Abel Ferrara, Film Genres, and Independent Film: From Horror to Gangsters

This chapter examines the genre-defying cinema of Abel Ferrara, tracing his evolution across independent film traditions and diverse cinematic modes. From early horror works like The Driller Killer and The Addiction to his intense gangster trilogy—King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, and The Funeral—Ferrara consistently resists conventional genre categorisation, blurring the boundaries between exploitation and art cinema. Through an analysis of his hybrid style, the chapter explores Ferrara’s distinctive use of Catholic symbolism, corporeal excess, and urban decay as narrative and aesthetic strategies. Rodríguez Ortega argues that Ferrara’s films embody a poetics of excess that operates beyond traditional ethical legibility, dwelling in ambiguity rather than moral resolution. Drawing on theories of genre by scholars such as Christian Metz, the chapter positions Ferrara as a filmmaker who redefines film genre through self-reflexivity, formal experimentation, and philosophical provocation. Ultimately, Ferrara emerges not only as a provocative auteur of American independent cinema, but also as a director who reclaims genre as a vehicle for transgressive, existential storytelling.