The Driller Killer is sloppy and weird, a piece of sorta trash found on the street and put up into the grindhouses made to look like something it's not. But hey, can you blame it based on the title? It sounds like it'll be glorious trash, but that's what I mean by the 'sorta'. It takes a pretty frank look at the Bowery scene, both the bums and the punks equally, and how it drives an already eccentric painter off the hinges. It definitely wears its low-budget on its sleeve, as if to say "I GOT NO CHOICE!" and its protagonist's downward spiral should make even less sense than Travis Bickle's, but the visceral effect is uglier, cruder, perhaps even more sensationalized than Scorsese could get. That said, Scorsese is still the better director in this case.
But hey again, it's Abel Ferrara's first feature as director, and he takes his camera's eye on to the streets like he's a documentary director brought in to the realm of schlock and told to just go-go-go. He also plays the title character, Reno Miller, who makes a painting of a buffalo and keeps staring at the eyeball of the beast, as it seems to be as empty and black as he might be. Perhaps he's driven to kill by a misguided libido- we never see how he might be sexually, and the image of the drill first going into a door is shot fetish-like, with an extreme close-up of the drill-bit pounding into the wood- and the drill makes up for his phallus. He could just be schizophrenic, as he later seems kind of shocked that he even did the crimes (at least at first). Or he's just bored, or driven mad by all of that lousy, noisy punk rock going on downstairs.
It could be all of those things, or none of them. Along with the very loose 'plot', the lack of anything of an explanation makes things a little frustrating for a first-time viewer. I suppose if I come back to the film again it will be a little clearer, or I'll just be expecting the next set-piece too much to care. It's really how gritty and grungy everything is that gives it its appeal. This isn't a horror film in the sense of the big build up to anticipation (although in a few instances, such as with the annoying guy at the bus-stop, Ferrara gets to have a little brilliant set-piece as he sneaks up behind him and drills into his back through the glass), and its gore/blood factor, which is high, is what really gets it into the genre category. Ironically it's never the human killings, but rather the image of a dead and skinned rabbit- and Reno's predilection to hammer away at the poor bunny's skull- that sticks with the audience after it ends.
The 'artifact' nature of the film, of the punk rock scene that no longer exists, is also fascinating, if at times a little tiresome to watch (it depends on what music is playing really, some of it is good in that dirt-cheap way of The Germs). And sure, the acting is on the low-budget side. But there's something about the Driller Killer that works, almost in spite of itself. It's a weird combination of fetish and religious repression, traditional horror and the surreal horror of something like Repulsion, and every so often it can be very funny, in a very demented sort of way. It's the kind of cult film that earns its reputation not by being outrageous, but by the nature of its making, and its peculiar leading man acting alongside the women around him. 7.5/10
But hey again, it's Abel Ferrara's first feature as director, and he takes his camera's eye on to the streets like he's a documentary director brought in to the realm of schlock and told to just go-go-go. He also plays the title character, Reno Miller, who makes a painting of a buffalo and keeps staring at the eyeball of the beast, as it seems to be as empty and black as he might be. Perhaps he's driven to kill by a misguided libido- we never see how he might be sexually, and the image of the drill first going into a door is shot fetish-like, with an extreme close-up of the drill-bit pounding into the wood- and the drill makes up for his phallus. He could just be schizophrenic, as he later seems kind of shocked that he even did the crimes (at least at first). Or he's just bored, or driven mad by all of that lousy, noisy punk rock going on downstairs.
It could be all of those things, or none of them. Along with the very loose 'plot', the lack of anything of an explanation makes things a little frustrating for a first-time viewer. I suppose if I come back to the film again it will be a little clearer, or I'll just be expecting the next set-piece too much to care. It's really how gritty and grungy everything is that gives it its appeal. This isn't a horror film in the sense of the big build up to anticipation (although in a few instances, such as with the annoying guy at the bus-stop, Ferrara gets to have a little brilliant set-piece as he sneaks up behind him and drills into his back through the glass), and its gore/blood factor, which is high, is what really gets it into the genre category. Ironically it's never the human killings, but rather the image of a dead and skinned rabbit- and Reno's predilection to hammer away at the poor bunny's skull- that sticks with the audience after it ends.
The 'artifact' nature of the film, of the punk rock scene that no longer exists, is also fascinating, if at times a little tiresome to watch (it depends on what music is playing really, some of it is good in that dirt-cheap way of The Germs). And sure, the acting is on the low-budget side. But there's something about the Driller Killer that works, almost in spite of itself. It's a weird combination of fetish and religious repression, traditional horror and the surreal horror of something like Repulsion, and every so often it can be very funny, in a very demented sort of way. It's the kind of cult film that earns its reputation not by being outrageous, but by the nature of its making, and its peculiar leading man acting alongside the women around him. 7.5/10