DRILL THE PIANO PLAYER

 

Film by Abel Ferrara; Color out of Dario Argento

 

I was at a loss last night for how to write about Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer (1979), a challenging film not for everybody, but I hammered out something vaguely adequate and went to bed. Then I re-read Pauline Kael’s review of Francois Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player (1960). She argues that what other critics disliked about the film, the fact that it combined different genres that don’t gel, was exactly what she loved, because it reflects the real world at that time.

That postmodern approach to genre is exactly what The Driller Killer has. It’s a mix of video nasty horror film and black comedy in which an artist (Ferrara) is driven to psychosis by the pressures of urban life and eventually starts running around killing street people with a power drill. Ferrara lives in a broken-down apartment near Union Square (shot in Ferrara’s own apartment) with his girlfriend, Carol, and her lover, Pamela. He’s already under pressure to finish his magnum opus so they can pay the bills. And he lives in a city where he’s confronted with filth and violence every day. Then a punk band takes the place below them and drives him to distraction with round-the-clock practicing.

For all the horror, there’s an energy to the city scenes that’s oddly seductive. The homeless people Ferrara interacts with may be destitute, but they’re connected to each other and at times are endearingly funny. And it’s interesting that Ferrara chooses to score some of those city shots to an electronic version of Bach’s “B-flat Invention,” which creates a light-hearted, almost affectionate mood. This was his first feature, and it already displays the love-hate relationship with his home base that would come to full fruition in later films like Ms. 45 (1981) and Bad Lieutenant (1992).

The picture’s use of color almost makes it seem like the best film Dario Argento didn’t make. The opening scene is in a church where the crucifix is lit in bright red while the two alcoves flanking it are a sickly yellow with a touch of green. Ferrara’s fantasies of killing have him bathed in a similar red light. And there are neon signs all over the city. It’s a fascinating contrast to all the grit surrounding his character.

The plot seems based in psycho-drama. Early on, Ferrara rejects a homeless man who’s claimed to be his father, because he’s afraid he could end up similarly destitute. His choice of the homeless for victims isn’t just a crime of opportunity; it’s a form of self-loathing. That would be enough to make this an intriguing horror film.

But Ferrara doesn’t take the psychological undertones with plodding seriousness. The film is also wickedly funny in places. The punk band is not very good. Their main number opens with a  bass line identical to the opening riff of Henry Mancini’s PETER GUNN theme. And it’s led by a posturing egomaniac (D.A. Metrov), which befits their name, Tony Chicago and the Roosters Some of the scenes have an improvisatory feel and an edgy comic rhythm. Carol reads about the latest atrocities reported in the tabloids while Ferrara is falling apart. Pamela seems high on something most of the time and her lines ramble all over the place, yet often come back with a zinger. A homeless man terrorizes people waiting at a bus shelter before they leave, and Ferrara takes him out in a scene that’s borderline slapstick. There’s also one hilarious shot of Ferrara holding the power drill between his legs, the latest in toxic masculinity. 

 

 

Harry Schultz as Dalton, Abel Ferrara’s version of a gay art dealer (note the pink shirt) in THE DRILLER KILLER.

 

Eventually, however, the picture peters out. There’s no real pay-off to the victimology, and as the film loses focus, the killings stop being sickly funny and just become sick. When Ferrara comes on to his gay art dealer, Dalton, in order to kill him, the scene doesn’t have any zip. The dealer had been introduced in his office, where he’s on the phone setting up a date while dealing with business interruptions. The lines to the date are a nice bit of inversion. Dalton his date jewelry to get some action, only he’s talking to someone named “Antonio” when everything else sounds like he’s softening up a woman. But does the assistant who’s calling him have to be named “Bruce,” the quintessential name used to mock gay men?  Later Pamela suggests Ferrara have sex with Dalton to get more money out of him. When Ferrara responds with disgust, she explains that if he uses KY it won’t hurt, as if that were all it took to get a straight man to come across. Maybe she should have suggested he chug a six pack.

After Ferrara invites the dealer over with hints that they’re going to get it on, there are closeup shots of the artist putting on lipstick and eye makeup to get ready, but the finished product is a let-down. It’s neither a send-up of his straight notions of how to seduce a gay man, nor is it a full-on commitment to making himself more desirable. He just jumps out and drills him to death, which may be another attempt at a joke, but it’s sloppy pay-off to the scene’s setup.

From that point, the film pretty much falls apart. Ferrara stops killing the homeless, but the new victims don’t have any real resonance. When Pamela discovers the dealer’s body, Ferrara grabs her and threatens her with the drill. But then the film cuts to another location with no sense of what happens to her. Ferrara tracks Carol down to her ex-husband’s home (nothing like a little financial destitution to turn a girl straight?), but again there’s no clear sense of what happens. When she turns out the lights and climbs into bed with Ferrara thinking it’s her husband, who’s actually lying dead on the kitchen floor, it feels like the start of another darkly comic routine. But before the joke pays off, we just cut to the closing credits.

By that point, the film has moved from urban nightmare to being just another slasher film. The jokes have no point or pay-off, and the point of view seems to have been lost somewhere.  Maybe that’s a reflection of the production process. Ferrara shot the film on weekends over the course of two years, so the ending may have just been cobbled together to get something he could sell before moving on to his next project. But we can only go by what’s on screen, and audiences don’t usually give filmmakers an “E” for effort. More’s the pity, since the first part of the film is well worth seeing. My advice: turn it off when Ferrara calls Dalton and make up your own ending. That almost fits with the improvisatory feel of the film’s best scenes.