Driller Killer

This early feature length effort from cult filmmaker Abel Ferrara is interesting, to say the least, if not for all tastes. While it might appeal to some slasher fans for its respectable body count and surprisingly decent gore, it does have more in common with "Taxi Driver" than, say, "Halloween". It's an incredibly gritty, crude, yet appreciably surreal urban drama about Reno Miller (played by Ferrara himself, using his acting pseudonym "Jimmy Laine"). Reno is a struggling young painter, who lives with two sexy female roommates, Carol (Carolyn Marz), and Pamela (Baybi Day). Renos' hold on reality is steadily slipping away. His mental state isn't helped by the fact that his landlord has let a punk band move into his building, and their constant rehearsals drive him nuts. Soon, he's out and about murdering the derelicts of NYC streets with a power drill.

This may be hard to stick with for some viewers. Admittedly, it's VERY thin on story. The acting, while amateurish, gets the job done, with Ferrara doing an amusing job in the lead role. "The Driller Killer" also is fascinating for the way it captures the punk scene of NYC in the late 1970s. The omnipresent music (score by Joe Delia, songs by Tony Coca Cola and the Roosters) is often insidiously catchy. The screenplay is by frequent Ferrara collaborator Nicholas St. John, who creates a fairly vivid portrait of one persons' mental decline. There is some memorable imagery here, such as Renos' painting of a buffalo. Use of various unsavoury NYC locations is excellent.

Worth a look for aficionados of 1970s cult cinema, but Ferrara didn't really hit paydirt until his next film, the great "Ms. 45".

Six out of 10.

Actually, I think it's excellent. The only reason I'm contributing a review is because there are so many negative ones here, and I think it's because it's been miscategorized. One reviewer here said you'd be better off watching "The Evil Dead". But Abel Ferrara didn't aspire to make a horror movie. Instead, he made a disturbing personal statement. I'm seeing this problem a lot of people have with trying to place films into tidy genres. I'm making up this term on the spot: The Blockbuster Syndrome. This should be avoided; it's what made Hollywood so boring.

It has an exploitive title and a reputation as a slasher film, so it hasn't found the right crowd. Psychotic 16-year old boys, its most likely audience, will be disappointed for it not being gory enough, and intellectuals will avoid it because it seems lowbrow. But get over it. There's a great Punk Rock atmosphere, Ferarra throws himself into his role, and those are some cool surrealist paintings. More importantly, it's an honest and troubling portrait of an artist who's driven over the edge by his own fear of failure, loud neighbors, getting dumped by his girlfriend, and all the other stress of the big city. Unable to channel these frustrations through his paintings, he turns to killing innocent derilects (In the opening scene it's suggested that is father is homeless, and he's afraid of ending up the same way). And then there's the ambiguous and haunting ending, which will stick with you for a while. Yes, it's technically lacking. But filmmakers are more than technicians. I would rate this alongside Taxi Driver as a brutal portrayal of alienation.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs.

Revisited the 101 mins uncut version recently.

Imagine u have to share an apartment with ur girlfriend n her drug addicted lesbian friend.

Imagine u live in a neighborhood full of derelicts.

Imagine ur girlfriend n her lesbian friend makes huge telephone calls n u r unable to pay the bills.

Imagine u r unable to pay the rent n ur landlord gives u a skinned rabbit for dinner.

Imagine u have neighbors in the form of a band called Roosters n its lead member named Tony Coco Cola and the group constantly play loud music while u r trying to concentrate on ur living aka paintings.

Imagine seeing huge electricity bills.

Imagine the art gallery owner mocks ur painting n refuse to buy the piece or bail u out.

Imagine if ur girlfriend leaves u for her bald ex husband.

Imagine ur girlfriend has a nasty habit of reading sadistic news from the newspapers.

News : "A lady gave her poodle a bath and being late for a beauty parlor appointment placed the dog in a microwave oven to dry it off.

When she turned the oven on, the poodle exploded."

Imagine ur girlfriend is persuading u to listen to the same band which constantly plays in the apartment next to u but this time in a club.

Ur reaction : "I hear em play day n nite."

Ur girlfriend's answer : "It's nothing like hearing em in a club."

U babbling, "Yeah, at least in a club, one can walk out."

Just imagine the plight of the lead character, Reno Miller in this movie going thru all the above mentioned stress.

Ok, i get it. Reno Miller is lucky not to go thru this pandemic lockdown too.

Abel Ferrara's 'The Driller Killer' is generally best know for igniting the "video nasty" debate back in the 1980s in Britain and little else. Which is a shame because it is a fascinating low budget psychodrama. The horror or slasher tag it is usually given is quite misleading and will no doubt disappoint hard core horror fans expecting quite a different kind of movie. Sure it does eventually lead to a violent climax but it is closer to being a character study of a man driven to insanity by his squalid, and increasingly anarchic urban environment. Almost like a bargain basement 'Taxi Driver' with some CBGBs era atmosphere thrown in. Along with Uli Lommel's little seen 'Blank Generation' there are very few other films that successfully document the mid 70s NYC punk scene of The Ramones, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, The Cramps et al, and 'The Driller Killer' is worth viewing for this reason alone.

Ferrara himself plays the lead character, tortured scumbag artist Reno. In his later, more sophisticated, and yes, better movies this role would no doubt have been played by someone like Keitel, Walken, Hopper or Gallo. Ferrara doesn't have the acting chops these guys have and so the movie suffers somewhat, but even so, his performance is crude but effective. Unknowns Carolyn Marz and Baybi Day as his girlfriend and his girlfriend's girlfriend respectively are both more than adequate, and The Roosters may be second rate but help lend some authentic punk rock feel to this underrated slice of urban nihilism. While by no means my favourite Abel Ferrara movie, this movie doesn't deserve to be dismissed. I like it.

This is probably best looked at in the context of Ferrara's other work, rather than in the context of the rest of the British video nasties list, because it is actually a surprisingly good film. Rather than a mere body count movie, Ferrara's first movie is a Repulsion-style portrait of a man's descent into psychosis; a bleak yet darkly comic urban paranoia movie with actually far less graphic bloodletting than its detractors would have us believe. Despite the obvious low budget, the acting and cinematography are all perfectly competent in evoking the claustrophobically squalid milieu which leads to the breakdown of the protagonist (played by the director himself). The film's power lies in its accumulation of individual scenes and images, though unfortunately it fails to maintain the tense atmosphere, as interest begins to wane towards the end. This is an interesting and technically accomplished film from a first-time director, introducing the same distinct visual style and themes which have dominated his later films. As a piece of late-70's low-budget independent exploitation cinema, it is head and shoulders above the rest.