The Driller Killer

Year:  1979

Director:  Abel Ferrara

Screenplay:  Nicholas St. John

Starring: Abel Ferrara, Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, Harry Schultz, Allan Wynroth

Running Time:  101 minutes (96 minutes theatrical release)

Genre:  Drama, comedy, horror

New York City, the late 1970s:  Reno Miller (Ferrara) is a struggling artist who lives with his girlfriend Carol (Mark) and her lover Pamela (Day), in a cramped, cluttered apartment.  Reno is working on a painting that will make him a lot of money, providing that Dalton (Schultz), the gallery owner who commissioned the piece, likes it.  Unable to pay his rent or bills, Reno knows full well that this is really his one chance, but is overcome with anxiety that he is reluctant to actually finish the piece.  To make matters worse a punk band have moved into the flat next door and practice loudly day and night.  Desperate for some peace and time to think, Reno takes to wandering the New York streets, where he becomes disgusted by the large numbers of people living on the streets, and terrified that he may very soon be joining them.  Eventually Reno snaps, and takes to the streets armed with a power drill, embarking on a killing spree targeting the unhoused population of New York.

After spending the 1970s making short, experimental films and a pornographic film, this marked the (relatively) mainstream debut of controversial auteur Abel Ferrara who becomes something of a cult figure in the '80s and '90s with exploitation films such as Ms .45 (1981), more mainstream crime dramas such as King of New York (1990) and The Funeral (1996), the hugely controversial Bad Lieutenant (1992), as well as science-fiction horror film Body Snatchers (1993), and bizarre vampire film The Addiction (1995).  More recently he has turned to making more experimental films in Italy and documentary features.  Those coming to The Driller Killer expecting grisly thrills may be disappointed because, while it is violent and gruesome, it isn't really as gory as the title and advertising promise, with the exception of a couple of very gruesome scenes, including a notorious scene where one unfortunate gets drilled in the head.   It's also a long time before any murders are committed.  Before then there are long rambling arguments and discussions, and a lot of punk music, as well as a gratuitous lesbian shower scene.  There are a lot of scenes of the band playing, and you could take out all the murders and have, basically, a punk comedy-drama.  This is an obviously very low-budget film filmed in an almost documentary style on the streets of New York, with much of the dialogue being so badly delivered and recorded that it is difficult to make out what the characters are saying.  Ferrera is a very good visual director and there are some scenes of unexpected beauty, and his talent does shine through at several points.  However, acting is not one of his skills.  Ferrara plays the lead role (under the pseudonym of Jimmy Laine) and seems to be spending the film doing a Robert De Niro impression.  The rest of the performances can be politely described as enthusiastic, with Carolyn Marz delivering by far the best performance.  The film does work as something of a time capsule of the underground scene in late 1970s New York.  Unusually for a horror film, Reno Miller's main trigger for his rampage is his financial woes rather than sexual frustration, also unusually almost all of his victims are men.  When it comes to the female characters it is left unclear whether he attacks them or not.  The Driller Killer does have it's unexpected place in film history due to it being almost singlehandedly responsible for the notorious "video nasty" scare in Britain in the 1980s.  Not the film itself but the gruesome VHS cover which depicted a close-up of the head drilling scene and the charming tagline "The Blood Flows in Rivers... And Still the Drill Keeps Tearing Through Flesh and Bone."  When this appeared in video trade magazines in the early 1980s, Conservative politicians clutched their pearls in horror and, by the mid '80s even such relatively innocuous films as The Exorcist (1973), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Evil Dead (1983) were legally unavailable in Britain.  The recent film Censor (2021) is a good look at the video nasty period.  

Abel Ferrara is The Driller Killer

 

Pasolini

 Year of Release: 2014

Director:  Abel Ferrara

Screenplay:  Maurizio Braucci

Starring:  Willem Dafoe, Ninetto Davoli, Riccardo Scamarcio, Valerio Mastandrea, Adriana Asti, Giada Colagrande, Maria de Medeiros

Running Time:  84 minutes

Genre:  Drama, biography, 

Rome, 1975:  Internationally acclaimed film director, poet, screenwriter, author, essayist, critic, commentator and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini (Dafoe) his just completed his notorious film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and has returned home to start work on two new projects: a novel, and another film.  However neither of the projects are completed, as Pasolini is brutally murdered.

