Retro Review: Lucio Fulci’s ‘Murder Rock’
Today we’re going to travel back to visit the generous catalogue of Lucio Fulci films, focusing on yet another one of his classics.
For those unfamiliar with the master’s films, Fulci had worked in all sorts of genres since the 1950s, but he really hit his stride with a response to George Romero’s epoch-making Dawn of the Dead (1978) with the Carribean-set Zombie (1980). Not a rip-off by any means, this film amps up the gore and tells a story of its own. Could it be…voodoo?
Or maybe you’ve heard of the subsequent Gates of Hell trilogy — City of the Living Dead, House By the Cemetery and The Beyond. They don’t have anything to do with each other aside from Lovecraftian themes, bloodshed, and “huh?” storylines. My friends and I spent many a Saturday night at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema, yokking it up over these epics and almost getting thrown out by an angry usher.
Fulci and his backers liked to cash in on current culture whenever possible. In 1984, with films like Staying Alive and Flashdance capturing the zeitgeist (as well as Jazzercise), he felt that was time to put his own spin on the “dancing in leotards” genre. And boy, there’s plenty of dancing. Not so many murders, but the constant gyrating — along with a couple of dream sequences — keep it rolling along. Yes, this is the magnum opus known as Murder Rock.
Murder Rock stars Olga Karlatos (most memorable for getting a splinter through her eye in Zombie) as Candice Norman, the head of a prestigious New York dance academy. Preparing for an upcoming presentation, she puts her dancers through a grueling training schedule, which involves a lot of dancing. Lots of dancing. However, as this sampling of dialogue demonstrates, Candice clearly seems to have something else on her mind.
Candice: I’m sorry, Dick. Did you want to come in?
Dick Gibson: Well, do you really think I should? Besides, tomorrow you’d have told me about it. Wasn’t that the agreement?
Candice: No, Dick, this time I would have kept it to myself.
Dick: It must be pretty serious, then. More than just the usual one-night affair?
Candice: Look, just forget it, Dick, huh?
The film should really have been called Murder Boogie, as it features many more upbeat disco tunes than rock ballads. Surprisingly, the score was composed by Keith Emerson of the legendary prog-rock group, Emerson, Lake and Palmer!
Keith must have had a yen to put on his boogie shoes, because these songs get groovy in a funky kind of way. See the trailer here for a sample of the the music and the dancing. Did I mention that there’s a lot of dancing?
To intensify Candice’s stress, a mysterious murderer is also afoot. He’s picking off the dancers one by one, piercing their hearts with a large needle. Of course, he needs to open their tops to expose their breasts first. This drives Candice wa-a-a-y over the edge, which results in a couple of hilarious dream sequences.
So Candice sweats while other character slink around looking suspicious. Will the killer be apprehended? Will they get to the recital on time? Will they be able to dance? Oh, yes. They’ll be able to dance.
Murder Rock (or Murder Rock: Dancing Death) is available through Amazon Prime and Shudder and AMC+. But if you really want to be a completist, you can grab the Blu-ray for fifty bucks! That works out to be about a dollar a dance.
