The Driller Killer sounds like a typical post-Halloween slasher. It was released a year after John Carpenter’s masterpiece, but the movie bears little resemblance to the many teenage slasher opuses that followed in its footsteps. I bet it was conceived before the whole slasher movie frenzy erupted.
The Driller Killer is more like a punk rock allegory. It’s a time capsule, a portrait of downtown New York when it was dangerous and decrepit. Critics compare the movie to Taxi Driver, and I see some of that, but I see The Driller Killer more along the lines of No Wave movies like Amos Poe’s Blank Generation and the films of Beth and Scott B. Nick Zedd’s debut, They Eat Scum came out in the same year, 1979, but The Driller Killer is a far better film. Nearly everything is.
This movie, like the films of Beth and Scott B are forerunners for the grimy New York Underground/Cinema of Transgression wave that came along in a few years. The Driller Killer depicts a time and place where disenfranchised people lived in poverty. Aspiring artists were everywhere, filmmakers, painters, poets, musicians, graffiti artists, journalists, and novelists. A few broke out of the squalor and became professionals. The vast majority did not.
The Driller Killer is the first film from acclaimed director Abel Ferrara. Unless you count his porno, Nine Lives of Wet Pussycat. He plays the lead character under the pseudonym Jimmy Laine.
Ferrara is Reno Miller, a temperamental artiste, living in a shabby apartment with his whining lesbian roomate.. He’s working on his masterpiece, but distractions keep getting in the way. A truly wretched punk band called the Roosters practice in a neighboring apartment and the local homeless population are getting him down. How does he deal with all the pressure?
Reno gets a power drill with a battery pack and begins to ventilate the local derelicts. There are some squeamish moments, but The Driller Killer is not so much a gore movie as it is a character study. It’s a look at a New York that no longer exists. No more desperate artists sharing cheap walkup apartments with rats and cockroaches.
The downtown New York scene has been romanticized. People picture wild nights at CGBG, streetwise Rimbauds, and noble anarchists. I picture junkies and thieves and unhealthy situations. I like watching movies about the scene, especially honest ones like The Driller Killer, but I’m happy to do so from the comfort of my living room.
Punk rebelled against a lot of things. One was the embarrassingly indulgent rock opuses by wealthy bands like The Who and Yes. Thirty minutes songs about fairies and mysticism grow old very quickly. It’s the same with movies. I understand that Ferrara needed to make a feature-length movie to get any kind of real distribution, but seventy-five minutes is a marketable length. The Driller Killer runs a little long at ninety-six long minutes.
Most of the best punk songs are short and fast as a punch. I find punk filmmaking is more effective in the short form. Richard Kern’s Goodbye 42nd St. and The Manhattan Love Suicides hit like a needle full of adrenelin to the bloodsystem. The Driller Killer grows a bit tedious by the end.
Despite that, I really like the movie. It received the Video Nasty badge of honor in England and it paved the way for better things to come. Abel Ferrara’s next movie, Ms .45, is a near-masterpiece. From there he went on to a long and distinguished career. Ferrara saw great success, but he did so without losing his streetwise edge. It was great seeing him show up, in a sizable role, in last year’s best movie, Marty Supreme.
Written by Mark Sieber
The Driller Killer is more like a punk rock allegory. It’s a time capsule, a portrait of downtown New York when it was dangerous and decrepit. Critics compare the movie to Taxi Driver, and I see some of that, but I see The Driller Killer more along the lines of No Wave movies like Amos Poe’s Blank Generation and the films of Beth and Scott B. Nick Zedd’s debut, They Eat Scum came out in the same year, 1979, but The Driller Killer is a far better film. Nearly everything is.This movie, like the films of Beth and Scott B are forerunners for the grimy New York Underground/Cinema of Transgression wave that came along in a few years. The Driller Killer depicts a time and place where disenfranchised people lived in poverty. Aspiring artists were everywhere, filmmakers, painters, poets, musicians, graffiti artists, journalists, and novelists. A few broke out of the squalor and became professionals. The vast majority did not.
The Driller Killer is the first film from acclaimed director Abel Ferrara. Unless you count his porno, Nine Lives of Wet Pussycat. He plays the lead character under the pseudonym Jimmy Laine.
Ferrara is Reno Miller, a temperamental artiste, living in a shabby apartment with his whining lesbian roomate.. He’s working on his masterpiece, but distractions keep getting in the way. A truly wretched punk band called the Roosters practice in a neighboring apartment and the local homeless population are getting him down. How does he deal with all the pressure?
Reno gets a power drill with a battery pack and begins to ventilate the local derelicts. There are some squeamish moments, but The Driller Killer is not so much a gore movie as it is a character study. It’s a look at a New York that no longer exists. No more desperate artists sharing cheap walkup apartments with rats and cockroaches.
The downtown New York scene has been romanticized. People picture wild nights at CGBG, streetwise Rimbauds, and noble anarchists. I picture junkies and thieves and unhealthy situations. I like watching movies about the scene, especially honest ones like The Driller Killer, but I’m happy to do so from the comfort of my living room.
Punk rebelled against a lot of things. One was the embarrassingly indulgent rock opuses by wealthy bands like The Who and Yes. Thirty minutes songs about fairies and mysticism grow old very quickly. It’s the same with movies. I understand that Ferrara needed to make a feature-length movie to get any kind of real distribution, but seventy-five minutes is a marketable length. The Driller Killer runs a little long at ninety-six long minutes.
Most of the best punk songs are short and fast as a punch. I find punk filmmaking is more effective in the short form. Richard Kern’s Goodbye 42nd St. and The Manhattan Love Suicides hit like a needle full of adrenelin to the bloodsystem. The Driller Killer grows a bit tedious by the end.
Despite that, I really like the movie. It received the Video Nasty badge of honor in England and it paved the way for better things to come. Abel Ferrara’s next movie, Ms .45, is a near-masterpiece. From there he went on to a long and distinguished career. Ferrara saw great success, but he did so without losing his streetwise edge. It was great seeing him show up, in a sizable role, in last year’s best movie, Marty Supreme.
Written by Mark Sieber
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