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Murder-Rock: Dancing Death - Limited Edition
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (17th June 2025). |
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The Film
 The top dancers of the New York "Arts for Living Center" have more to worry about than a choreographer who seems to have wandered out of FAME and a chance at for a starring roll in a Broadway show when someone starts offing the competition. Everyone is a suspect from driven choreographer Candice (Zombie's Olga Karlatos) whose own dreams of stardom were shattered by an accident, womanizing school director Dick Gibson (Island of the Fishmen's Claudio Cassinelli), trainer Margie (Demons' Geretta Geretta), and the entire neurotic student body. Detective Borges (Manhattan Baby's Cosimo Cinieri) is on the case but must sift his way through a lot of infighting between the dancers including hot-headed Willy (Tenebrae's Christian Borromeo) whose girlfriend was the first victim and jealous Bert (Stage Fright's Robert Gligorov). Meanwhile, Candice has been having nightmares about handsome George Webb (Oasis of Fear's Ray Lovelock) stalking and threatening her with a hatpin and then appears to her in the flesh. Liked to an "American television film" by its own director, Lucio Fulci's Murder-Rock: Dancing Death as a follow-up to his goriest and most brutal The New York Ripper concludes with an epigraph quoting John Huston's adaptation of The Asphalt Jungle that is actually quite appropriate given the similar motives of the killers and the environment that created them. Even the lyrics of the cheesy Keith Emerson-composed vocal numbers possess some thematic resonance below the immediate surface which may be difficult to penetrate given Giuseppe Pinori's cinematography which effortlessly conjures up the look of Flashdance, from which the film borrows with some of its rain-slicked baby oil-coated dancing and the use of one comically-obvious dance double. The script is stuffed with ridiculous clues but there is also some diverting plotting that keeps the identity of the killer a mystery until quite late in the film. While there is a fair amount of nudity, the result does have the look and feel of an early eighties TV thriller with better production values and the usual awkward English dialogue of Italian films. The gore is dialed way down from the expected slashed throats, sliced eyeballs, and gutted abdomens suggesting that with more money came some compromises to reach a wider audience. Longtime Fulci collaborator Vincenzo Tomassi's manic editing is more suited to the dance and murder set-pieces of this film than to some of the scenes in Fulci's gothic horror outings while Emerson's disco score is neither his best film score nor his best Italian horror film one but strangely entertaining all the same, pretty much the Nighthawks of his Italian work compared to his orchestral/prog rock score for Dario Argento's Inferno and his organ cues for Michele Soavi's The Church. Other Fulci alums include Giovanni Di Nava (The Beyond) as a forensic technician, Al Cliver (Demonia) as a forensic analyst, and Silvia Collatina (House by the Cemetery) as a photography-obsessed wheelchair-bound little girl being babysat by one of the dancers when the killer strikes again. Viewers not expecting a Fulci gorefest may be entertained by Murder-Rock: Dancing Death as an example of both Fulci and the giallo genre adapting to the market. 
Video
was unreleased in the U.K. theatrically or on home video while it scored a few theatrical screenings in the U.S. in the early nineties under the odd title "The Demon is Loose" with a seventies-looking exploitation poster. The U.S. video release was from the Italian-language label Domovideo and the only way to see it in English for most early Fulci fans were bootlegs of an Australian or Japanese VHS release. Unlike some of Fulci's other films, Murder-Rock: Dancing Death has always looked quite nice in the digital realm including Media Blaster's stateside 2006 Shriek Show two-disc DVD edition and Scorpion Releasing's 2018 limited edition Blu-ray once available from Ronin Flix – a standard retail edition followed in 2019 – and the more recent 4K restoration that debuted stateside from Vinegar Syndrome. 88 Films' Dolby Vision 2160p24 HEVC 1.66:1 widescreen 4K UltraHD and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray transfers – the latter also available separately in a standard edition – which not only better delineates the film grain from backlit smoke and rain but also reveals the overall restraint in the use of saturated colors as a stylistic choice along with some more subtle scrim and filter work than in Fulci's later films where it was as much a matter of softening newer, sharper lenses and film stock as evoking a dreamy atmosphere. Here, highlights glow slightly but no longer bloom as they nearly did on DVD while it is more obvious than ever that the male dancer with the bad perm in the opening number is supposed to be Borromeo's double for the break dancing spin since Borromeo is not in that shot and the dancer is not present in the concluding wide shot of all the dancers. In his interview, cinematographer Pinori discusses his uses of both wide open apertures resulting in shallow focus and lesser contrast and more stopped-down shots with more depth and color contrast. 
