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Review

Commonly regarded as director Abel Ferrara's debut feature (that honor actually goes to a pseudonymously-helmed hardcore porn flick, the trailer for which appears on the second disc of this special edition set), Driller Killer fuses the slasher subgenre of horror cinema with the type of gritty, personal studies of urban alienation and crime for which the director would later receive acclaim (Bad Lieutenant, King of New York, etc.). Strangely, the film was banned for years in England and various European countries, though the bloodshed is relatively infrequent and mild when contrasted with other gorefests of the era – perhaps censors were affected by both the notorious title and the seedy realism that Ferrara brings to the material, lending it an additional impact beyond the formulaic story.

Ferrara himself (utilizing his “Jimmy Laine” moniker) stars as Reno, a tormented downtown NYC artist gradually unraveling psychologically as a result of the oppressive urban living conditions around him: bills pile up, girlfriends nag, his art dealer pressures him to finish his newest work, and the neighboring punk band assaults his ears with their incessant deafening rehearsals. One would think these are all just common symptoms of NYC living, but apparently they prove too much for Reno, and soon the eponymous power tool makes its destructive appearance.

Frankly, Driller Killer doesn’t particularly impress as a genre film (however, Ferrara would really get it right with his subsequent film, 1981’s exploitation classic Ms. 45), but the film is quite memorable as a grimy snapshot of late-70s urban squalor, and Ferrara offers a convincing (gee, I wonder why...) portrayal of mental distress. Could the film also be an allegory for the celebrity mania of the late-70s downtown NYC art scene, with Reno as a Basquiat or Schnabel surrogate? Who knows? I doubt Ferrara does: the highlight of this disc is actually the riotous commentary track with the director, who sounds as if he’s rambling somewhere between three bong hits and at least half of a fifth of J&B, and his uncensored comments are nothing short of hilarious, even if they’re largely irrelevant to an understanding of the film (Ferrara’s abrupt climactic departure from the commentary recording session has already become legendary). The second disc also provides a look at Ferrara’s pre-Driller early work, including several short films and a trailer for his porn debut, making this special edition one of those releases that’s perhaps more worth a purchase for the supplementary features than the main event.

 -- Travis Crawford