Murder Rock (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Aug 04, 2025
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
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Director
Lucio FulciRelease Date(s)
1984 (May 27, 2025)Studio(s)
Scena Film (Vinegar Syndrome)- Film/Program Grade: C+
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: B
- Extras Grade: A-
Review
While Lucio Fulci established himself as a filmmaker by making slapstick comedies, gialli, and even spaghetti westerns, his career took a seismic shift after the release of his 1979 film Zombie. With rare exceptions like the poliziotteschi Contraband and the science fiction action of Warriors of the Year 2072, he primarily stuck with supernatural-themed horror for the rest of his life (or at least until ill health forced him to retire from filmmaking). Even his gleefully warped fantasy adventure Conquest was fueled by supernatural horror elements. Yet he still played around with gialli, although his 1982 shocker The New York Ripper could perhaps best be described as giallo-adjacent—it’s as much a savage deconstruction of gialli and Eighties slasher movies as anything else. Still, there wasn’t anything particularly supernatural about it.
And then there’s Fulci’s 1984 effort Murder Rock—aka Murder-Rock: Dancing Death, Murderock—Uccide a passo di danza, Slashdance, The Demon is Loose, and a whole host of other titles. As the shifting titles indicate, Murder Rock isn’t an easy film to pin down. While it’s arguably the most overt giallo that he made during that decade, it feels like something else entirely. Aside from a few visions of an individual who may be (or may not be) the killer, it doesn’t have any direct supernatural elements (and even the presence of those seemingly supernatural visions turns out to have a fairly mundane explanation). Murder Rock has all the expected giallo elements like stalking scenes, gruesome murders, a gloved killer, and an abundance of red herrings. Yet it also has incongruous music video dance sequences set to cheesy Eighties synthesized rock music by the equally cheesy Keith Emerson, and a tone that can best be described as dreamlike. Murder Rock may not be supernatural horror, but it’s a giallo that feels like it was run through the exact same supernatural dream states of City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, and The House by the Cemetery.
Unsurprisingly for a film with such an unsettled tone, Murder Rock was the product of a variety of screenwriters including Vincenzo Mannino, Gianfranco Clerici, Roberto Gianviti, and Fulci. Even producer Augusto Caminito got in on the act by insisting that they include the dance numbers in order to cash in on the success of Flashdance. (It takes a village to make a film as intentionally discombobulating as Murder Rock.) The story is set at the Arts for the Living Center in New York City, where Candice Norman (Olga Karlatos) runs the dance program. When one of the dancers is brutally murdered, it draws the attention of the surly Lt. Borges (Cosimo Cinieri) and the police profiler Dr. Davis (Giuseppe Mannajuolo). As the murders continue, there a variety of potential suspects, including even the Academy director Dick Gibson (Claudio Cassinelli). Yet Candice keeps having visions of being pursued by a mysterious individual (Ray Lovelock) who is trying to use the same kind of hat pin on her that the killer has been using on the victims. Yet who is the real killer, and what is reality anyway? Murder Rock also stars Silvia Collatina as a creepy young girl (because of course it does), and it has the expected cameo from Fulci himself.
Murder Rock is a strange film even by Lucio Fulci standards, with the story and even the style being pulled in multiple different directions at once. The dance sequences can’t help but seem tacked-on, and yet Fulci still managed to apply his usual visual flair to them. That flair is evident throughout the entire film, of course, and helps to hold everything together regardless of how incongruous any given individual element may seem. Needless to say, none of that is going to be enough to convert someone who isn’t a fan of Papa Fulci into the fold. Yet for the faithful, Murder Rock has just enough Fulci goodness to be endlessly fascinating (if not necessarily entirely satisfying). It’s the one of the most supernatural non-supernatural horror movies ever made, and what could be more Lucio Fulci than that?
Cinematographer Guiseppe Pinori shot Murder Rock on 35mm film using spherical Zeiss lenses, framed at 1.85:1 for its theatrical release. This version is based on a 4K scan of the original camera negative, cleaned up and graded for High Dynamic Range in both Dolby Vision and HDR10. It’s also been opened up to 1.66:1, no doubt simply because that’s long been associated with European films. Yet it would have been matted to 1.85:1 for its U.S. theatrical release, and that does seem like the proper framing—at 1.66:1, there’s debris visible at the bottom edge of the frame, and panties are visible on supposedly nude characters that would have been framed out at 1.85:1. In any event, It’s a nice 4K upgrade, relatively clean aside from some light scratches, and it’s as sharp as it can be (although don’t look for 4K worth of actual detail here, because Pinori used a lot of diffusion to create an intentionally dreamy, hazy appearance). The opening shot of the sunset looks like it might push into one of Vinegar Syndrome’s overcooked HDR grades, with the reds being a bit too intense, but it’s much more balanced in the remainder of the film, and the flesh tones remain natural at all times.
Audio is offered in English 2.0 stereo DTS-HD Master Audio and Italian 1.0 mono DTS-HD Master Audio, with English SDH subtitles for the English audio and newly translated standard English subtitles for the Italian. Unsurprisingly, the dialogue doesn’t integrate well into the soundstage in either version since it was all post-synced, so the choice of language may come down to personal taste. The sound effects are all basically mono even in the English Dolby Stereo version, so the only stereo spread and surround presence comes from Keith Emerson’s somewhat grating synthesized score. On the balance, the English stereo track is preferable, but the choice is yours.
