Murder Rock Movie Review

Murder Rock is a 1984 horror movie directed by Lucio Fulci and starring Olga Karlatos and Ray Lovelock.

The movie begins with a musical interlude. There are people dancing and they are on television while people are watching them. They are a class of dancers at the Arts for the Living Center in New York and they are told by their teacher Candice(Karlatos) that they need to step it up. The director if the centre is Dick Gibson(Claudio Cassinelli) and he is talking to two TV guys who want three of the dancers for a TV show. There is a lot of competition for the places. So, one of the dancers, Susan finds herself attacked and murdered by someone who sticks a long needle into her. She is found dead at the school.Lieutenant Borges (Cosimo Cinieri) is investigating the case. He is suspicious of everyone at the school.

Candice and Dick are showed to be having an affair. Dick seems edgy. He was having some sort of fling with the dead dancer. Has he more to do with this??? The dancers are upset and Candice has to give them a pep talk to get them going. Lt.Borges talks to Dick about Susan and he knows that there was something going on with him and the young woman. Another dancer gets the chop the same way.
They are all suspicious of each other. Someone is targeting the best dancers. Is it someone who wants the best part`for themselves?  Now comes the weird part. Candice has a dream where a man tries to kill her. She sees the man's face. She notices his face on a billboard and decides to go looking for him. She gets into his room and looks around. He comes back and catches her and she runs off, leaving her handbag there.

The guy calls to her place and his name is George Webb(Lovelock). She tells him about her dream with him in it. She and George become lovers. Dick realises that she has a new man. George turns up at the school to collect Candice and he meets one of the dancers who he was with before. He lies to Candice about it but Dick sees him on camera with the girl. Dick tells Borges about the dream and George. Candice gets a phone call from a friend telling her about George's shady past. He was involved in a murder. She becomes suspicious of him now. She is attacked but it one of the other people at the studio. She is not hurt. Another dancer meets a sticky end. Borges doesn't know what's going on.

A clever kid who was with the latest victim when she was killed took pictures of the killer but didn't get his face. The cops see his coat. Another woman gets it. Candice finds a big needle at George's place and she heads off. She runs off to tell Borges about it. She goes to the school and finds the latest victim dead there. She calls Borges and George is also there. She is locked into a room with videos of the victims playing. George comes in and asks her why she planted the needle in his place. Here comes the explanation of the motive- Candice was hit by a motorbike years ago and the driver didn't stop. This ruined her career in dance and she has never forgotten it. She saw George's face on the billboard and knew that he was the one who hit her. She was already murdering people and now she wants George to take the fall. He has the needle in his hand and she deliberately pushes herself onto it trying to make it look as if he killed her too. Borges arrives but he knows that Candice was the killer. He knew when she ran to tell him about the needle in George's place. She knew too much about it not to be the murderer and they knew from the photo of the coat that it was a woman's coat. They leave the scene, satisfied that the killer has been revealed.

This was an interesting thriller with some good moments in it. I like mysteries and this is pretty good.
There is a little too much dancing in it but I will let that go.I did enjoy this movie and I had never heard anything about it which was good so I went in with no expectations. There was also a lot of shots of the dancers in various positions which I found hilarious. I had no interest in that part of it I have to say. All in all, a decent thriller with some unintentionally funny scenes. The fact that Candice had a dream about George trying to murder her and then she ends up in bed with him was laugh out loud. I will give this a 5/10.