The Driller Killer

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.