The film moves between the events of Pasolini's final few hours and recreations of scenes from his planned film and unwritten novel.  It's less of a biography of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and more of a tribute to him.  The film assumes that it's audience are already familiar with Pasolini, and at least the basic facts of his life and work.  If you are not familiar with him, then you won't learn anything about the man or why he was so important.  Prolific director Abel Ferrara began his career with the notorious The Driller Killer (1979) before moving on to disturbing cult films such as Ms. 45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992), The Addiction (1995) and The Funeral (1996).  This is more of a European art film but, while it lacks much of Ferrara's earlier carnage, this still has some explicit sex and the climatic murder is deeply disturbing.  Moving between fact and fantasy it's sometimes unclear as to what is actually happening, but Ferrara conjures some startling images.  Clad in black leather jacket, with dyed black hair and eyes permanently hidden behind dark glasses Willem Dafoe bears a remarkable physical resemblance to Pasolini, given to making gravely pronouncements in restaurants and during interviews, Pasolini remains a cipher, but in the scenes with his friends and families, Dafoe imbues him with genuine warmth.  the film also costars Pasolini regular Ninetto Davoli.  While this would be inaccessible for newcomers, Pasolini fans should enjoy it.

  Willem Dafoe as Pasolini

Bad Lieutenant

Year of Release:  1992
Director:  Abel Ferrara
Screenplay:  Zoe Lund, Paul Calderon and Abel Ferrara
Starring:  Harvey Keitel, Victor Argo, Paul Calderon, Eddie Daniels, Bianca Hunter, Zoe Lund, Vincent Laresca, Frankie Thorn
Running Time:  96 minutes
Genre:  Crime drama

This film from prolific director Abel Ferrara follows an unnamed New York Police Lieutenant (Keitel) who takes cocaine and heroin, swigs from a bottle of vodka while driving, steals drugs from a crime scene, robs thieves and in one very disturbing sequence pulls over two teenage girls (Daniels and Hunter) who are driving illegally and forces them to mime sex acts.  The Lieutenant also has  a severe gambling problem and owes the Mob thousands of dollars which he is unable to pay.  He becomes involved in the investigation into a brutal assault on a young nun (Thorn) when he learns that the Catholic church are offering a large cash reward.  However the nun refuses to identify her attackers, saying that she forgives them.  The Lieutenant embarks on his own spiritual journey.

This is a very gritty and brutal film.  Abel Ferrara was kind of the enfant terrible of American independent cinema in the 90s and this features many of his hallmarks such as mixing violence with religious iconography.  It mostly has a raw, stripped-down semi-documentary feel, with much of the dialogue apparently improvised.  People who are familiar with Harvey Keitel from his recent insurance commercials on TV may forget that he was one of the great actors of his generation, and Bad Lieutenant is one of his greatest performances.  The Lieutenant himself is a toxic mix of anger and self-hatred, and in among the more showy aspects of Keitel's performance: the yelling, the sobbing, the anguished howling, and stumbling around in the nude, the film works in the quieter moments, where a flicker of an expression or a look in the eyes conveys his disgust at how far he has fallen.  The Lieutenant is an absolutely loathsome character, but Keitel manages to give him some shriveled shred of humanity buried deep, deep down. 
This is a tough watch, and I would definitely recommend caution if you are easily offended, but it is not just lurid exploitation.  It is a powerful and serious film.
   

Harvey Keitel is the Bad Lieutenant 

King of New York

Year of Release:  1990
Director:  Abel Ferrara
Screenplay:  Nicholas St. John
Starring:  Christopher Walken, David Caruso, Laurence Fishburne, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, Janet Julian
Running Time:  106 minutes
Genre:  Thriller, crime, gangster

Convicted drug lord Frank White (Walken) is released from prison, and immediately returns to New York City and sets about expanding his already vast criminal empire, making a bid for legitimacy by using the profits to help an underfunded inner city hospital.  However, White and his gang ruthlessly proceed to wipe out anyone who stands in their way and, as the body count rises, a group of police officers are determined to stop Frank, by any means necessary.

This is one of the best films from prolific director Abel Ferrara, a gritty, action-packed urban thriller, which rattles along with nary a dull moment.  Christopher Walken is effective in the lead, looking almost more ghostly than usual against his all black clothing and shadowy locations.  His Frank White is an interesting character, calm, cool, reasonable, soft-spoken, who can erupt with sudden, ferocious violence, an absolutely ruthless killer, who nevertheless has a strong social conscience and who claims that he has never killed an innocent person.  The film features several well-known actors in relatively early roles, including David Caruso, Laurence Fishburne (here billed as "Larry"), Wesley Snipes, and Steve Buscemi.  There are few female characters and they are given very little to do, except look pretty.  It contrasts the world of opulent hotel rooms, lavish galas and lunches in top-class restaurants, with the gritty mean streets, dark clubs and back rooms, and the film uses it's locations very effectively.  The film's frequent graphic violence may be off-putting for some viewers, but it is one of the best urban thrillers of the period.

Christopher Walken reflects in King of New York