The Driller Killer

The gritty, gory 1979 slasher movie The Driller Killer was cult director Abel Ferrara's (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant) first feature, debuting a year after Dennis Donnelly's The Toolbox Murders, with which it obviously shared a certain narrative bond. Under the pseudonym of Jimmy Laine, Ferrara himself plays Reno, a New York painter pushed over the edge by his dismal personal and professional circumstances, who goes out and slaughters street people with an electric drill before turning the device on those closer to him. The simple truth is that it's a pretty awful picture, very amateurishly made, and despite the efforts of Brad Stevens (who wrote the effusive notes that accompany this release) to invest the film with deeper meaning (he compares it to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver!), the audio commentary by Ferrara himself--who sounds as though he's high on something or other--treats the movie more honestly with a sort of affectionate ridicule. Fans and completists, however, will certainly want to consider this double-disc set, which not only features The Driller Killer in a clean widescreen transfer, but also (on the second disc) three of Ferrara's early shorts made between 1971 and 1973 (hardly masterworks--being more on the level of primitive exercises--but aficionados will appreciate having these rarities, which are also accompanied by the director's commentary). Optional. (F. Swietek)