Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop  THE DRILLER KILLER – Always a splitter, 'Driller Killer' tends to alienate those who expect a straightforward DIY themed slasher from it. In fact, it has one foot in seventies grindhouse and another in something more downtown, splicing that dead-eyed trash culture self-referential narcosis typical of the late seventies underground scene with populist sensationalism, kind of Andy Warhol meets 'Texas Chainsaw'. There are hints of J Waters and M Scorsese in there too, but, whatever its reference points, 'Driller Killer' has that Midnight Movie thing going on with it in spades. You've probably all seen it anyway, but if not, it's basically about down-on-his-luck painter man Reno, who shares his New York flea-pit with an unloved girlfriend, her punkette sex kitten and his massive, massive ego. This menage is interrupted when a shit up-all-night New Wave band moves in next door and blasts all hope of the economically-embattled-and-on-the-verge-of-eviction Reno getting any peace of mind whatsoever. He grabs a drill and takes out his angst on the inhabitants of the Bowery gutters. 'Driller Killer' was made on the cheap over a couple of years and bears all the hallmarks of an opportunist trying to break into movie-making, but with it also the signature of a genuine auteur. Whereas most cheapo horror flicks of its time are crass and literal, 'Driller Killer' is thoughtful and elliptical, or at least tries to be. It's pretentiously arty in places, but its language is lean and pared down – you can tell that the person who made it knows what he's doing filmically and has his eye on something more ambitious. Even the flabby asides with the irritating New Wavers add a pseudo documentary type grit to proceedings. 'Driller Killer' fumbles a bit when it comes to narrative sense and strains to play with imagery and ideas it can't really fathom (drills, phalluses, oedipus complex type stuff all seem to clutch at symbolic straws), but, for me, its a really magnetic piece of filmmaking which is less about Video Nasty era ultraviolence and more about sustained, murky malevolence. Ferrara's performance itself, all sneering NY bravado rather than drooling mania, is up there alongside such classic tortured outcasts as Frank Zito, although he's more human, more real, basically just a hep cat gone wrong. And I'm a sucker for the weird bits, obviously, like soft focus 'dream sequences' where unknown men mutter threateningly as if from the depths of a trance and segue into images of Ferrara covered in blood... and that ending still gives me the creeps after all these years. It has to be one of the ultimate NYC-as-scuzzy-urban-hell flicks, with every frame swarming with grain and grit – you'd have to move towards 'The Headless Eyes' or some early Nick Zedd flick to get anything grimier. I really like 'Driller Killer'. I doubt it's in many horror fan's top tens, and I can't imagine it's your average Abel Ferrara lover's cup of tea, either. But it's the sort of one-of-a-kind film that makes it all worthwhile. |