Murder-Rock: Dancing Death

Nothing very special about this giallo. A bunch of dancers are trying out for parts, and some get murdered by a hatpin stuck into their left breast (where it looks like it would actually pierce a lung and not the heart as intended). Some of the dancing scenes are pretty sexual. The studio where they do their dancing has a rather odd system at the end of the day whereby a voice comes over an intercom, and the lights flash on and off repeatedly. I guess this is to make for more suspense or to make the killing scenes more exciting? It's more on the annoying side. One of the women has a dream in which she is pursued by a killer with a pin (it changes sizes throughout the dream, sometimes appearing giant). She later sees the man from her dream on a billboard. She tracks him down, finding him to be a bit of a washed up, alcoholic actor, and starts a relationship with him. Much more than that I don't remember.

Lucio Fulci is one of the best and most underrated directors in history. Though not all of his films were great, at least 7 of this films should be in any horror anthology. This film is hard to find, though it was released here in Argentina. In the beginning I thought this was gonna be Flashdance - The Return, but ends up being a clever thriller. The killer's method is original, and the resolution quite surprising. Not one of Fulci's best, but a very good film indeed. Score: 8.

One of Lucio Fulci's "gentler" films, MURDER ROCK is not very popular among gore fans (largely because of the lack of eye gougings and disembowellments), but it has much to recommend. The story deals with a maniac who is killing the girls at a dance school in New York -- together, a cop and a psychiatrist track the maniac down. Keith Emerson contributes a dated, but enjoyable, soundtrack, and cinematographer Giuseppe Pinori makes fine use of half-lighting, a la Mario Bava's SEI DONNE PER L'ASSASSINO. Fulci cameos as an agent. Recommended for Italian horror buffs. *** out of ****