Driller (2008)

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Driller review!Reviewed by The Foywonder

Starring Tanya Dempsey, Ivy Gullickson, Matt Lewis, Jay Moore, Michael Ucello

Written & Directed by Jason Kartalian


You don’t usually see a slasher movie that opens with malevolent aliens from outer space abducting a redneck and transforming him into a mutated killing machine designed to exterminate the human race, but that’s exactly what we get in the opening minutes of Driller.

Some poor sap in a pick-up truck gets beamed up to a UFO and turned into an instrument of death working on behalf of extraterrestrial invaders out to eradicate our civilization. The creative special effects work shown in this introductory abduction scene and the very few alien-related scenes later on are quite impressive given the obvious ultra low budget writer-director Jason Kartalian was working with. Too bad everything original or inventive about his film begins and ends with that promising opening sequence.

Take another look at that killer DVD artwork. Bad ass, huh? Definitely caught my attention when I was in Movie Gallery the other day. I sense it represents more the ideal alien driller killer Kartalian had in mind than the one he actually put in his movie. The killer ends up being just a guy in regular clothes with what looked to me like a funky ski mask covering his uglied-up face. That drill he wields isn’t even some space age drill given to him by the aliens or a drill the aliens turned into a freaky bodily appendage. Just an ordinary power drill you could buy from Home Depot.

After the first six minutes, including the opening credits sequence composed of nifty looking comic book art that also instilled in me a strong sense of promise, the remaining 70-minutes of Driller turned out to be nothing more than every slasher movie you’ve ever seen stripped down its bare minimum. Once you get past the initial set-up it’s nothing but a series of random killings tied together by witless banter. Even the alien extermination plot aspect isn’t developed enough to actually amount to anything.

Horny guy, virgin, hopeless romantic, fluzie, idiots, rednecks: they’re all trapped out in the woods being killed off by a masked maniac with a power drill under the control of evil aliens. Plot? As Porky Pig would say, “Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-That’s all folks!”

We get a crappy metal band whose van breaks down in the woods. We also get a pair of poseurs trying to get laid. They score two hotties and take them to a house in the same woods to watch a horror movie that looked to be even cheaper than the one they’re in. Toss in a pair of thievin’ rednecks. Almost everyone is a pothead. Absolutely everyone is brain dead. Soon they’ll all be dead.

Given the personalities of the people I watched fall victim to this driller I can’t help but think these aliens may not be so bad after all. If thinning the herd involves eliminating a few dumb ass potheads and white trash idiots then sign me up for the alien driller army now!

Now looking at it from a story standpoint, the means by which intergalactic invaders are plotting genocide against the human race is to mutate random humans and have them go on killing sprees in the middle of nowhere using earthly power tools?

Death by power drill isn’t even a unique means by which to kill off victims in a slasher movie, and as gruesome as a few of the kills are, not only have I seen power drilling deaths done with more pizzazz, I found this one-note means of evisceration got old rather quick.

All this still might be sufficient enough entertainment for undiscriminating slasher movie fans and gorehounds; it drilled me with boredom. As much as I wish I could be telling you about this cool little horror flick that slipped out onto shelves with little fanfare that you should all be going out of your way to see, sadly, that’s just not the case.

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1 out of 5

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