Directed by Lucio Fulci
Written by Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino, Roberto Gianviti and Lucio Fulci
Starring:
- Olga Karlatos as Candice Norman
- Ray Lovelock as George Webb
- Claudio Cassinelli as Dick Gibson
- Cosimo Cinieri as Lt. Borges
- Giuseppe Mannajuolo as Prof. Davis
Rating: 
Italian splatter king Lucio Fulci heads back to grimy New York for another giallo joyride—minus the Donald Duck–voiced maniac with the knife or any toe-masturbation detours. This time the killer’s packing a hairpin and a fixation with jabbing breasts. It’s not quite the tasteless high of The New York Ripper, but Murderock struts hard, shaking its hips to a Flashdance-flavored disco beat and still slipping in enough giallo gut-punches to keep the sweaty dance-floor vibe from getting too safe. Though the plot is a straightforward “whodunit” set within a cutthroat dance academy, Olga Karlatos sells it like it’s the hottest thing going, oozing style while she sidesteps the genre’s dustiest tricks. Paired with Ray Lovelock’s moody, lusty charm, she keeps me hooked—especially with Lovelock playing one of the juiciest maybe-he’s-the-killer roles around. A showy display from start to finish, the film thrives on the audiovisual excess of 1980s American montage. Fulci borrows the baroque lighting language of Argento’s supernatural gialli, while master editor Vincenzo Tomassi adopts the pop-art stylization of Soviet montage, filtered through the overblown grandeur of Hollywood’s blockbuster era—Stallone’s work in particular. What materializes is a giallo spectacle that could be read as both a piece of expressionist artistry and a work of unabashed exploitation, embodying the very best and worst of Fulci’s output. The midsection’s all dead-end chatter and barebones sleuthing, dry conversation and skeletal mystery that sap momentum. Yet the first act and the finale are cathedrals of visual–aural overindulgence, where art conspires with exploitation to summon visions lit by trembling chiaroscuro and framed in the oppressive clarity of nightmare-focused compositions. Flickering shadows and deep-focus staging wrap around a mortal dance that might not thrill your brain, but sure as hell seduces your eyes.
