Under the pseudonym Nicholas George, St. John wrote the screenplay for Ferrara's 1976 pornographic film, 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy.[7] He went on to write the screenplay of Ferrara's directorial debut, The Driller Killer (1979).[3] Then, St. John wrote Ferrara's second film, Ms. 45 (1981).[6]
A notable Ferrara film in which St. John did not write the screenplay was Bad Lieutenant (1992). A Catholic, St. John refused to work with Ferrara on that particular film because of its blasphemous images.[8] St. John also tried to dissuade Ferrara and Harvey Keitel, who played the titular role, from even making it.[9] Despite this, St. John wrote the scripts of Ferrara's subsequent films Body Snatchers[9] and Dangerous Game,[10] both released in 1993. The last two films that St. John has written to date are Ferrara's The Addiction (1995) and The Funeral (1996).[11]
In 2005, it was reported that St. John co-wrote a script with Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn titled Billy’s People.[12] However, the script was never made into a film due to box office disaster results from Refn's films Bleeder (1999) and Fear X (2003).[13]
Ferrara said of St. John in 2015, "We started making films when we were 16, and then at a certain point he just had enough, you dig? He didn’t dig the business, he didn’t dig the spirituality of the business, didn’t dig the lifestyle; and at the height of his game, of our game, he just said: enough."[14] It has been said that St. John and Ferrara's longtime collaboration ended as a result of a falling-out.[15]
