Although the previous edition of "Driller Killer" contained a full screen transfer of the film with the director's first commentary track, Cult Epics has remastered the film from its original 16mm elements in a new widescreen transfer, with better (and stable) colours, and good blacks for the film's numerous nighttime & club scenes. The 1.85:1 aspect ratio is well-balanced, and there's no chopped heads or clipped composition. The mono sound mix is very aggressive (and the film's first notation - "This Film Should Be Played Loud" - is a twisted riff on Martin Scorsese's 1978 concert film, "The Last Waltz," which uses the same credit at the start).

This limited set essentially functions as an excellent capsule of Ferrara's career from amateur filmmaker to film student, culminating in his first commercial feature. Fans of the cult director will relish the chance to watch the short films, archived on Disc 2.

The best of the lot is "Could This Be Love." Shot in 1973 and starring Ferrara's then-girlfriend, Nadia Von Loewenstein, it's a mysterious little drama about two bored Greenwich women who aim low and pick up a prostitute at a suburban dive. Dressed in more upscale rags, the young woman is escorted to a snotty party held by a member of the corporate elite, and her guardians amuse themselves by observing the girl's stumbling within their less forgiving social stratum. The source print's rough during the opening credits, but otherwise it's in relatively fair shape.

"Hold Up," on the other hand, is a roughly assembled B&W short from 1972, largely with non-actors, and it concerns disgruntled workers who knock over a gas station after being dumped from the employee roster. The footage is often fuzzy, and the sound mix - a blend of location, dubbing, and coarse sound effects - is very primitive.

As Ferrara chronicles in a surprisingly coherent commentary for "Could This Be Love," the film's role as potential calling card did little in the short term, and adds how his film professor felt the story and characters deserved greater expansion in a feature-length format. (The film's ending is poetic and cruel, and sets up several intriguing but never realized relationships.)

Ferrara also comments in a separately indexed track on actress Von Loewenstein. Having brief aspirations as an actress before embarking on a modeling career, Loewenstein is given a thrashing of sorts by her ex-beau, digging up past upsets and family skeletons; he's not feigning the jilted lover here, but it's an obvious railing against an old lover.

Perhaps due to a lack of work, Ferrara subsequently directed a hard core porn flick (under a pseudonym), and the trailer for "9 Lives of a Wet Pussy," taken from a clean 35mm source, shows his comfortable handling of hardcore material, including a rape scene that was excised from some prints (but glimpsed in the trailer, with an unsettling, jaunty narration).

Making-of and production background info are pretty much absent with "Hold Up" director's commentary, as his recollections are incoherent thoughts peppered with the immutable phrase, "Here we go!" Lack of direction is more pronounced in the "Driller Killer" commentary track, which was originally recorded for the 1999 DVD. Fans of Ferrara will likely find his ramblings pretty funny, but for those searching for precise and extended anecdotes on the film's production and release history, the track's a disappointment. (Booklet liner notes from Brad Stevens, author of "Abel Ferrara: The Moral Vision," however, fills in some of the missing factual gaps.)

Overall, this new 2-disc edition of "Driller Killer," limited to 10,000 copies, remains a very thoughtful production, and Ferrara's self-described "comedy" can finally be enjoyed in a superior release.

© 2004 Mark R. Hasan