Driller Killer (1979) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Abel Ferrara's career has been marked most distinctively by his portrayal of psychologically troubled characters on the seedy side of town. This, his first substantial film, is really a prefiguring of that, although in this case the story is somewhat disguised as a horror film.

It is the story of an artist (played by Ferrara himself, in his only significant role) who is having difficulty completing his latest work, and for whom life has turned sour. His bisexual girlfriend seems to be moving away from him, he can't pay his bills, his landlord threatens him with eviction, his agent won't lend him any money, and the world's loudest punk band moves into the apartment below him and practices 24/7.

Those are only the most current developments in his life as the film begins. The general milieu of his life is just as depressing. He lives in a bad flat, and the streets of his neighborhood are filled with the homeless, the depraved, and the criminal. Plus his greatest fear is that he'll end up like his derelict dad, so he hates street people even more because of his own self-loating. Or something like that.

As the film progresses, things don't get better. His girlfriend leaves him, and his agent tells him that his latest picture is shite, right before making a homosexual advance on him.

All of these circumstances impel him deeper and deeper into madness. He watches a television commercial for a portable battery pack, and when he obtains one, he finds that when attached to a hand-operated power drill, it makes an effective weapon. Armed with this instrument, he starts carving up street people, his agent, even his girlfriend's new lover.

There is no tension in the killing scenes. The murders are committed on camera, but even the explicit violence isn't very visceral, and there isn't that much of it by today's standards, despite the controversy generated by this movie when it was banned in the U.K. 

Did I mention that the dialogue is tedious and unrealistic and the acting atrocious?

Even the trailer stinks (although it is mercifully short)

In all fairness, I have to say that there are a few striking images, but they are usually spoiled by being in incoherent scenes or by being too dark. For example, the first scene in the church has some powerful visual elements, but doesn't appear to have any relevance to the rest of the film, or to anything else. The only truly outstanding element is that the drilling-killing scenes are obviously some kind of surrogate sex act, but even this has been done elsewhere.

If Ferrara had not later achieved a reputation, this film would be mercifully forgotten and out-of-print rather than in a collector's edition. Watching it, you will marvel that the director ever managed to achieve a directing career. If you had seen this movie in 1979, and then had met Ferrara and heard him tell you that he wanted to become a noted director, you would have thought he was deluded.

And, come to think of it, in a very real way, he was.