Killer Workout (1986)

They're beautiful. They're buxom. They're wearing brightly colored leotards, and they're aerobicizing. Oh yeah, and, now, they're dying.

Welcome to Rhonda's Workout, a gym whose members spend most of their time lifting weights, stretching, loitering, stretching, getting naked, stretching, saying incredibly asinine things, stretching, and finding themselves on the lethal business end of a ridiculously oversized safety pin. Also, stretching.

To borrow one of my favorite quotes from ROCKTOBER BLOOD (a movie that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie I'm actually reviewin' here, but that I just felt like referencing because, well, why the hell not?): "there's a killer on the loo-oo-oose."

KILLER WORKOUT (a.k.a. AEROBICIDE) is easily one of the top contenders for the much-coveted Worst Slasher Movie Ever World Championship belt. It is a movie that has become legendary among cult cinema videophiles thanks to its potent mixture of b-movie ineptitude, bargain basement slasher movie cheese, a riotous sense of humor (it's impossible, by the way, to decipher just how intentional the comedy is supposed to be... though I personally am gonna go with "not intentional at all" ...which only makes it that much better) a nonsensical barely-there plot rife with completely unmissable plot holes, testosterone-overdosed meatheads with bad haircuts trying to be action heroes at the most inopportune times, one of the most unusual (and underwhelming) weapons ever utilized by a homicidal maniac, endless scenes of sexy 80's sluts wearing tight lycra n' shakin' their goodies like there's no goddamn tomorrow, and one of the most downright awesome soundtracks in the history of the 1980's exploitation V.H.S. explosion (seriously, the songs on this bad motherfucker are right up there with the ones from the SAVAGE STREETS soundtrack in terms of hilarious Decade Of Excess badness).

God, I love the 80's. I've probably said that before. I don't give a shit. It's still true. Besides, it doesn't seem like I could ever say it enough. Never enough to do that era justice, man. The 80's were fan-fucking-tastic.

"Decade Of Excess?" No kidding. The 1980's were a renaissance for two of my favorite movie genres, the horror film and the explicit, R-rated teen sex comedy. Better yet, the holy grail of video categories here at Bearded Weirdo Reviews, the hybridized horror-comedy genre, was similarly in full bloom. The 80's also saw the birth and rise of underground Bay Area thrash metal, special effects wizards like Rick Baker and Rob Bottin were at the height of their creativity, and slasher flicks were likewise experiencing something of a golden age. Sure, the grindhouses were dying and the drive-in's had lost their luster, but the Video Boom more than made up for that, putting more sleaze and schlock on the shelves than had ever been available in the halls of the double feature cinema palaces of 42nd Street, and prompting an even greater growth in the production of trash cinema product than ever before.

The "no downers, everybody just have fun" rule was in effect. The first video game arcades opened and instantly became pocket change-devouring utopias. John Hughes, Robert Smith, Ginger Lynn, and Tom Savini were all at the top of their games. Every color was available in but a single shade: hot neon. Shoulders were padded, jeans were acid-washed, punk was making a comeback, toxic waste was everywhere, and perms towered high over society like flammable hairspray-scented monuments to the wonders of peroxide and Aquanet. The waking, wanking world was blissfully unaware of the fact that the last two digits at the end of Traci Lords' D.O.B. weren't quite what she claimed they were. Skanks were at their skankiest (amen), and pop culture was at its most crazy n' colorful.

No ten year period in the epic pantheon of human history has ever generated more kitsch nostalgia for future generations to enjoy. And no ten year period has ever produced more horrendous fads that wound up becoming entertaining cultural memes after their own inevitable demises. Seriously, like, 90% of all the most amusingly godawful pop culture aberrations that amuse us today, and make our lives so much more worth living today, were born in the 80's. Lame action movies puns. The "Flock Of Seagulls" haircut. Starfucking glam metal groupies. Superhero cartoons designed specifically to be episode-length toy commercials as opposed to actual stories. FLASHDANCE. The list stretches on and on, from here to infinity.

