Oh boy I knew I was in for something special when I received “Driller” in the mail with the address barely completed and the return address basically missing. The very fact X Rated Alley received this beauty of a horror porno called Driller is one thing, but to deliver it in mysterious packaging is the icing on the cake. I had an idea of what I getting in to upon looking at the deluxe packaging for Mr. Creepo’s “Driller” from 1984, a veritable porno spoof (and carefully constructed one at that so as to prevent legal issues) of Michael Jackson’s iconic Thriller. For those unaware (and how could you not be?), Thriller was a cultural sensation of the eighties and continues to be the go to for the template for epic music videos to this day. The plot basically boils down to a thirty minute movie that doubles as an amazing music video with a catchy song. A young couple in a movie theater walk home one night and find themselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and must fight their way out. Cue one of the most amazing musical numbers of all time, a shockingly incredible dance number involving drooling groaning zombies, and compelling narration from Vincent Price.
“There’s twelve hours of this?” I asked myself while watching what I can only assume are a series of completely disconnected featurettes and “documentaries” about UFO’s and abductions, all of which are about as half baked as I expected them to be.
It’s Pinhead. In space! With his cenobites. In space! Someone opens the puzzle box. In space! And people are tortured and turned in to cenobites against their wills. In space! The aspect about “Bloodlines” is that even though it closes the original continuity, there’s still a host of questions never answered for the fans. One of them being, if it’s indicated in the original film that becoming a cenobite is based primarily on the subjects own sado-sexual desires that transforms them in to beings of unbridled sexual pain and pleasure, why is Pinhead still just a stock slasher who turns people in to cenobites against their wills? In space? It’s a surefire sign you’re in for a thrill ride when you see director Alan Smithee at it again.