The Driller Killer (1979)
Posted on February 5, 2006
Filed Under Movies, Nasties, Serial killers, Slashers
With a title like Driller Killer it’s hardly surprising that Abel Ferrara’s directorial debut quickly found itself thrust into the centre of the ‘video nasty’ debate. To be fair to the Mary Whitehouses of the world, the promotional posters that accompanied the movie did more to inflame passions than to assuage them, and even now it’s difficult to find some of the more ‘graphic’ offerings on the internet. As is often the case with these ultra-nasties, the media attention is probably something of a mixed blessing. True, the stigma of being a tabloid outcast tends to end any dreams of commercial success that budding directors might once have harboured. Theirs is a future of horror convention walk-ons and the occasional appearance on documentaries exploring whether films are responsible for violence amongst teenagers. On the other hand, being branded a ‘nasty’ provides in its turn a measure of sinful credibility. No matter how rubbish a film is, if it was once banned then surely there must be something to it? Why else would it have provoked such a moral panic?
Alas, Driller Killer doesn’t even deserve this thin veneer of belated respectability. The story, for what it’s worth, follows Reno (played, badly, by Ferrara himself), an artist living on the edge, in both mental and financial terms. He’s joined in his misery by a girlfriend and some other random woman who oscillates between looking broody and fed up of it all on the one hand and taking showers with Reno’s girlfriend on the other. To add to this cast of miscreants there is a rather fruity art dealer, a rock group and a bizarre superintendent who splits his time between fixing plugs and hanging skinned rabbits in his cupboard. I labour on this point because it adds to the general weirdness of the film, and is its ultimate undoing.
I say weirdness because there is so little direction involved that you’ll be forgiven for pausing the DVD every twenty minutes just to recap. Don’t get me wrong, there is no complex plotline or depth to the storytelling. It just feels as though Ferrara started to make the film and changed his mind five or six times over exactly what it was about. Take Reno. It’s difficult to believe that he’s so absorbed by his art that it eventually consumes him because he is such a dud of a character. There’s a hint in the opening scenes that he has had problems with his father but this is never developed or used beyond that. What could have provided some anchorage from which we could plot his collapse is quickly forgotten. The same is true of his hinted at relationship with the destitute of New York. He occasionally taunts them but it’s very difficult to see why he hates them or how he could considering he’s a month’s rent away from joining them on the streets. It doesn’t even have the saving grace of being violence for the sake of violence so we’re left with a chap who is a poor half-way house between Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment and Alex from A Clockwork Orange.
When his killing spree starts it is difficult to take it seriously because he already seems to live in such a bizarre little world. The cinematography does nothing to engage the sympathies of the viewer for the unfortunates who are having their heads drilled in because you quickly grow tired of watching them. After instructing you to watch the movie on ‘loud’ we’re bombarded with Reno’s rock band neighbours rehearsing for their seemingly perpetual performances. It really gets under the skin, and you’ll be glad when Reno heads out to kill a few more tramps, if only to be spared from the interminable music for ten minutes or so. The ‘driller’ scenes are quite impressive in themselves, with the gore taking a backseat in favour of the devilish ways that Reno contrives to do away with his victims (my personal favourite being the guy at the bus stop). The finale just about keeps the Ferrara’s head above water, and with the last few minutes showing what might have been you’ll be even more aggrieved at having taken such a circumlocutory and demoralising route in getting there.
Comments
Leave a Reply