But, for a minute, let's stop for a second, and rewind just a smidge. Let's focus on that one magic word. "FLASHDANCE."

Okay, FLASHDANCE was a huge hit in the 80's. Big deal. Everybody knows that.

Well, the success of FLASHDANCE prompted a big dance/aerobics trend to fill cash registers across the nation, albeit for a brief period of time. The trend was perpetuated by the success of Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical" and, chief among all these catalysts, the proliferation of aerobics video tapes, and the renewed interest in health, exercise, and body culture, as spurred on by Jane Fonda and her many clones. You couldn't turn your head without seeing some tart in a sporty headband after Pat Benatar made that particular look fashionable. Turn on the T.V. and what'll ya see? Suzanne Sommers hawking the Thighmaster. Even the chop-sockey genre got in on the act by putting a Jennifer Beals clone in NINJA 3: THE DOMINATION.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all aware of that, too.

Well, smart guy (oh god... am I talking to myself again? ...I knew I should've refilled my prescription), ...y'know what everybody isn't aware of? The fact that this bizarre li'l fad also found it's way into the relatively somber world of horror cinema.

Granted, most horror cinema of the 1980's couldn't exactly qualified as being terribly serious-minded stuff to begin with (which is actually why it's so fucking grrrrrreat), and the slasher wave was doing its damnedest to dumb down the entire genre as much as possible (and succeeding quite well, actually, ...a fact that fills me with an uneven and contradictory combination of angry chagrin and appreciative excitement ...as much as I love smart horror, the fact remains that I love dumb horror too, and I'm often unable to decide which I'm more partial to, let alone reconcile these two at-odds elements of my cinematic psyche). So maybe it isn't all that surprising, in retrospect, that the dance/aerobics trend wriggled its way into the realm of horror movies (I still think it's a weird-ass combo, though: horror and aerobics... fucking weird... ... ...in other words, fucking genius!).

Horror has always incorporated timely themes into itself, and the slashers were always looking for new gimmicks with which to spice up their flagging, formulaic efforts. Not only that, but horror has also always been a genre championed by the cheapskate independent movie production companies of the outside-the-Hollywood-system underground, and those are exactly the kind of businesses that typically have a weakness for cashing in on doomed fads in hopes that it'll help 'em rake in the moolah (it usually doesn't).

Hence, we have KILLER WORKOUT.

Believe it or not, there was actually a tiny (very, verrrrry tiny) slasher subgenre all its own, comprised entirely of FLASHDANCE-inspired dance/aerobics spandex-meets-splatter stalk-and-slash flicks. There ain't a whole helluva lot of 'em, but they're worth mentioning. Okay, let's see. Besides KILLER WORKOUT, there was also Michael Fischa's DEATH SPA (also known as WITCH BITCH, ...a movie that people often get confused with KILLER WORKOUT), Lucio Fulci's MURDER ROCK (also known as SLASHDANCE) and James Shyman's SLASHDANCE (no relation to the aforementioned Fulci film). Last but not least, it'd be folly for me not to mention LINNEA QUIGLEY'S HORROR WORKOUT. Hardly a serious entry in the slasher canon, but who give a fig?

One could interpret the rash of aerobics-fixated slasher flicks (actually, the rash of slasher flicks in general) as a sarcastic response to the image-obsessed, fitness-infatuated "body culture" of the time. You can easily sense that, with these films, the horror filmmaker, who is historically the most cynical social satirist and outlandish outlaw art-terrorist in all of cinema (mind you, I'm speaking of all horror filmmakers here), desires to take a stab at all that health-enamored superficiality by responding with vulgar, confrontational affronts to the human body. While So-Cal co-eds were busy coming up with newer, better ways to make their bodies sleeker and sexier, the horror filmmakers were more interested in devising newer, nastier ways to dissect homo sapien anatomy in graphic, unblinking detail. Gone is the pretty, presentable, perfectly sculpted surface layer, so meticulously molded and painstakingly refined, in favor of exposing the bloody red butcher's meat beneath, the ugly, untidy mass of rippling, glistening, seeping pork product that is common to us all.

