Color, 1979, 96m. / Directed by Abel Ferrara / Starring Jimmy Laine (Abel Ferrara), Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, Harry Schultz / Cult Epics (US R1 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1), Opening Edition (France R2 PAL) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9), Visual Entertainment (UK R2 PAL)
One of the key titles in the notorious "video nasty" panic in Britain, Driller Killer has, like I Spit on Your Grave, risen to 
infamy based almost entirely on its title alone. While video box covers and luried posters for the film promised a maniac stalking semi-clad nubile beauties, this depiction couldn't possibly be more misleading. In fact, this extremely low budget artsy film spends most of its running time etching a despairing, Taxi Driver-like portrayal of scuzzy New York life during the late '70s, and all of the victims killed onscreen are male. Not surprisingly, teens who checked this one out expecting cheap splatter thrills were often crushingly disappointed.
Starving, irritated artist Reno (director Ferrara) lives in a squalid New York apartment surrounded by drunken derelicts, one of whom happens to be his father. Plagued with nightmarish visions and barely able to keep any food in the fridge, Reno tenuously clings to sanity thanks to the presence of his girlfriend, Carol (Carolyn Marz), 
who is currently separated from her husband and also has a live-in lesbian lover, Pamela (Baybi Day). Reno works desperately on a huge painting of a buffalo which he hopes will earn some money from a flamboyant art rep, but his concentration is shattered when a punk band moves next door and plays around the clock. Pretty soon Reno snaps and starts darting around the nocturnal city streets, picking off the occasional bum with his electric hand drill.
An interesting but hardly endearing cult item, Driller Killer (or The Driller Killer as it's technically known) was the first semi-legitimate effort from Ferrara, who earlier directed and acted in the hardcore Nine Lives of a Wet Pussy and crafted a Keith Richards short film. Though the result is rough around the edges, it's more imaginative and vibrant than some of his later misfires like Dangerous Game. On its own terms, Driller Killer offers some occasional stylish moments, a quirky sense of humor, and some very potent atmosphere but would have probably vanished into oblivion were it not for Ferrara's dazzling follow up film, Ms. 45, which explores much of the same territory from a female perspective. Incidentally, only two scenes really qualify as graphically violent but are relatively tame compared to the splashier '80s horror trends; in fact, Ferrara's pizza eating habits are far more visually repulsive.
Shot on 16mm during the weekends over a period of almost two years, Driller Killer looked dark and grimy in theaters and fared even worse on video. VHS versions were unwatchable, and the first American disc from Cult Epics was a soft, grungy presentation put to shame by a subsequent widescreen French release. However, Cult Epics' subsequent two-disc reissue features a superior transfer (though not 16:9 enhanced, oddly enough) with much better black levels, detail, and color definition. Though the opening proclaims "This movie should be played loud," the mono audio sounds pretty drab on every extant version. The least appealing option would be the UK disc, which offers the older full frame transfer and the smallest amount of extras.
The first Cult Epics DVD became an instant cult item thanks to a very unique commentary track from Ferrara, who says "uh oh" about five thousand times, rambles about Spaghetti-Os, slams his own filmmaking prowess ("Let's see if this scene can go on half an hour longer;" "Hey, 
there's a good shot, for once"), and makes weird, growling comments about all of the actresses in the film. He does offer a few interesting nuggets of trivia about low budget shooting during that period, but mostly he rambles off slurred reactions to the onscreen events and repeatedly criticizes his own work. The commentary reared its head on subsequent releases, including the deluxe Cult Epics set which adds a number of tasty new extras. The cruddy theatrical trailer is present and accounted for, but more interesting is a complete "Porto-Pack" commercial (glimpsed in the film itself), a newly transferred and highly explicit trailer for 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (whose excellent quality makes one bemoan the shoddy US DVD, which is also missing a nasty stairwell rape scene present in the trailer), and best of all, three early Ferrara films. The best one by a long shot is "Could This Be Love," a look at the bohemian New York set including artists, writers, and other dwellers of various social and sexual stripes. Transferred from the original film elements, it's a little scratchy in spots but generally looks fine. More compromised are "The Hold Up" (lifted from a soft VHS dub) and the silent "Nicky's Film," both black and white mood pieces indicative of Ferrara's unusual framing but hard to describe otherwise.