Audio
Like some other early eighties Italian films, the English export dub track was mixed in stereo while the domestic Italian track was in mono. Both tracks are present in uncompressed LPCM 2.0 with Emerson's score and songs getting most of the separation on the English track with some exaggerated foley effects during the hatpin piercings a reminder of the sort of sound effects one gets in a Fulci gore film. Some flaws in both mixes are still present including the mix of the song "Not So Innocent" during Candice's nightmare – the melody actually a reworking of Emerson's theme for Karlato's character – the lyrics of which sound a bit muffled. The film was shot for post-synching in English and matches the dubbing matches the mouth movements for the most part (Geretta Geretta was one of the few Americans in the cast but does not dub herself as she did in Demons). The Italian track has more somber line readings but the music has less presence. English SDH subtitles are available for the English track as well as English translation for the Italian one. 
Extras
The 4K UltraHD disc features the film in Dolby Vision 4K and an audio commentary by Italian cinema experts Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson who discuss the film in comparison to The New York Ripper – discussing how both films share in common a cynical commentary on the "American Dream" noting the way it has been dismissed for its lack of gore and questioning whether the former is actually misogynistic since the killer shares some of the same motivations with the killer here. They also reveal that it was intended to be part of a trilogy of giallo films involving the performing arts but Fulci butted heads with producer Augusto Caminito more so than his previous producers, and that Caminito was less of a pushover since he stuck with Klaus Kinski through three troubled productions. They also provide background on the supporting cast and the English dubbing artists along with the odd release history of both the film and Emerson's soundtrack, a cue of which made its way onto the original soundtrack album for Pino Donaggio's score for The Sect. The 4K disc also includes the 4K HDR Italian opening and closing credits (4:34) – it has always seemed odd that the Italian track on the feature played "Not So Innocent" over the end credits reprise of the opening dance number but these separate credits reveal that the Italian version rolled the credits over a freeze frame of the film's opening New York cityscape – and two theatrical trailers (2:38 and 2:47 respectively). The Blu-ray copy includes the film and the 4K extras in SDR 1080p and other video extras starting with "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" (9:11), an interview with actress Collatina who reveals that Fulci asked her to do a cameo in the film after House by the Cemetery and she was only on the set for a short time and only interacted with the actress playing her babysitter. She respects Fulci attempting to do something different with the film and enjoys her place in the Italian horror genre. "The Mask of Lucio" (13:05) is an interview with actor Cliver who was diagnosed with throat cancer and speaks in a hoarse whisper, covering his career beginnings and early films as well as his Fulci filmography, noting that both Fulci and Joe D'Amato (The Alcove) kept him afloat in the eighties when the industry slowed down. He recalls Fulci being childlike in some ways while also noting the way he tended to treat actors and particularly actresses. "The Man, The Myth, The Father" (16:11) is an interview with director Lucio Fulci's daughter Antonella Fulci who also reflects on her father's legacy and his temperament while also shedding more light on his friendship with Cliver who also worked as a carpenter and whom Fulci invited around to fix things.  "Rockin' for a Murder" (17:01) intercuts remarks by Ercolani with what appears to be two separate interviews with producer Caminito (who died in 2020). Caminito discusses his earlier writing and producing career before founding his Scena Film company and needing to follow up his first hit Alberto Sordi/Monica Vitti comedy with another film and learning that Fulci had been developing Murder-Rock: Dancing Death for some time. He also reveals that television was a concern so he wanted Fulci to empahsize eroticism over splatter. Ercolani notes how Caminito "reshaped" Fulci's creative team and dictated some of the casting decisions including Karlatos (despite her already appearing in Zombie) and Giuseppe Mannajuolo as a favor to Scena partner Patrizia Mannajuolo. "The 'Scena' of the Crime" (19:45) is an interview with production assistant Massimo Iacobis, son of Scena's regular production manager Sergio Iacobis, who recalls working at Scena and other companies on major companies on the side. He was mostly in the office during the shooting of the Fulci film, envying everyone on the set, so his remarks focus