But who cares?

Let's get back to biz-nass, yes? Let's get back to KILLER fuckin' WORKOUT.

This flick was directed by David A. Prior, who is also responsible for SLEDGEHAMMER (one of the very first D.T.V. S.O.V. movies ever, ...Bearded Weirdo factoid: it actually predates BLOOD CULT, the flick that usually gets saddled with the title "first D.T.V. S.O.V. movie," by two years!) and a whole truckload of direct-to-video el cheapo action flicks, including both FUTURE FORCE and FUTURE ZONE (the David Carradine cheese classics), NIGHT WARS (the infamous post-Vietnam Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggerty oddity), and the hilariously horrendous DEADLY PREY (which I recommend as a definite must-see for anyone with... eyes!). KILLER WORKOUT was further distributed on V.H.S. by Academy Entertainment, who also distributed such rental shelf schlock fare as DOOM ASYLUM, FLESH EATING MOTHERS, GRIM PRAIRIE TALES, PLAY DEAD, SKULL: A NIGHT OF TERROR, GRANDMA'S HOUSE, SLASHED DREAMS, and DEATH HEAD VIRGIN, as well as the must-see John Mikl Thor crap movie masterpiece ROCK N' ROLL NIGHTMARE, and, also, the first entries in the long-running WITCHCRAFT franchise. If that pedigree isn't enough to scare you shakin' just a teeny bit, then you're a hardier soul than I.

The premise is pretty straightforward. There's a mysterious murderer slaughtering the members of Rhonda's Workout. End of story. There's really very little plot beyond that. Standard slasher story. A cop gets called in. People keep dying. The cop investigates, but is utterly useless. People keep dying. Cop remains useless. People keep dying. Despite enormous body count, cop remains the only officer investigating this case. People keep dying. Despite the fact that the majority of its clientele are now pushing up daisies, Rhonda's Workout remains open. People keep dying. Female bodies are summarily exposed, mutilated, and jazzercised. Not necessarily in that order.

What? You want a longer descrip? Okay, fine. Here goes.

Anti-spoilers zealots, turn away now.

The movie starts out with a scene of a mystery woman, some chick named Valerie whose face we never see, getting toasted alive in a tanning machine. The thing malfunctions, bursts into flame, and the bitch becomes barbecue in her fiery fitness tomb. Fast forward a few years later, and without any mention of poor char-broiled Valerie again for the next 45 minutes, we segue directly into one of the movie's eight million carefully, yet laughably, choreographed aerobics/dance sequences, full of flashy headbands, fuzzy legwarmers, gyrating hips, and bouncing melons threatening to burst from their day-glo lycra prisons. All the while, some obligatory cornball 1980's bubblegum pop-rock hokum fucks us in our earholes. Gotta love it.

The scene is lorded over by Rhonda, the head honcho bossgirl of her predictably dubbed place of business, Rhonda's Workout, and an eternally unpleasant, presumably frigid, bee-yatch deluxe. She kinda looks like a mix between Gina Gershon and UNCLE BUCK-era Jean Louisa Kelly. Notice the suspicious fact that her wardrobe appears to be made up entirely of long-sleeve sweatshirts and airtight full-body catsuits. Not an inch of skin exposed below the neck. Odd for an exploitation horror flick from the 80's, eh? Odd indeed.

Also observing the aerobics session in question is Jimmy, a two-ton golem whose brains have apparently been excised from his head so that his skull might act as storage for those extraneous pumped-up pectoral muscles that are no longer capable of fitting inside his chest. The guy clearly has the obsessive hots for Rhonda. He's always hangin' 'round her like a frickin' dingleberry, despite the fact that she treats his presence with only slightly less disdain than one might direct towards a malignant cyst forming on one's genitalia. Or, appropriately enough, a particularly stubborn dingleberry.

