It was 1982. An innocent time. Cheers was on TV. ET and Rocky III were filling the cinemas. The video boom was kicking off. A small time distribution company called Vipco made a choice that changed film history forever. They'd bought a film called The Driller Killer and wanted to advertise it so took out a full page ad in English movie magazines using the video cover seen above. People didn't like it and the Advertising Standards Agency were contacted. This combined with the furore over the advertising for Cannibal Holocaust a few months later brought Mary Whitehouse into the mix and a legend was born.
But was the film that started it all any good?
Surprisingly yes.
From the crazed mind of Abel Ferrera came the story of Reno Miller (played by Ferrera himself in an effective cost cutting exercise), an artist living in the grotty and dangerous New York City of the late 70's. He's broke and he's frustrated. It's hard to find peace and quiet to work in his gaff when he's sharing it with two others, Carol and her girlfriend Pamela. Things get worse when a band move in next door and practice constantly, leaving Reno really on edge. He's hallucinating, he's hearing voices, he's begun ranting at homeless men in the street. When one night he sees an ad for a portable battery pack. A battery pack that will go very well with the drill laying around the house.....
The Driller Killer is as sleazy and brutal and avant garde/trippy/pretentious as you've heard but it gives me a great giggle that the film that started the video nasty era was essentially an arty psychological drama. Had that artwork not been used this would have passed by unnoticed and disappeared in the midst of time but there's loads of reasons to watch it. As a snapshot of that time in NYC it nails the danger, the fashion, the music, the grime. It shows the start of Ferrera's obsessions with the city, Catholicism, guilt, madness, sex and violence, themes that have pervaded his work since in films like Ms. 45, The King Of New York, The Addiction and so on. It's shoddy, micro-budget stuff but it hooks you in, especially that unnerving Ferrera performance. I can imagine it being a wild watch in the early 80s, a nice counterpoint to shinier NYC films from the likes of Woody Allen.
As for its nasty status I kinda get it,, especially in the second half with two scenes being particularly vicious. The one from the cover is a genuinely horrific moment that's really dwelled on while Reno's first kill is pure splatter movie fodder, with claret flying left right and centre. Had the poster not caused uproar the film would have been snipped and the film passed...... hold up, this is a paradox. Without the uproar would video classification have come in at all?? Would the vhs format ever have taken off properly without people seeking out the salacious and the vicious. Maybe we have a lot to thank The Driller Killer for.
Would I recommend this - Yes. Without a doubt.
Does it deserve to be a nasty? - No but I understand why it all happened. Moreso than most others on the list.
Next up - Evilspeak. The film where the young lad from Gentle Ben gets possessed and kills Bob from That 70's Show with a demonic sword. Evilspeak rocks.
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