"The Driller Killer" Review

 

by Daniel White

Authentic is too high-toned a word to use to describe Abel Ferrara's debut feature, The Driller Killer (1979). Gritty works, but it is more than that. It's a slice of life cut from the New York City downtown art and music scene of the late seventies. Ferrara and scenarist Nicholas St. John place their tale within the horror/slasher genre but that decision is almost irrelevant.

Reno Miller (Ferrara, credited as Jimmy Laine) is a painter living with his girlfriend and a young, vapid, female companion. Struggling to complete his latest composition (a buffalo with a steely glaze), he begins to lose his grip on reality. With romance and finance problems mounting, he reaches for a power drill and commences to rid his Union Square neighborhood of its homeless population. Shot on 16mm film, the movie serves as a time capsule for the edgy, Lower East Side, anti-establishment world of that time. Max's Kansas City is featured and the discordant, raucous, no wave music of his upstairs neighbors, The Roosters, figures prominently. Miller is unraveling, the city is a cesspool, and nihilism the answer. It takes our non-hero about 40 minutes to begin disposing of his derelicts but once he starts, there's no stopping him.

The movie opens mysteriously with Reno encountering an older, bearded man in a Catholic church. Though the meeting remains unexplained, there is no doubt that most of his victims resemble church guy. In the end he (literally) crucifies a young bum who bears a strong resemblance to him, then turns the drill on those whom he feels are responsible for his failure. One thing that is surprising is that ALL of Miller's targets are male. It may be a first in the genre. Petulant and whiny, Miller makes for a unlikable (anti) leading man. But again, what's of real interest here is the self immolation of the artist message Ferrara is illustrating. Our misunderstood genius is flailing and the only appropriate response is for him to resort to serial killing. Sounds about right to me. The Driller Killer is currently streaming on Tubi.