A sort of final victory lap for his efforts in the giallo, Murderock (or more properly listed on screen as Murder-rock: Dancing Death) is one of the most divisive films from beloved Italian director Lucio Fulci. Here his golden era including Big Apple horrors like The New York Ripper and Manhattan Baby wound down with the New York setting getting drenched in a pop aesthetic originally meant to inaugurate a new wave of thrillers set in the world of performing arts. Health issues waylaid those plans with Fulci only returning to the director's chair two years later with the outrageous The Devil's Honey, but what remains here is a visually striking and entertaining diversion initially dismissed by fans for its lack of gore. However, its irresistible cast of familiar favorites and feverish visual style have since been embraced, earning it a far more respected slot in the Fulci pantheon.

At a New York dance academy obviously inspired by Flashdance and Fame, tough-love dance instructor Candice (Zombie's Karlatos) pushes her aerobicizing charges to new heights of glory when three spots open up at a prestigious agency. Unfortunately their routines are disrupted when one young lady winds up getting a long metal pin fatally shoved into her breastplate during a nocturnal shower in the locker room, and everyone becomes a suspect. Meanwhile Candice suffers from surreal dreams in which she's chased by a sinister man (Lovelock) whose face happens to pop up on a billboard. A little detective work reveals he's a waning actor with ties to the victim, and soon the body count rises. Who's responsible? And who will live to dance another day?

Fulci got a lot of flack over the years for this one, primarily for its back-to-back opening musical sequences seasoned with some trendy breakdancing (intercut with shots of the Manhattan skyline), both to songs that will linger forever in your memory ("Streets to Blame" and "Tonight Is Your Night," for the record). In the film's defense, it largely throws out the whole '80s dance fixation after that and goes into proper thriller mode complete with the illogical plotting and barely functional characterizations you might expect. The plot is really a thinly-veiled remix of New York Ripper and Lizard in a Woman's Skin (complete with a similar dream-motivation tactic and red herring ploy), but this time Fulci leaves the splatter and focuses instead on lots of nudity that can't be classified as gratuitous since, well, the killer likes to poke the dancers in the chest. Late prog rocker Keith Emerson returns from Inferno for his second Italian horror score, and it's certainly memorable though no one will ever confuse it with his Argento masterpiece. Easily the most successful aspect of the film is the striking cinematography by Giuseppe Pinori (Contamination), who uses strobing lights and filters a la Lizard to a surprisingly rich effect throughout. Interestingly, the lighting and compositions in the dance school sequences also foreshadow a similar approach in Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, particularly its central "Volk" number. The more familiar you with Fulci will determine how much enjoyment you'll get out of seeing some of his most beloved repertory players here including Karlatos, Al Cliver, Claudio Cassinelli, Cosimo Cinieri, Silvia Collatina, and even a cameo by Fulci himself, plus first timers like Christian Borromeo and Lovelock.

After years of substandard video transfers (and complete dismissal in America after a fleeting theatrical release as The Demon Is Loose), Murderock got its first respectable home video release courtesy of Media Blasters' 2006 DVD edition. The anamorphic transfer is rich and colorful with some of that '80s grain still intact where it should be. Audio is presented in a fine but dated English stereo mix (canned but appropriate since it matches most of the actors' lip movements) and the original Italian mix, which features much less channel separation and is tinny mono and pretty much indistinguishable from the ancient Domovideo VHS tapes. No English subtitle options are provided on this one. Media Blasters somehow managed to bless this unlikely title with a double-disc set, and along with the film itself, the first disc contains an audio commentary with Pinori and writer Federico Caddeo (in Italian with optional subs) that covers the basics of the film's productions and memories of working with Fulci. You also get a fake, video-era Murderock preview from the European release (too bad as the real trailer mostly circulated in Japan is far superior -- and did an American one ever even exist?), plus an international trailer for Witchery and promos for other titles including The Being, Hiroku the Goblin and Shadow: Dead Riot. Disc two features a tribute video to Fulci entitled "Tempus Fugit" (28m11s) with a variety of luminaries including Dario Argento (via phone), Luigi Cozzi, Claudio Simonetti, Lovelock, writer Antonio Tentori and others sharing their memories of the director, albeit most of them briefly given the compact running time. Lovelock gets more breathing room in two separate pieces reflecting on his career in general (14m33s) and his work with the director (21m38s), and it's a nice companion piece to his appearances on previous Italian genre releases. Pinori also returns for a video interview (14m8s) mostly rehashing material from the commentary but also covering his views on the entire industry as a whole during a period when Italian horror was generally considered to be going downhill (and is now unfortunately pretty much extinct). Other extras include a small photo gallery of promotional art and a hefty selection of Fulci trailers including Zombie, City of the Living Dead, Touch of Death, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Sweet House of Horrors and House of Clocks. It's also worth noting that the Media Blasters disc runs 92m54s but with lengthy DVD production credits appended at the end.

