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1%%Image moved from VideoNasties to this page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1312770546020360200
2%%Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.
3[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/driller_killer.jpg]]
4[[caption-width-right:300:[[CoversAlwaysLie The movie is nowhere near as violent as this poster indicates]].]]
5
6->''"As the drill finds its victim... the blood runs in rivers... and the drill keeps tearing through flesh and bone."''
7-->-- '''{{Tagline}}'''
8
9''The Driller Killer'' is a 1979 horror movie directed by and starring Creator/AbelFerrara, and is considered by many to be Ferrara's debut film.[[note]] He did direct a movie three years before called ''9 Lives of a Wet Pussy'', but he [[OldShame doesn't like mentioning that one.]][[/note]]
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11By day struggling artist Reno paints to survive. Sharing the seamy squalor of his UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity pad are Carol and Pamela. Reno tries hard to keep them happy. The pulsating paranoia of the city squirms and crawls in his psyche. The feverish shadow world of the Lower East Side seeps into his subconscious. Rape, Murder, Terror. His mind splits under the strain.
12
13By night, armed with a Porto-Pak electric drill Reno commits his first drill killing. His homicidal half spills the brains of innocent victims over the sidewalks of the city.
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15Carol abandons him. Rock rouser Tony Cocacola and the Roosters move into the apartment below and begin blasting his brain to oblivion. His art dealer criticizes his latest work. Reno responds with a fast finger on the trigger of his killer drill!
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17The screen releases the dream of an energy black as night and blood as real as love! Plug into terror with the driller killer!
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19Initially released on home video in 1982 by Charles Band's Wizard Video in the United States, the film was praised in the United States but lambasted in the United Kingdom as a {{Video Nast|ies}}y and banned there for nearly two decades before finally being released there in 2002 (a censored version had previously been released in 1999). The film has since fallen into the PublicDomain and can be viewed [[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=2ahUKEwi-sO3amsfkAhUiLX0KHbm8BZ4Qxa8BMAF6BAgAEAQ&usg=AOvVaw0VTJzWxrN8ZFOD4xbU2nov here]] on [=YouTube=].
20
21----
22!!This film contains examples of:
23
24* AxCrazy: Reno. The line that separates his perception of reality is blurred as the story goes on, symbolized by clips of him drenched in blood.
25* BMovie: One of the more controversial ones at the time due to its extreme violence.
26* BigBad: Reno Miller, a frustrated artist who becomes a SerialKiller.
27* {{Gorn}}: One look at the cover and you'll see why.
28** Oddly enough, ''[[BeamMeUpScotty subverted]]'' by the actual film. Most of the kills are relatively tame, and the film is more of a dark character study than an outright SlasherFilm.
29* GoryDeadlyOverkillTitleOfFatalDeath: ''The Driller Killer''
30* HighPressureBlood: One unfortunate homeless bum (the first drill victim) had blood splatted when he was drilled by Reno. The other victims, less so.
31* IncessantMusicMadness: The punk rock neighbors (which appear throughout the movie).
32* {{Jerkass}}: Reno, as a result of his built-up insanity. This leads to strained relations with his girlfriend, Carol.
33* JobTitle: ''The Driller Killer''
34* KillThePoor: Reno originally targeted the homeless due to being disgusted by them.
35* StarvingArtist: Reno. He fails to pay his rent; and Dalton, the gallery owner, has had enough lending money to him.
36* ThisIsADrill: We ''really'' prefer the ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' version.
37* VideoNasties: Why do you think it was popular with the youth?
38* VillainProtagonist: Reno starts off as a {{Jerkass}} artist who spends his day hating on the homeless, and eventually the stress of his life leads him to become a SerialKiller.

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