Killer Workout

Capitalizing on both the aerobics and slasher crazes of the era, writer/director David Prior unleashed his 1986 masterpiece Killer Workout, also released under the equally appealing title Aerbocide, with the tagline, "They came to get their bodies into the best shape of their lives... too bad they'll never have the chance to enjoy it."

The story begins with a model receiving the news that she's gotten a job shooting for Vogue magazine in Paris.  She rushes off to the tanning salon, but our young lass is soon sizzling and crackling, the victim of a tanning bed malfunction.  Cut to Rhonda's Workout, a successful gym with a clientele consisting of many scantily-clad, busty women and one fat person on an exercise bike (who is, of course, only shown for about ten seconds). 

Things are going great for Rhonda (Marcia Karr), until dead bodies start piling up in her gym.  Actually, the dead bodies don't really have an effect on business, as the gym continues to open every day, and the same clients keep returning, risking their lives to get their workouts in.  Also returning is the lone cop assigned to the case, the super angry Detective Morgan (David James Campbell).  Sample dialogue: "Get over to the lab and tell that college boy that if he doesn't have that report in thirty minutes, I'm going to come over there and do an autopsy on his face!"

The body count is pretty high, reaching into the double digits, and the kills come in a variety of ways: throat slashings, stabbings, shootings.  However, the murderer's weapon of choice is one of the most simultaneously lame yet awesome tools of destruction in the history of slashers - a large safety pin.  That's right, an item which should cause no damage aside from a slight irritation at being poked, and which could easily be snatched out of the murderer's hand.  Hilariously bad death scenes, including a Psycho-styled shower, alternate with leering closeup shots of women, boobs jiggling as they gyrate and lunge.

Killer Workout doesn't waste time on silly things like character development; more often than not, characters are killed in their very first scene.  However, this flick is rarely boring; there's always some kind of nonsense going on to hold the audience's attention.  For example, there are numerous guy-on-guy fistfights, one of which incorporates a rake; a girl who keeps a red corded telephone in the middle of her outdoor garden; a mortician who chirps, "See you tomorrow!" as he totes away the latest victim; an employee who fails to prevent a murder because she's too busy playing with some dude's jock strap; a relentless bubblegum synth-pop soundtrack, including a title track with the lyrics, "Aerobicide, workin' out until you diiie;" and a guy who tries to stop a car speeding towards him by pulling out his gun and shooting at it.  He does not succeed.

Obviously, Killer Workout is never scary, and it's impossible to take seriously, but it's also ridiculously cheesy and good for a laugh.  Recommended for slasher die-hards, although the film is unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) not currently available on DVD.