The Driller Killer
The Driller Killer is a 1979 film from the USA, directed by Abel Ferrara, running 96 minutes. reelscum files it under video nasty and splatter.
- Year
- 1979 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 96 min
- Director
- Abel Ferrara
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- known (29/100)
- Banned in
- UK
Defined in the glossary: Video nasty, Splatter
One of the 39 successfully prosecuted video nasties, Ferrara's film was added on its title and cover art as much as its content and was not passed uncut by the BBFC until 2002.
Abel Ferrara's debut. More interesting as a document of downtown New York.
Abel Ferrara's debut, and more interesting as a document of downtown New York than as a horror film. A struggling painter cracks under the pressure of the city and his own failure and takes to the streets with a power drill, and the film is really a portrait of artistic desperation in the grimy late-70s East Village.
Ferrara himself stars, and the sense of place, the squalor, the no-wave music, the dread of the rent, is far more vivid than the killings. It became infamous chiefly for its cover art and its place on the DPP list.
Rough and personal, and the start of a real filmmaker.
Trailer
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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Written about
- The Exorcist was banned on video in Britain by one censor
The Exorcist passed uncut for British cinemas in 1974, then had no legal UK video release from 1988 to 1999 because one censor would not certify the tape.
The cycle in depth
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
On these lists
- Nastiest of the nasties
The tapes the DPP put on its seize-on-sight list. Prosecuting them in a country with ferries to France was the best advertising any of them ever got.
Filed alongside
Maniac
Savini's effects, Spinell's performance, and a very bleak little film.
The Evil Dead
Prosecuted in Britain. Actually a comedy, though it took years to admit it.
Dead & Buried
Stan Winston effects and a good twist. Underseen.
Two Thousand Maniacs!
H.G. Lewis, a Southern town, and gore effects that predate everyone.
The New York Ripper
Genuinely nasty and hard to defend. The killer quacks. It doesn't help.
Frontier(s)
Texas Chainsaw with a French accent and a swastika over the door.
Eaten Alive!
Lenzi recycling other films' footage into a Jonestown story. Grim work.
Anthropophagus
Almost entirely people walking around an island. Then two minutes of infamy.
The Exterminator
A flamethrower and a meat grinder. Death Wish with the restraint removed.
Nekromantik
German, banned widely, and much sadder than its reputation suggests.
Frankenhooker
A man rebuilds his dead girlfriend from the parts of exploded sex workers. Exactly that stupid, and great.
Basket Case
$35,000, shot on 42nd Street, and completely charming. The best kind of cheap.