In New York, the painter Reno Miller (Abel Ferrara) shares a loft with his girlfriend Carol (Carolyn Marz),who left her husband Stephen, and their roommate Pamela (Baybi Day). Reno is having difficulties to pay his bills, while is obsessed painting his masterpiece, a buffalo with a hypnotic eye. When a punk band moves to his building playing day and night, Reno cannot sleep and drives insane, going to the streets with a driller, killing homeless derelicts. When the art dealer calls his painting a mockery, and Carol returns to her husband, leaving him alone, Reno goes totally mad.

"The Driller Killer" is polemic, forbidden in England in the 80's, but it is a good low budget slash movie. The red color very alive prevails in most of the scenes, and together with the nervous camera, provoke a sort of discomfort sensation in the viewer. The characters and the insanity process of Reno are very well constructed, and the story also captures the punk wave of that moment in New York. There is a good and worth explanation for the church scene in the beginning of the movie in IMDb Message Board written by SyZombieLoserKid. Although indicated for specific audiences, "The Driller Killer" is a good film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Assassino da Furadeira" ("The Driller Killer")

This early feature length effort from cult filmmaker Abel Ferrara is interesting, to say the least, if not for all tastes. While it might appeal to some slasher fans for its respectable body count and surprisingly decent gore, it does have more in common with "Taxi Driver" than, say, "Halloween". It's an incredibly gritty, crude, yet appreciably surreal urban drama about Reno Miller (played by Ferrara himself, using his acting pseudonym "Jimmy Laine"). Reno is a struggling young painter, who lives with two sexy female roommates, Carol (Carolyn Marz),and Pamela (Baybi Day). Renos' hold on reality is steadily slipping away. His mental state isn't helped by the fact that his landlord has let a punk band move into his building, and their constant rehearsals drive him nuts. Soon, he's out and about murdering the derelicts of NYC streets with a power drill.

This may be hard to stick with for some viewers. Admittedly, it's VERY thin on story. The acting, while amateurish, gets the job done, with Ferrara doing an amusing job in the lead role. "The Driller Killer" also is fascinating for the way it captures the punk scene of NYC in the late 1970s. The omnipresent music (score by Joe Delia, songs by Tony Coca Cola and the Roosters) is often insidiously catchy. The screenplay is by frequent Ferrara collaborator Nicholas St. John, who creates a fairly vivid portrait of one persons' mental decline. There is some memorable imagery here, such as Renos' painting of a buffalo. Use of various unsavoury NYC locations is excellent.

Worth a look for aficionados of 1970s cult cinema, but Ferrara didn't really hit paydirt until his next film, the great "Ms. 45".

Six out of 10.

I noticed that several reviewers gave "The Driller Killer" scores of 10 and with rave reviews. I just don't get it...aside from being bold, I can't think of a single thing I liked about this one.

The story is about a schizophrenic artist who slips over the edge to total insanity. When he flips, he runs about town at night using a power drill on hobos who happen to be there. You see lots of footage of him shoving the drill into their chest, head, etc. along with fake blood and screams...all in the name of his art.

The project was directed and stars Abel Ferrara...and it was a complete mess. I hope his later projects were better...perhaps this was just a learning opportunity and he learned and honed his craft. But the film abounded with lots of terrible acting (particularly by the one-time film actress who played Pamela. None of the others were good...she was unbelievably bad. Had she done more films, she could perhaps make a claim for one of the worst actresses ever! It was THAT bad. Additionally the editing, pacing and script were pretty awful. Nothing about it was good...other than just the shock value of the plot. And, some might enjoy the lesbian sex scenes...at least the acting in those wasn't too bad.