Murder-Rock: Dancing Death
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- Release Date: April 20, 1984
- Directed by: Lucio Fulci
- Written by: Gianfanco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino, Roberto Gianviti and Lucio Fulci
- Runtime: 1 hour 33 minutes
After taking a short break from horror films to experiment with the fantasy genre in Conquest and the action genre in Warriors of the Year 2072, Lucio Fulci returned to the giallo subgenre with Murder-Rock: Dancing Death. This marks the beginning of what I think of as the "middle era" of his horror career, after the heyday of Zombi 2, the Gates of Hell films and The New York Ripper, but before his various illnesses began to seriously impact his career. Because it was made not too long after Ripper, I was hoping that this movie would deliver close to the same level of sleaze and depravity that that film gave us, or at least an intriguing mystery in line with his earlier giallo films. Instead, what I got was a bizarre film that not only delivers the standard giallo tropes, but some of the cheesiest excesses of the mid-1980s pop dance scene. Yeah, this is definitely an odd one in his filmography...
The film mostly focuses on a dance studio in New York City where a group of young dancers are practicing for a talent showcase. When it's revealed that only three dancers can be selected to appear on TV, an unseen killer in black begins to pick them off one by one. It's really hard to write about this movie and not bring up how much of a tonal clash it is compared to Fulci's previous giallos. Whether it was a classier effort like The Psychic or a total sleaze-fest like The New York Ripper, Fulci usually knew how to keep the mood of the film ominous and unnerving to the viewer. Because of this film's focus on dance as a plot point, its soundtrack features a lot of 80s pop / rock music, and that makes the movie come across as extremely goofy at a lot of points. On top of that, from what I've read, the producers requested dance sequences to be added into the film because Flashdance was successful. This means that in the first half of the movie, there are about three extended dance scenes that just go on and on for minutes at a time. The goofy music, dance scenes, big hair and spandex makes it look like an 80s music video vomited all over a giallo film, and while that is a funny combination, it makes it to where I just can't get hooked into the story as much as I can with his other giallos. The horror is completely overshadowed by all the cheese.
As for the murder scenes, they're a bit of a mixed bag. Not every Fulci film was a total bloodbath, and his most effective giallos used subdued and realistic bloodshed. The problem with the death scenes in this film is that almost every one is the same. The killer knocks each victim out with a chloroform-soaked rag and stabs them in the heart with a long hatpin / needle. It's a gruesome idea, but it starts to lose its effectiveness when it's repeated over and over again with little variation. However, there are a couple of positives with these scenes. The sounds of heartbeats are played as the needle is being driven in, and when the heart is punctured, there's a gross squelch followed by silence. It's an effective use of sound that makes up for the repeated scenarios. In addition, the lighting in the dance studio likes to flicker on and off during some of these scenes, and because it's a slow flickering, you can never tell if the killer will suddenly appear at any moment. It's a simple but very effective way to build suspense in a movie that could really use some.
One final criticism I have is that the movie's resolution feels a little bit rushed. It's common for giallos to feature a twist in the film's last 15 minutes or so, but most of the time, there is enough explanation given for the twist to make it feel warranted. Here, while there is a twist and it does make sense, its explanation feels like it's given too quickly and it comes across as a little unearned. If takes place over the course of a single conversation, and if you happen to get distracted while watching the film, you'd completely miss the finale's context. I could have gone for maybe one more scene or so to flesh out the twist and make it more impactful.
Murder-Rock is a very flawed film, but I wouldn't exactly say that it's a bad one. Despite its level of cheesiness, the extremely 80s soundtrack has some enjoyable music, and the dance club setting is a unique one for the genre. The murder scenes do have some level of suspense to them, and while it's certainly not the best giallo ever made, it still checks off the boxes that a fan of the genre would probably enjoy. When you compare it to his previous horror film (1982's Manhattan Baby), things actually happened in this one, and it featured a story that didn't put me to sleep repeatedly. It may be a mid movie, but if you're a Fulci completionist, I say give it a shot.