In 2018, Scorpion Releasing brought the film to Blu-ray complete with a limited edition (mini-poster and gorgeous slipcover of the new artwork by Wes Benscoter). The disc boasts the usual idiosyncratic claims about the work put into it, in this case a "new 2018 film scan with over 45 hours of color correction done here in the States." In any case it's quite a stunner if you're familiar with the film, featuring far more clarity than ever before and some really wonderful primary colors on display throughout. Even the deliberately hazy dream sequences look great with the grain resolving here far better than NTSC could have ever provided. The framing shifts here to 1.66:1 versus the 1.85:1 on the DVD, with some odd matting on the sides that shifts things quite a bit compared to the earlier disc. The English DTS-HD 2.0 stereo track is the default option and sounds quite good for what it is, with the flatter Italian track also provided in DTS-HD 2.0 mono -- this time with properly translated, yellow English subtitles so you can finally follow along. A new audio commentary by Splintered Visions author Troy Howarth brings his giallo expertise back into play as he extols the neglected pleasures of this film including its lustrous cinematography, its thematic ties to New York Ripper, a defense of the often maligned Emerson soundtrack (including one cue inexplicably recycled on the soundtrack release of The Sect), and more than a couple of funny exclamations along the way. ("Holy shit, it's a Ray Lovelock billboard!") A new video interview with the always vivacious Geretta Geretta (25m11s), also seen in Demons and Shocking Dark, is excellent stuff as she chats quite a bit about her love of working with Karlatos and her memories of Fulci including a family member falling victim to Rome's heroin epidemic at the same time as this film. There's a very funny bit about Fulci trying to come up with an impromptu line of dialogue during an interrogation scene, too, and she even mentions some friction between Fulci and the inquisitive Christian Borromeo on the set. Also on hand is makeup artist Franco Casagni in an interview called "Pins through the Heart" (13m40s), featuring a few archival audio comments from Fulci himself (with feline-themed visual accompaniment) for a discussion about the treatment of genre in Italy where a director could easily hop around from one type to another with fewer restrictions than the U.S. He chats quite a bit about how the retractable pin was created for the murder scenes, though it still ran a bit of a risk since it tended to clog sometimes. A French trailer is also included along with bonus ones for The Psychic, Opera, The Devil Within Her, The Church, and The Gates of Hell.

In 2025, Vinegar Syndrome upgraded Fulci's film as UHD and Blu-ray package featuring a new 4K scan from the original camera negative with HDR10-compatible Dolby Vision on the former option. The big question here is how the framing would compare, and it's great news all around as it goes with the roomier 1.66:1 framing but adds a very significant amount of visual info compared to all prior versions. The added breathing room helps substantially and looks nicely framed throughout, especially since you can finally see the dancers' feet in several shots that were cropped too high before. The UHD really sparkles with exceptionally deep blacks that make those primary colors pop like crazy, and the slow strobing effects work better than ever here, too. Audio options include the usual DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo English track and 1.0 Italian mono with newly translated English subtitles, plus the Howarth commentary ported over here.

"Ballet in Blood" (27m49s) is an interview with Yugoslavian-born actor Robert Gligorov about his colorful life, his audition for "photoplays" that got him into showbiz, his hiring for this film, the dance lessons he had to take, and some of his more amusing encounters with fellow actors in Italy. In "Hellfant Prodige" (9m35s), Collatina chats about her two collaborations with Fulci, some casting that didn't pan out, his directorial style, and his instructions for how to interpret her disabled "macabre' character in this film. "Lucio’s Pet" (13m33s) is a career-spanning interview with Cliver about some key roles that got him going, his first encounter with Fulci for Zombie, and the on-and-off relationship they had over the course of many films during which he became one of the director's most frequent actors even during the filmmaker's physical decline. "Lightning Murder" (26m33s) features Pinori discussing the challenge of getting worthwhile projects as a cinematographer when adult films overtook local theaters, some of the challenges working with Nanni Moretti, his first work with Fulci on a TV commercial, the cool visual aesthetic they wanted for location footage in the U.S., and the real Italian buildings including the dance school that gave this film its unique look. "A Pen in the Dark" (13m56s) is an interview with co-writer Gianfranco Clerici (audio only by request) for the first time as he goes through his fondness for tackling multiple genres, his storytelling approach "like building a table," his dread of intellectuals, and his experiences in the industry with filmmakers like Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, and Duccio Tessari. The overall story of how the film came about gets laid out in "Augusto’s Empire" (32m) by Eugenio Ercolani who focuses on the origins and execution under producer Augusto Caminito, a key player outside the usual moguls who ran the business and one with ties to a very eccentric array of talents including the infamous Paganini. That also makes the perfect segue into "The Murder Instigator" (17m34s) with Caminito himself and Ercolani separately talking about this film including the producer's lack of interest in horror per se and his extreme difference from Fulci in every way. "Murder Prog" (32m10s) features music historian Pierpaolo De Sanctis analyzing the role of music in Fulci's films as a key element going back to his early gialli with Riz Ortolani and the evolution through Ennio Morricone and Fabio Frizzi with different idioms involving jazz and rock throughout (and both present in Emerson's work here). "A Pin in the Heart" (8m15s) is a refined cut of the Franco Casagni interview, followed by an additional "Child's Play" (24m29s) interview with Collatina going more into her overall career, an audio interview with Fulci (16m24s) by Antonio Tentori covering the filmmaker's thoughts on fantastic cinema and his thoughts on outliers like The Devil's Honey, the Geretta Geretta interview from the Scorpion disc, and finally, the bona fide theatrical trailer at last. A 40-page insert book features substantial, excellent essays by JA (aka Justin) Kerswell ("A Danse Macabre in Leg Warmers"), Stephen Thrower ("This Is Your Town, You Can Make It: Lucio Fulci's American Dream," including a handy location guide), and Amanda Reyes ("Let the Bodies Hit the Dance Floor: Murderock and a Brief History of Dancing in the 1980s Horror Film"). Note that for U.K. consumers, a UHD and Blu-ray option is also forthcoming from 88 Films.

Updated review on April 15, 2025