Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer is a noisy, ugly, chaotic film that grates on the sensibilities like jagged sandpaper. It is filmed on cheap, 16mm film stock and utilizes horrible actors and non-existent lighting. And yet...there is something compelling about this film. I have heard it described as a slasher version of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Both films feature protagonists who lash out at society after being systematically isolated from it. In The Driller Killer, Reno Miller (played by Abel Ferrara), is a struggling artist on the brink of sanity. His girlfriend cheats on him with a lesbian lover who has the audacity to live with them, a noisy no-wave band has moved in on the floor above him and won't shut up, and he has no money for rent. He desperately struggles to finish his latest painting so he can pay the bills. But the city proves too much for him. So he strikes back by going on a killing spree, murdering random hobos in the street with a power drill. As I said...it's not a well made film from a technical standpoint. But The Driller Killer has a strange energy about it. Ferrara knows how to twist a film around so that it feels like he is trying to say something profound and meaningful even when he is murdering innocent bystanders with a power tool. Ferrara would go on to make more mainstream films, including the sensational Bad Lieutenant and The King of New York. But this is where it all started. This is where the legend began...not with a bang...but with the terrible drone of a drill bit.
6/10
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