Around the World: Ms. 45 (1981; dir. Abel Ferrara); Trauma, Gender Violence, and Revenge Fantasies
(Trigger warning: this review involves discussion of sexual assault, trauma, and gender violence.) Two years after the release of his gritty and noisy murder-fest, The Driller Killer (1979), Abel Ferrara returned to the director’s helm with Ms. 45 (1981), a revenge “fantasy” film. Though Ms. 45 still demonstrates some of that rawness present in Ferrara’s first feature film production, it […]
Around the World: The Driller Killer (1979; dir. Abel Ferrara)
As Abel Ferrara’s first non-porn feature film, The Driller Killer serves as a signpost of the director’s vision of New York City and its social ills. Ferrara would hone this vision into a more coherent film three years later (in Ms. 45), but in The Driller Killer, he was, I think, in his rawest form: vulgar, uncompromising, and noisy. […]
