Review

Reno Miller is a tortured artist who is facing problems while completing his latest masterpiece 'Buffalo'. The Landlord is demanding the rent, two months behind, the bills are mounting, his two female flat mates are getting into some shower time fun, and a bad punk rock band have moved in downstairs. Just another story from the Big Apple, one might think.

Our anti-hero descends into madness and a heavy fixation on power drills. He starts by cleaning up the neighborhood derelicts, before moving onto cleaning house. A surprisingly good movie ensues. Ready to fire up the power tools?

Okay I know what you are all thinking, the J-Man has gone completely off the planet and has dialed into some real schlock this time round. Well you my friend would be completely wrong. Driller is a New York style movie, a descent into madness movie, and a heck of a good outing on a low budget. This movie puts to shame all those big budget outings from the likes of Eli Roth and Co. End of day, Driller is what the horror genre is all about, and thank goodness some Directors remain on target with where to take things.

Ferrara surprises with a dark genre outing that is fairly dripping with artistic merit.

The movie starts with a real strange title card, 'This film should be played loud'. Why the hell Ferrara included that advice is beyond me, dude I'll play the movie at any volume I see fit to set. After this somewhat nefarious start we get the Church scene that makes little to no sense until the title credits roll and you get that whole descent into madness vibe going down. You'll need to bare with the filmmakers, and interpret what the scene is saying; Director Ferrara sure isn't giving us any clues.

Ferrara goes with a typical New York intense human angst approach and spends a lot of time in this movie dealing with the major characters and their relationships. This is set against a pretty derelict cityscape perhaps reflecting Reno's fractured mind. We're talking the mean streets here, not the Manhattan apartment scene from say Friends. In a couple of short scenes Ferrara lets us know life is cheap and violence is rife, quite an accomplishment when you think about it.

Reno's descent into madness is handled well. He stresses over the phone bill, which leads to the phone going through a window, hears voices in a pretty freaky scene, and obsesses about minor things. His painting center stages the whole plot, and you just know things are going to go into overdrive when that baby is completed. The final straw for our tortured artist is when his girlfriend Carol decides enough is enough and gets out of Dodge. Nice touch with the punk band downstairs getting progressively better as Reno gets progressively worse.

There's some laboured scenes here, Reno's having to drill the hole in the bathroom door required by his other flatmate Pamela, which serves no other purpose than to put the power drill in Reno's hand. Nice re-frame of the scene towards the end however that I was applauding. The lesbo shower scene, which is only included for titillation purposes and doesn't infringe on the plot there after. And a number of drawn out sequences that only serve to indicate New Yorkers don't care, and are pretty stoic in the face of madness.

Ferrara at stages moves Driller into art house with some pretty effective fast cuts, the use of the colour red, and scenes that only become apparently important as the story unfolds. This movie is doing more than simply going 'Boo' or delivering the gore one would expect from the title.

One of the best scenes sees the flatmates sitting down watching TV and catching an ad for something called a Port-o-Pac. Apparently some sort of electrical device that allows the home handyman to take his power tools anywhere. The look on Reno's face is priceless, and at only $19.95 the Port-o-Pac has to be a good investment for your budding psychotic serial killer.

Since the movie is called The Driller Killer I should mention the death scenes. Ferrara handles them well, pops some gore onto the screen, but doesn't rub the viewer's face in it. Some deaths are completely bloodless which kind of didn't ring true, and the dream sequences Reno keeps having highlight that he should be covered head to toe with blood and gore. Interesting progression from Reno doing in various derelicts at random, before moving up to the Art dealer, and finally focusing on his major issue, the girlfriend who left earlier in the movie.

Driller cuts to the closing credits in an incredibly tense final scene that doesn't resolve anything. Just what might Carol wake up to the next morning?

Abel Ferrara (Reno) looked like a particularly demented Alice Cooper through out, his performance nailed the role, and I was on board from whoa to go. Nice work dude that one rocked. Carolyn Marz (Carol) provided an excellent foil to Ferrara's madness jabs. She handled the role well, and you got the sense of someone leaving the eye of the storm before true havoc descended. Baybi Day (Pamela) didn't work for me, one of those stock New York characters that clutter up grunge New York films for no apparent purpose, 'whoops forgot the shower scene, my apologies to Ms Day and Mr Ferrara'.

The rest of the cast perform admirably well in clearly first time appearances, or roles to pay the bills with. Loved the punk band team, we get a lot of them for the fore said reason of shadowing Reno's descent into madness.

Ferrara doesn't disappoint in the T&A stakes. We got boobs, lots of em, nice butts to be perving on, and a lesbo shower scene. What more do you want! The gals don't get much besides Ferrara charging around without his shirt in one throwaway scene. Life's not fair, glad to be a dude in horrorland.

Joe Delia provided a score which perfect fits the texture and mood of Ferrara's visuals. Heavy on organ, with a lot of swift movements, it's as enjoyable as the action going down. We also get lots of punk music, of a NYC variety, which you will either dig into with both hands, or cover your ears from in disgust. If you like early Iggy Pop then you will be right at home.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect with The Driller Killer, the movie has cult status but that title is certainly not conducive to any thoughts that you might actually be seeing something credible. The movie fans were right, this is one hell of a good horror flick. Heavy on the psychological aspects, relationships, and dialogue, the movie doesn't rely on gore at any stage. Driller is a hallowing experience that may take a few viewings to pin down.

Ferrara shot the movie over two years, which explains why Pamela's hair colour and style changed dramatically between scenes. Driller was one of the movies that lead to Britain's notorious 'video nasty' laws, and also got banned twice Downunder before making rental shelves in the 1980s. The movie splits the horror community between those who like psychological slow builds, and those who dialed in for expected gore.

This flick is perhaps only of interest to core horror fans wanting to round out their experience with a cult classic. It's not what you might expect, and is certainly far better than the title alludes to. End of day Director Ferrara elicits a movie which rises above it's exploitation status, to show a fractured mind in a nihilistic 1970s New York City. A good low budget genre movie which puts a lot of it's high cost brethren to shame, grab a Port-o-Pak and drill into this one.