male. Some have even gone so far as to argue that this represents an attack by Ferrara upon the “misogynistic” exploitation and horror cinema staple of casting hapless, attractive nymph-like young women in the role of the victim. This reviewer however believes this to be merely coincidental as Reno’s faithless girlfriend Carol certainly seems to be a goner by the time of the films final chilling fadeout. Such assessment is also contradicted by Ferrara’s unflattering characterisation of the films two central female protagonists. Carol is portrayed as a rather cold and passionless individual who swiftly flees back to her dull but more affluent estranged husband Stephen as soon as the going with Reno gets tough. Meanwhile Reno’s other live in femme Pamela speaks and conducts herself in the manner of a promiscuous yet irredeemably stupid teenager who throws herself at geekish Roosters front man Tony Coca-Cola like a cheap groupie. Should anyone still suspect that Ferrara harbours closet feminist ambitions; any such aspersions are dissipated entirely by the inclusion of a prolonged and completely gratuitous lesbian shower encounter between Carol and Pamela, which betrays Ferrara’s more honestly exploitative intent.
The real sticking point however, as regards to The Driller Killer proves to be Ferrara’s decision to filter the film through something almost akin to a punk rock aesthetic. The underground punk/new wave movement was near its peak in New York City at the time so it is not a surprise to see this reflected to an extent in The Driller Killer via both the opening title card mischievously imploring the viewer that “This Film Should Be Played Loud” and the extended quantity of screen time given over to tuneless punk rock wannabes The Roosters. While this does add to the films flavour in a way it also gives the film an irreverent experimental feel that jars against the downbeat tone of Reno’s psychological disintegration and heavily hampers the films general accessibility to more casual tastes. In particular The Roosters are truly appalling, their leaden, clanking two-chord din coupled with Tony Coca-Cola’s dread squawking setting teeth on edge and rendering their all too frequent appearances unwatchable to those without Van Gogh’s ear for music. Personally I sensed that the protracted scenes of the group playing smacked of padding and were included by Ferrara possibly just as a means to pad The Driller Killer out to a respectable feature length. Either way their “contributions” are prime fodder for the fast-forward and/or chapter skip buttons. Personally I also found it hard to fathom why Reno whose peace and concentration is so marred by their deafening cacophony never introduces the band to his drill? Surely it would have made sense for him to have disposed of the perpetually irritating Coca-Cola at least? Or maybe this is mere wishful thinking on my part again?
The Driller Killer also suffers to a degree from stilted performances from its largely amateur cast. Although this is to be expected to a degree for such a lowly production the universal stiltedness nonetheless enhances ones inclination to perceive The Driller Killer as an amateur experimental piece as opposed to a piece of conventional cinema. The surprising exception to this rule proves to be Ferrara himself who gives a disarmingly intense and accomplished performance as the increasingly unhinged Reno. While a bit barmy from the outset (witness his comedic overreaction to the cost of a phone bill early on) and not especially sympathetic, the viewer can still empathise to a sometimes perturbing degree with Reno’s escalating rage. The myriad frustrations and disappointments, both professional and personal, of underclass city life which combine to drive him over the edge are often too recognisable for comfort. On the same note the viewer feels Reno’s understandable indignant rage that the talentless Roosters are ascending to undeserved stardom whilst his own considerable artistic talent fails to pay the bills and goes largely untapped. Never is this better exemplified than when Reno is eventually demeaned into painting a portrait of the preening, self-absorbed Tony Coca-Cola who spends their session spouting unintelligible claptrap advice about how Reno could better himself. By this point Reno’s psychotic sense of rage and injustice seems almost reasonable in its own twisted kind of way.
In conclusion it must be said that The Driller Killer is an odd experiment of a film. On analysis it is not hard to see why those attracted to Ferrara’s film by its infamous reputation; bluntly descriptive title and Vipco’s grisly UK promotional campaign have for the most part met the film with bemusement. On one hand it could be truthfully said that its reputation has attracted it attention from an audience who would never have concerned themselves with watching it otherwise, yet on the flipside of that argument it has also prevented many from accepting The Driller Killer on its own merits. If this is true then it is frankly a pity as although the films deliberately grotty cheapness and Ferrara concessions to experimental underground filmmaking may curtail the films appeal to some, overall The Driller Killer is an accomplished and often very powerful piece of low-budget guerrilla filmmaking that actually improves on repeated viewings. Buoyed by Ferrara’s ragged stylishness behind the camera, his charisma in front of it and some grisly concessions to the splatter craze The Driller Killer achieves an imperfect but potent juxtaposition between one mans descent into insanity and the hopeless destitution and squalor of the New York City streets from which only his power drill separates him.
Also Try… Ms.45 / Repulsion / The Cannibal Man / Maniac (1980, William Lustig) / Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer / Nine Lives Of A Wet Pussy.
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