The Driller Killer (1979)

The selective outrage of critics and those who feel they must guard the gates of society against moral outrage often amuses me.  Take a movie like The Driller Killer, for instance.  It was director Abel Ferrara's debut feature film, partially funded by doing one adult film previous.  It's pure exploitation, but since Ferrara throws in connections to the New York art world as well as the punk scene, critics were willing to talk it up as art rather than trash.  William Lustig's Maniac, a much better film that still invokes the grittiness of New York at the time and follows Joe Spinell as a serial killer with mommy issues, was trashed as being a misogynistic film that promoted violence just by the virtue of showing it.  

I'll admit that I have issues with Ferrara's films.  Bad Lieutenant is probably the closest I've ever come to liking any of his movies, and that has less to do with Ferrara's pretentions and more with Harvey Keitel's performance.  If he stuck to the plots of many of his features he just may have reached the heights of Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese, but he often gets in his own way by trying to consciously make art rather than trying to make a good movie.  Although The Driller Killer has in some ways been compared to Taxi Driver, a good movie is not what he made here, or even a watchable bad one.  Instead, it's a tedious slog with unlikable characters and horrible music - and this is coming from someone who loves punk rock. 

Reno Miller (Ferrara) is an artist living in a loft with his two girlfriends, Carol Slaughter (Carolyn Marz) and Pamela (Baybi Day).  The throuple is barely getting by as Miller works continuously on what he considers is his masterpiece, touching it up long after it is done.  When a band called the Roosters start using a basement apartment as a practice space it increases tensions within the house, as money problems, sleep deprivation and self-doubt begin to plague him.

Reno soon finds a release.  Buying a portable battery pack, he hooks up an electric drill so he can go out and murder the local homeless population.  When his patron (Harry Schultz) insults his art and his relationship with Carolyn and Pamela dissolves, he begins moving on from the homeless and taking out anyone he feels has wronged him.

Although it is ridiculous that he would not be noticed even in a city like New York at the time, when Reno snaps and begins to kill derelicts the movie finally picks up - for the 10 minutes or so this happens.  It's what the movie's UK box art promised, it's what the title promised, and it's what the audience gets little of throughout the film.  What we do get is interminable scenes of the Roosters playing and the girlfriend (Laurie Y. Taylor) of their lead singer Tony Coca-Cola (D.A. Metrov) yelling at people.  There is Pamela looking bored and doped up, occasionally hooking up with Carol and, worst of all, Reno whining and raging like a pent-up 13-year-old.  There are the 16mm scenes of grimy late '70s New York, but few and far between, as we are pretty much stuck in Reno's apartment building. 

This is where I get confused on why this is art and Maniac is trash.  Reno starts killing because he's financially and artistically frustrated, as well as bored.  Frank Zito, the killer from Maniac, has serious psychological scarring.  Yet, we're supposed to feel something for Reno, and maybe give him a pass because his targets, at least in the beginning, are the homeless instead of women.  The Driller Killer is by far the worse and more pointless of the two films, without even one iota of suspense.  Comparing it with Taxi Driver is also just plain idiotic, as Travis Bickle slowly goes insane through a combination of isolation and dealing with modern society, developing a hero complex that only manifests itself because of an opportune target.  Reno Miller is just an immature jerk who thinks he is better than he actually is.

I don't know how much of Ferrara himself is reflected in that but, if his movies are anything to go by, it may not be that far off. 

The Driller Killer (1979)

Time: 96 minutes

Starring: Abel Ferrara, Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, D.A. Metrov

Director: Abel Ferrara