Anyway, Jimmy works at the gym too. I'm not entirely sure in what capacity he earns a living, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with loafing about and acting like an asshole, 'cause that's all he ever does.

Actually, now that I think about it, he might be a gym member as opposed to an employee. I may be mistaken, but I don't think it's ever really made clear which. Either way, you never see him do any real exercising or anything. All he does is harass Rhonda, throw his weight around, and leer lecherously at girls doing their aerobics. Nothing wrong with that last thing, but, c'mon man, seriously, try to be subtle about it, ya big fuckin' lummox.

Getting back to KILLER WORKOUT, the gym, you'll notice, has a female population composed entirely of sluts, bimbos, and slutty bimbos. Take Jaimy, for instance. She's a skank. We know she's a skank 'cause the only things she keeps in her purse are cosmetics and condoms for heaven's sake. That's it. No money, honey. Just lipstick n' rubbers. Even if you're a reasonably staunch feminist, you gotta admit... that sounds kinda skanky. And if you won't admit that, then you're probably a skank too. Ba-zing!

Oh, Jaimy works at the gym too. Officially, she fills the role of aerobics instructor. Unofficially, she fills the role of super-hot super-tramp doomed to die decades before her time. Really, she's not that fuckin' hot, but every male character acts like she's the first woman to walk the Earth since Eve. I love it when this happens in movies. It's endlessly amusing to be. An obvious, and frequent (in b-movies anyway), case of a screenwriter describing a character as more attractive than the actress they're able to get to fill said role actually is. It's like when Uma Thurman is in a movie, and all the other characters talk about how gorgeous she is, when in reality her face makes you want to light your eyes on fire and bury them (to borrow a phrase from Brian Posehn).

I'm not saying I'd hesitate to stick my schlong in her snizz (talkin' 'bout the actress who plays Jaimy in KILLER WORKOUT here, not Uma Thurman... ::gag::). I wouldn't. Not for a second. Not for a fraction of a second. Not for a fraction of a fraction of a second. All I'm sayin' is, hey, she ain't no Salma Hayek, mmm-kay? She ain't the hottest babe in the world, sorry. She's plenty cute, I'll give her that. And she's definitely a spinner, which is always a lot of fun. But no Salma Hayek, no sir.

Anyhoo, Jaimy and Rhonda clearly don't get along. In fact, Rhonda (whose face appears to be frozen in a perpetual scowl) seems unfairly resentful towards this sweet-natured, if loose-moraled, lass. This sweet-natured, loose-moraled lass... who all the boys evidently find to be the solitary most beautiful creature to ever stride into a low-rent fitness center. Rhonda's behavior continues to be suspicious. Sooooo suspicious.

Shortly after Jaimy arrives at work (late, by the way, ...and it's implied that she's late because she was too busy gettin' a seven-inch bloodsausage slammed in her cootchie-hole), a pretty black girl finds herself alone in the gym's showers. After giving us a quick dose of gratutious nudity, an unseen assailant switches off the lights and stabs the doomed dame to death with a jumbo-sized safety-pin novelty item.


Shortly thereafter, Jaimy is caught snooping around in the boys' locker room. Who catches her? Why, Rhonda of course. Rhonda, who, suspiciously, seems to be the only other person still in the building at that point. Curiouser and curioser.

Mere seconds later, Jaimy finds the dead girl's body unceremoniously stuffed in one of the girls' lockers. Before you can say "let the bodycount begin!" the corpse is whisked away by the coppers and the oafish, neanderthal-lookin' Detective Morgan is called in to investigate/throw his weight around/be mean to everybody.

The next day (which begins with yet another crassly lensed, needlessly lengthy, rump-wigglin', hooter-jigglin' aerobics routine), a pair of male gym members insensitively joke about the dead girls' unseemly demise, which raises the ire of a fair-haired musclemeister known as Chuck (who, it merits mention, is played by Ted Prior, writer/director David's brother). Ah, Chuck. Forever the defender of the downtrodden and vanquisher of disrespectful a-holes the world over.