on the production company itself. He notes Sordi being under the impression that the company was founded for his vehicles and being annoyed at the time invested on other productions and felt that the company did not have a long term plan when it came to planning for the next productions so the inevitable funding from television networks like Reteitalia and Berlusconi's Fininvest shaped the film's later output. "The Stab of Light" (19:37) is an interview with cinematographer Pinori who had met Fulci when they were both working on television commercials years before and discusses his early credits as cinematographer before the one time he worked with Fulci on Murder-Rock: Dancing Death. He discusses his lighting choices and how the chilly New York winter shoot effected his usual practice of shooting with natural light as a primary source. He also remarks on the proposed giallo trilogy. "An Ego to Murder For" (22:14) is an interview with actor de Nava who discusses his theatrical career and his early film roles, noting that he did not find roles like The Beyond's zombie version of Schweik or House by the Cemetery's Dr. Freustein – it was him who vetoed Giannetto de Rossi's original prosthetic appliances in favor of a one-piece face mask – particularly rewarding as an actor and does not include Murder-Rock: Dancing Death in his filmography because most of his screen time was cut down to one line of dialogue. "Aerobics, Ambitions and Assassinations" (21:47) is a video essay by film historian Rachel Nisbet who discusses the film in the context of the eighties dance film cycle, the aerobics and fitness crazes, the globalization of popular culture, and the eroticization of the body as artistic and commercial "instrument" and how these feed into the film's themes of ambition and competition. The piece also includes some tantalizing mentions and glimpses of Italy's own responses to various Hollywood dance films from this period including the Saturday Night Fever-inspired The Face with Two Left Feet starring Travolta lookalike Giuseppe Spezzia and future adult star/congresswoman Ilona Staller who had been a student of Murder-Rock: Dancing Death's choreographer Nadia Chiatti. "A Different Kind of Producer" (31:31) is another interview with Ercolani about Caminito, noting that while Fulci is regarded as the auteur behind his works, one has to take into consideration Caminito's role in shaping this film and a look at his history and filmography as part of understanding him taking on a genre project with Fulci and the various commercial considerations behind Ercolani's decisions. He notes that Caminito was a high-profile producer but was usually not mentioned in the same breath as Dino De Laurentiis or Carlo Ponti or even among the prolific exploitation producers of the period despite being quite prolific in virtually every level of production and genre during his career, with credited and uncredited screenwriting for Fernando Di Leo, several spaghetti western credits, Tinto Brass' Paprika, Abel Ferrara's The King of New York and the initial funding of Ferrara's more recent Pasolini biopic, the back-to-back Bruno Mattei/Claudio Fragasso eighties westerns Scalps and White Apache among other uncredited works he did to balance Scena's books at the end of the tax year, the Kinski trio of films, writing and producer various commedia all'Italiana including the Sordi vehicles, and the landmark sex comedy Malizia which shaped that seventies genre. Ercolani also discusses Caminito's relationship with Renzo Rossellini, son of Roberto Rossellini, as a gateway to getting into film and how it was strained by Caminito's affair with Renzo's wife and his Scena partner Patrizia Mannajuolo with whom he had a daughter. Ported from the Scorpion Releasing edition is an interview with actress Geretta Geretta (25:16) who reveals that although she had a career as actress in Italian film during the period, she had actually gone to Italy to study directing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografica (C.S.C.) and later did the American Film Institute program. She has pleasant memories of Fulci, having been told by another producer about his personal tragedies during the time, but was wary of his noted temper which she only saw unleashed on Borromeo on the set, her admiration for Karlatos, and playing a dancer without any formal training. She also has some fun recollections about Rats: Night of Terror and its legendary ending twist. 
Packaging
The 4K/Blu-ray limited edition combo comes in a rigid slipcase with artwork by Sean Longmore and includes a reversible cover, art card, and 40-page booklet with writing by Eugenio Ercolani, Gian Giacomo Petrone, Nanni Cobretti, and Tim Murray (none of which has been supplied for review).
Overall
What Lucio Fulci's Murder-Rock: Dancing Death lacks in splatter it makes up for in flashy (or Flashdance-y) eighties style.
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