Vinegar Syndrome’s 4K Ultra HD release of Murder Rock is a two-disc set that includes a Blu-ray with a 1080p copy of the film. They’re also offering a Limited Edition version featuring a spot gloss hard slipcase and slipcover combo designed by Suspiria Vilchez, as well as a 40-page booklet with essays by Stephen Thrower, Amanda Reyes, and Justin Kerswell. That version is available directly from Vinegar Syndrome and at a few select retailers, limited to 8000 units (there are still 2000 left as of this writing). The following extras are included:
DISC ONE: UHD
- Audio Commentary with Troy Howarth
DISC TWO: BD
- Audio Commentary with Troy Howarth
- Ballet in Blood (HD – 27:49)
- Hellfant Prodige (HD – 9:35)
- Lucio’s Pet (HD – 13:33)
- Lightning Murder (HD – 26:33)
- A Pen in the Dark (HD – 13:56)
- Augusto’s Empire (HD – 32:00)
- The Murder Instigator (HD – 17:34)
- Murder Prog (HD – 32:10)
- A Pin in the Heart (HD – 8:15)
- Child’s Play (HD – 24:29)
- Audio Interview with Lucio Fulci (HD – 16:24)
- Interview with Geretta Geretta (HD – 25:11)
- Trailer (Upscaled SD – 2:27)
The commentary with Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse and Splintered Visions, was originally recorded for the 2018 Blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing. He describes Murder Rock as being a solid but mid-tier Fulci offering, and spends much of the track defending it against those who have dismissed it unfairly. He points out the visual flair demonstrated throughout and calls it Fulci’s last really slick movie. Despite the abundance of nudity, it’s one of Fulci’s tamer gialli, no doubt because of the backlash to the extremity in The New York Ripper. Howarth also points out all the giallo tropes in the film, identifies the various actors (as well as whoever dubbed them), and takes his time to admire the female flesh on display. It’s a good track for anyone who hasn’t been willing to give Murder Rock a fair shake—listen to what Howarth has to say about it.
Vinegar Syndrome has added a total of eight new interviews for this release, all of them produced by Eugenio Ercolani. Ballet in Blood is with actor Robert Gligorov, who provides some extended personal information as well as his thoughts about playing Bert in Murder Rock. Hellfant Prodige is with the inimitable Silvia Collatina, who reminisces about what it was like being a child actor in horror films from the era. Lucio’s Pet is with Fulci regular Al Cliver (aka Pierluigi Conti), who had an uncredited role as the vocal analyst in the film—which is ironic, because he’s lost his own voice in the years since then.
Lightning Murder is with Guiseppe Pinori, who recounts his wildly diverse career (including at least one unpleasant experience) and his relationship with Fulci, who Pinori says knew exactly what he wanted (even if it couldn’t always be achieved). A Pen in the Dark is with the notoriously reclusive writer Gianfranco Clerici, who only agreed to be interviewed on the condition that he not appear on camera. He provides an overview of his career without getting into too much detail. Augusto’s Empire features Ercolani himself delving into the career of producer Augusto Caminito in much greater depth. Ercolani returns for The Murder Instigator, which collects a variety of interviews that he did with Caminito, intercut with his own commentary. It focuses more narrowly on Murder Rock. Finally, Murder Prog is an interview with music historian and Four Flies Records founder Pierpaolo De Sanctis, who addresses the use of music in Fucli’s gialli; his love of jazz; his relationship with various composers; and the use of prog rock in Murder Rock.
Vinegar Syndrome has also included a few different archival interviews, most of them ported over from the 2023 Region B Blu-ray from Artus films in France. A Pin in the Heart is with makeup artist Franco Casagni, who may not have had as many gore effects to do on Murder Rock as on other Fulci films, but there were some challenges with the retractable pin. Child’s Play is another interview with Silvia Collatina, covering some similar territory to what she does in Hellfant Prodige, but in a bit more depth. Fulci himself appears via an archival audio-only interview with Antonio Tentori that was originally recorded in 1987. Finally, there’s also an interview with dancer Geretta Geretta, who played the choreographer in Murder Rock. It was produced for the Scorpion Releasing Blu-ray.
That’s a pretty stacked slate of extras, but as with most Lucio Fulci films, Murder Rock has received many different releases over the years in a variety of different territories, so there’s plenty of things that couldn’t be included here. Most recently, 88 Films in the U.K. has released their own UHD for Murder Rock, with their own unique slate of extras. They offer a different commentary with Troy Howarth, this time paired with Nathaniel Thompson; interviews with Lucio Fulci’s daughter Antonella, production assistant Massimo Iacobis, and actor Giovanni de Nava; a visual essay by Rachel Nesbit; and the Italian opening & closing credits. They also include the archival interview with Geretta Geretta, and they appear to have the same new interviews with Silvia Collatina, Al Cliver, Guiseppe Pinori, and Eugenio Ercolani, although I don’t have that disc for comparison purposes. (On the other hand, they’re missing the archival commentary with Howarth, as well as the interviews with Robert Gligorov and Pierpaolo De Sanctis.)
Otherwise, all of the extras from the Scorpion Releasing Blu-ray are here, although the German-language commentary and documentary from the 2019 Region B Blu-ray from X-Rated in Germany are understandably missing. None of the extras on the 2006 DVD from Media Blasters/Shriek Show have been included, but those have never been carried forward elsewhere, either. They offered a commentary with Pinori, as well as a featurette on Fulci and interviews with Pinori and Ray Lovelock.
Clear as mud? Welcome to the world of Italian horror movies on physical media, which tend to receive multiple releases and re-releases, especially where the likes of Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento are concerned. There’s never going to be one all-inclusive release. That said, Vinegar Syndrome is offering a strong selection of extras, and the video quality is a marked improvement over Blu-ray. It’s a solid 4K release that may be preaching to the Fulci choir, but speaking as someone who’s spent most of his life in the bass section of that group, I’m happy with it.
- Stephen Bjork
(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).