Actually, he doesn't really do anything real. He just flashes a scornful look towards the guys. Still, it's the thought that counts. You go Chuck, passive-aggressive defender of the downtrodden!

Chuck, it turns out, is the gym's newest employee, hired by Rhonda's never-seen business partner (a fact that pisses her off somethin' fierce). His first act of duty? Takin' out the trash. His second? Almost getting hit by a car. The car, unsurprisingly, is that of the obviously unstable Jimmy, who promptly warns the new guy to stay the hell away from Rhonda, or else he'll take him apart "piece by piece by piece." Chuck, however, isn't having any o' this thug's intimidation. When Jimmy goes to knock his block off, Chuck grabs him by the wrist and effortlessly drops the overblown screwball like a sack of fuckin' potatoes. Thus begins a rivalry so tremendous, so Earth-shaking, that the world of fiction had not seen it's like since the days of Doc Savage and Jon Sunlight, or The Doctor and The Master, or even (dare I say?) Jesus Christ and Satan.

More or less.

Either way, the scuffle quickly becomes all the more epic when it's made infinitely clear that both of these guys happen to know kung-fu. Sadly, you'll notice that I never said they knew it very well. The fight scene is, to be perfectly frank, terrible. If you don't laugh watching this mess, you'll probably just cry. It goes on like that for far too long, until Chuck shows Jimmy what's what, and Jimbo drives off with his tail between his legs, skulking and staring in a menacing fashion that clearly tells us that this guy is our resident Red Herring. Yum, fish.

With Jimmy gone, Chuck returns to the task at hand. Namely, tossing a couple sacks o' trash in the dumpster out back. After completing that difficult, neigh insurmountable, downright legendary mission, Chuck decides that, instead of going back into the building and continuing to work, maybe making some kind of good impression on Rhonda after already getting off on the wrong foot with her, it would be a better idea to spend his very first day on the job speedin' 'round town with a hussy named Jenny. Jenny is yet another gym member who dresses in exercise wear that can only be described as garishly designed and outlandishly tight. But who's complaining? Not me, that's for sure. Not when the body so tightly (and garishly) garbed is that of the young Ms. Jenny. Unlike the cute-but-hardly-mindblowingly-sexy Jaimy, Jenny actually does have a scorchingly hot bod. Her rack is stacked and her derriere is dynamite. In other words, "she's a knockout!" Va-va-va-voom!

Another thing, I love the way she comes across Chuck and Jimmy dukin' it out, watches the whole fight, and then immediately starts waving her poon-tang in the direction of the winner. It sounds like something you'd see on The Discovery Channel: "Here, in their natural habitat, we glimpse two members of the elusive steroid-ape species indigenous to urban health clubs, as they battle for the chance to mate with another creature native to urban health clubs such as this, the much sought-after bubbleheaded whore-fish, originally of New Jersey, now famous far and wide due to the unique fact that she breathes neither air or water, but rather pure, undiluted cock. Whichever steroid-ape survives this tumultuous clash will be allowed the chance to reap the sensual, euphoric rewards as the whore-fish greedily suckles upon his steroid-shriveled phallus. Our great hope here today, fair viewers, is that the outcome will be the spawning of that glorious offspring these two species are so infamous for breeding when brought together, the child support payment-beast, whose existence is based solely on the challenging of the steroid-ape and the benefit of the whore-fish."

Hmmm. I got a little carried away with that whole Discovery Channel gag, didn't I? I should probably go back and do a bit of self-editing. But fuck it, I'm not in the mood.

