Entry Seven: The Driller Killer (1979)

The Driller Killer (1979)

Dir: Abel Ferrera

"There are those who kill violently!"

Reno (director Ferrera, going by the pseudonym Jimmie Laine), is a guilty, (lapsed?) Catholic starving artist struggling to make ends meet.  He's squandered most of his cash paying for his (divorced) girlfriend's abortion and is having difficulty completing his latest "masterpiece (a variation of the classical Grecian minotaur using the American buffalo), the sale of which would give him enough money to get his affairs in order.  Meanwhile, a (terrible) punk rock band moves in to the apartment below him, making sleep impossible, and his girlfriend begins having an affair with their female roommate (resulting in a gratuitous, mutual tit-washing shower scene).  After a sleepless night filled with bloody hallucinations, Reno purchases a "porto-pack" power source for his electric drill and begins bloodily murdering skid-row whinos, whose freedom from responsibility he envies and doesn't understand.

 Ferrera's film is a reactionary, violent hetero-male response to changing sexual mores during the seventies (Reno's girlfriend's lesbian affair is spurned on by her attraction to the androgynous leader of the punk band; the derelicts Reno murders represent an "old way" of life he is trying to reject; lead astray by the conventions of his "faith," Reno murders a priest) but, taken at face value with a willingness to ignore it's pretensions, it's also a helluva lotta fun, with some EXCEPTIONAL shot-on-location photography in mid-70s New York (my personal wonderland; if I had access to a time machine, it's the first time/place I'd go), and the stark, no-frills photography enhances the scuzzy atmosphere. This DIY-wonder was the first (legit-he had previously made the porno Nine Lives of a Wet Pussy) film for director Ferrera, who would go on to make the FUCKING FANTASTIC Ms. 45, then (briefly) become famous during the late-80s and 90s for directing episodes of the television series Police Story and Miami Vice, as well as the features King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral and Fear City (with Billy Dee!), before fading back into (relative) obscurity.

As an aside, Ferrera made an early short film called Not Guilty: For Keith Richards in 1977, about Keith's heroin trial.  It's never been commercially available, but I need to see it and it probably ought to snuggle up next to Cocksucker Blues on my Stones bootleg shelf.  If you have any leads, please contact me.