Reviews

*Possible spoilers below*

A word of advice for everyone: if you don't like a film the first time you see it, wait a while and watch it again before deciding how you feel about it for sure. Because the second time you see it, you may often find you like it more.

This is what happened with me and THE DRILLER KILLER. I saw it for the first time and thought it was total trash. However, I read a review about it in Empire which gave it four stars out of five, and it made me think twice about my opinion of it. So I sat and watched it again, and thought it was much better second time round.

A lot of reviews I've read simply slate THE DRILLER KILLER as a total pile of crap, whilst other more amateurish ones simply say how cool and funny the deaths are. Being a film student and filmmaker myself, as well as having an interest in shock cinema and horror movies, I watched THE DRILLER KILLER purely out of interest, as I had heard varying opinions about it and I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about. My viewing experience was an interesting one. Like any other film, THE DRILLER KILLER has its good points and its bad points, and I've tried to outline my feelings on these in this review.

To begin with, I think THE DRILLER KILLER deserves credit, as it's not just another 'nasty' with a virtually non-existent narrative where women are raped and sexually exploited in various horrific ways, animals harmed for fun and people are seen to eat each other, amongst other delights. On the contrary, this is a totally different kind of film, one that the infamous video cover with the drill boring through a man's forehead sadly fails to suggest.

Abel Ferrara (directing, and also starring here under the name of Jimmy Laine) is well cast as Reno Miller, and this is purely because he has the ability to look and sound like a total psychopath. The rest of the acting is particularly plain but I think this, coupled with the gritty film and handheld camerawork, helps create some sense of realism, making the violence all the more shocking. When it comes to the violence in THE DRILLER KILLER, I found it interesting that in a similar way to I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, the film forces the viewer to see violence as violence, and not violence as entertainment, which I think is rare in these kind of films. The murder scenes are very uncompromising. They are lengthy, graphic and shocking. This is partly because of the way the film has set the audience up beforehand.

From the start, we see the problems Reno has. He has financial difficulties and gets stressed out by his living environment, and we acknowledge this. We compare ourselves to him, and maybe even sympathise with him. He's seen to wear a Christian cross around his neck, religion symbolising purity and perfection. But like all of us, he's not perfect. Suddenly we see Reno commit an atrocious act of violence, and the film causes you to question your own sanity. After all, having sympathised with Reno and acknowledging similarities between him and yourself, you begin to think, `Is there a bit of Reno in all of us?'

Ferrara's use of deep red in the film was particularly striking, the red symbolising Reno's ever-growing rage with life from the outset; a character driven to extreme anger out of the pressures of urban life, who then kills homeless `bums' out of a fear that one day he too will become like them.

There were some interesting points I picked up on during the viewing of the film. One of these was the fact that all the people we see killed in the film are males. I don't know quite what to make of this. Was this an attempt at subverting the genre or creating a new one? Another point is that we never see the police or anything else on the other side of the law. We, the audience, are forced to be with Reno for the majority of the film and he is never arrested or killed. He gets away with his crimes. As we see him carry out more gruesome murders, we begin to feel infected by his continuing presence and therefore we ourselves feel guilty and sickened that we are in his company. This brings about the theme of tolerance in society, and in these times this is something I think we need to be thinking about.

On first viewing, I thought THE DRILLER KILLER was very amateurish in tone. On a second viewing I realised that this was a low-budget independent shocker movie made in the late 70s - it's what one should come to expect from the genre, and I don't know why I didn't pick up on this first time round.

The ending to the film was quite decent. I was trying to figure out how it would end, and it's not what I was expecting at all. In fact, the end of the film is quite a chilling one, as it's all left to your imagination (although not much imagining in is needed).

Sadly however, THE DRILLER KILLER is not entirely perfect.

From the outset, we are frequently shown religious icons of varying sorts. This happens quite a few times, and it begins to get slightly daft, as I feel they had no purpose in the film. If they were used to try and create meaning and tension, I think Ferrara, in his role as director, failed in this department.

The dialogue is unclear at times, sometimes because the music is too loud. Other times, it's probably down to bad sound recording or source elements. On another note, the film's pacing is weak in parts, and the film jumps around from time to time, and other events in the film happen too suddenly.

In the end, THE DRILLER KILLER gets a message across, but it lacks any real serious intelligent ideas or thoughts, which is a shame. In the end, you can view a film as a form of art or a form of entertainment. I think THE DRILLER KILLER has to be seen a work of art, a very unique but albeit one which is weak in some departments. Although it lacks genuine meaty substance, it is quite an interesting picture to watch. If it had been made a bit more creatively, and things had been tightened up a little, I dare bet it would be a more highly engaging and thought-provoking film. But unfortunately it doesn't quite get there.

Surprising, this is rather good and wasn't what I was expecting, although it won't be for everyone, and like me you may wish to see it more than once. Although still weak in parts, it'll keep you thinking long after you see it.

7 out of 10.