Murdercise Review: Delivers Exactly What It Promises!

Murdercise is a hyper-stylized slasher-comedy that wears its 1980s grindhouse influences proudly on its sweat-soaked sleeve. Directed by Angelica De Alba and Paul Ragsdale, the film functions less as a conventional narrative and more as a deliberate throwback experiment—one that resurrects the neon-lit excess, sleaze-forward aesthetics, and gleeful bad taste of fitness-themed horror curiosities like Killer Workout and Death Spa. From its opening frames, Murdercise makes it clear that subtlety is not on the menu, and that commitment to tone becomes its greatest asset.

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The story centers on Phoebe, played by Kansas Bowling, an obsessively disciplined fitness devotee who lands a role in a low-budget aerobics video that quickly reveals itself as a sleazy mob-funded cash grab. Mocked and belittled by her hyper-sexualized co-stars and exploited by a predatory producer, Phoebe finds an unlikely ally in Isabella, a mafia princess portrayed by Nina Lanee Kent. What follows is a body-count-heavy ascent up the social hierarchy, as Phoebe begins eliminating her competition with ruthless efficiency. A secondary storyline involving fake cops and a serial killer circles the main plot, eventually colliding in a chaotic, blood-soaked finale.

One of the most surprising strengths of Murdercise is how tightly contained it is from a production standpoint. Shooting nearly the entire eighty-four-minute runtime within a single primary location, the filmmakers maximize spatial economy through energetic blocking, aggressive lighting schemes, and purposeful camera movement. The film wholeheartedly embraces the 80s B- and C-grade schlock aesthetic, leaning into glossy excess without irony.

The costumes are unapologetically loud, the lighting drenched in neon hues, and the practical gore effects exaggerated to the point of absurdity. The film revels in everything that would be deemed unacceptable today—objectification, casting-couch undertones, overt misogyny—not to endorse them, but to mirror the exploitative cinema of the era it’s riffing on. This is a movie that understands its lineage and commits to it without hesitation. The cheesiness, the exposed flesh, and the splatter-heavy kills all function as deliberate stylistic choices rather than miscalculations.

Where the film stumbles is in its plotting. While the internal dynamics among the women provide the most engaging narrative thread, the “Co-Ed Butcher” subplot feels underdeveloped and largely inconsequential. It lacks narrative punch and thematic payoff, serving more as noisy padding than meaningful escalation. That said, Murdercise was never designed to be scrutinized for narrative rigor. Its pleasures lie in texture, tone, and attitude rather than structure.

In the end, Murdercise delivers exactly what it promises: a trashy, neon-soaked, unapologetically stupid good time. It understands the kind of movie it wants to be and never pretends otherwise. For fans of grindhouse cinema and schlock horror, it’s a sweaty, bloody throwback that knows how to have fun without asking to be taken seriously.

‘Murdercise’ Rating – 2.75/5