Slumber Party Massacre 2 Driller Killer's Guitar

[Kid Omega]

I'm not sure if anyone would be able to help here, but interested to know if anyone has attempted it before or knows much about the original prop.
(I do plan on getting advice from luthiers on other platforms fwiw.)

I'm going to be attempting a working replica of the guitar from Slumber Party Massacre 2,
My question for prop historians here, is if anyone knows if it was a working guitar for the movie?

My goal is to make it a working guitar, and also have a working drill like it is in the movie.

Tom Spina Designs seemed to restore the original prop, but when I tried to contact them, I was basically told by someone to come and ask about it here. (My questions could've been easily answered by the person who actually worked on the restoration, so I'm not sure why I wasn't able to actually be directed to them, but oh well.)

On one hand the hardware looks real enough, but the frets look almost painted on with how misshapen they are (and it's easy enough to just screw in non-working hardware.) One comment I've seen in regards to it is that there was a "working" version, but I suspect this probably meant the drill worked rather than the guitar itself. Granted, there were 3 made for the movie, so this very well could be one that wasn't made for closeups.

The biggest issue I can see so far for building this is that the drill is right where the truss rod would be.
My current idea is to try to hide a small RC motor in the volute at the top of the neck and have some sort of really lightweight rod for the drill, and have something like foam to create the actual drill shape--and hope that would all be light enough for such a small motor to run.

I currently have a neck to start with. I'm considering moving the truss rod so that adjustment would be at the bottom of the neck rather than the top (which will be a pain in the butt to adjust, but might make room for the drill and motor.)
Would this be easier if I picked one thing to work over the other? Yes. Will I compromise? No I have to make everything difficult for myself lol

 

[mrwax]

I am going entirely off your images here and not any prior knowledge of this prop, but my impression is like yours and that this is not a functional guitar. I say this as someone who has rebuilt my guitars more than is necessary more than from a prop perspective. The frets, pickup rings, and pickups poles all have a slight wonkiness to them, and they're all the same or very similar colors of silver. They look painted, and the same shade of silver as the tips on the body or the drill.

What neck are you starting with? I'd look at a headless neck like a Steinberger or one of the generic headless guitar kits if you didn't already have one. You'll need to deal with how to tune the thing at the bridge, which is non trivial, and probably impossible with the trem in the images.

Thankfully, the drill looks pretty lightweight, I think your idea of a small motor is perfect. I don't think it'd necessarily get in the way of the truss rod at all. I personally wouldn't try moving the truss rod adjustment unless strictly necessary, I'd build out behind the neck to house the motor, route the wires back to the body, and build a battery compartment into the back.