“All those girls out there are perverts, strippers and communists!”
It’s amazing that Kansas Bowling isn’t a bigger star. She’s become one of the most recurring faces in indie and horror film, only really appearing every so often to deliver some of the most hilarious characters put to screen. Working with Paul Ragsdale again, Bowling delivers a fun take on a character that’s not so much a villain and not so much a hero, but is just someone dealing with their own insanity. Director Ragsdale delivers a silly nonsensical horror comedy that’s centered on the Reagan-era aesthetic to where even Bowling’s main character is an uptight Reagan fan.
Phoebe is a Ronald Reagan-loving prude who works at Hot Dog on a Stick until one day she’s hired to appear in a workout video. This is Phoebe’s chance to break out of her humdrum existence and achieve the stardom she knows she is destined to attain! But the other actresses and film crew are totally unprofessional! The video’s star Candy only wants to flirt and show off her new horror movie (as well as her boobs!). And Gino, the director, only cares about appeasing Mr. Stromboli, the video’s elusive but threatening Mafia financier.
Director Paul Ragsdale channels Fred Olen Rey through every crevice of his own film, packing in busty women, nonsensical dark comedy, a lot of gore, and some pretty fun twists. I didn’t know too much about “Murdercise” going in to it, so I was pretty surprised to see co much of it builds up to an explosion of violence, beginning on a busty aerobics student strangled by a pair of perverted serial killers. A majority of Ragsdale’s movie embraces the obviously low budget containing a lot of “Murdercise” to one location.
Thankfully the narrative builds enough momentum to where the single setting can maintain most of the story and chaos. Once you come to grips that not a lot of “Murdercise” makes a lot of sense, you can really just appreciate it for the ride it is. Ragsdale flaunts a lot of what we really don’t see on film too much anymore like gratuitous sex, T&A, a lot of sex jokes and course violence that arguably punctuates the tension. Along with Bowling, Jessa Flux is fun, as is Nina Lanee Kent, and Ginger Lynn Allen, respectively. Drew Marvick is a stand-out as the weird stage hand who has a penchant for dressing in costumes and engaging in weird monologues (that admittedly brought me to laughter constantly).
While I think Paul Ragsdale has enough talent to eventually deliver a horror classic that celebrates Reagen era horror while also unfolding a coherent narrative, “Murdercise” is still a fun time through the very end.