Anyway, Chuck and Jenny retire to her happenin' pad to share Diet Pepsi's and partake in some steamy boots-knockin' which occurs, tragically, off-screen and sans any skin-bearing from Jenny. Goddamn cocktease. Oh well, at least we get to see her in a microscopic bikini. Aside from the ol' in-out in-out (real savage), Chuck also gains something else from this chance encounter with Jenny-girl: information. Whilst sippin' down some tasty carbonated low calorie refreshments, Jenny tells Chuck that she used to date Jimmy, but that she regrets it 'cause he's "weird" and "likes to tie girls up." Clearly what we're supposed to take from this is that Jimmy is bad news (as if that wasn't abundantly plain to see already), all in an attempt by the filmmakers to trick the audience into believing he might actually be the killer. Alas, the Red Herring ruse is far from convincing, as anyone who hasn't spent the majority of their life living under a rock will no doubt see through this transparent effort towards cinematic misdirection simply because we've all witnessed it a thousand times before. Usually done better too. Ultimately, all I got out of Jenny's talk about Jimmy's inclination towards Japanese rope bondage is that she's sexually conservative, closed-minded, n' judgmental and he's a kinky B.D.S.M. fetish enthusiast with an appreciation for handcuffs and butterfly knots. Nothing wrong with that.

It is in this scene that we also learn the "shocking" secret that Chuck isn't actually who he says he is. I used quotation marks around the word "shocking" in that last sentence because that revelation isn't really all that surprising, even though it's supposed to be. Anyway, Chuck makes a phone call to his employer, and we learn that he's in actuality an undercover P.I. hired by Rhonda's off-screen business partner not for the purposes of taking out the trash, but for discovering the identity of the mysterious murderer. Okay, it's not entirely spelled out for us in excruciating detail just yet, but it's made pretty obvious nevertheless. I can't imagine anybody not figuring out in this scene. I did. But maybe I'm just a genius. A regular Sherlock Homes, takin' the smallest of clues and extrapolating the truth from them with the greatest of ease. I dunno what it was that was such a dead giveaway about Chuck not really being who he said he was. Maybe it was the fact that he was rifling through Rhonda's file cabinet without permission when she wasn't in her office. Maybe it was the way he clearly couldn't give a crap about actually doing his "job" when the opportunity to squeeze Jenny for information (and for pleasure) presented itself. Nah, you know what it was? It was probably those teeny-tiny red shortie-shorts he was always wearin'. Something 'bout the bulge in them boxers just screamed "private dick" to me, y'know?

Heh heh heh. Get it? Dick. Bulge. Private investigator. Dick. It's a play on words. Heh heh heh, hee hee hee. Sometimes I'm so clever I amaze myself. Also, sometimes I contemplate suicide.

Moving on...

Cut back to Rhonda's Workout, and what's going down? Another aerobics session, of course of course. And who's there, leering his pervy little head off? Jimmy, of course of course. There's another hosebag there, too. Some skinny, dog-faced little thing who practically throws herself at Jimbo, but he turns her down flat. Suddenly, we fast forward through space and time again, and it's nighttime. We watch Jimmy as he spends his night the way I assume he spends most of his lonely fucking nights, loitering outside the darkened premises of Rhonda's Workout for hours on end. Yeah, that's healthy. And, y'know, not alarmingly stalker-ish at all.

Meanwhile, without explanation, Detective Morgan drives over to the home of the above-mentioned dog-faced gym member, who for some inexplicable reason doesn't seem to understand the common human custom of opening the fucking door when someone's knocking on it. With Morgan stuck outside, the fugly gal finds herself on the receiving end of another attack from KILLER WORKOUT's faceless maniac. Morgan finally breaks the door down, but it's too late. Miss Not-Important-Enough-A-Character-To-Warrant-Me-Looking-Up-Her-Name is dead as shit, and the killer has already hurled him(or her)self through a window and made his (or her) escape into the night.

Back at the gym, Jimmy sneaks inside and frightens the holy hell out of Rhonda. He tries to get cozy with her, but she continues to resist. Maybe somebody should told Jim-boy that breaking-and-entering is hardly the way to make yourself look less like a creep in the eyes of the woman you love/stalk.

At the same time, an irreverent trio of youthful hooligans are vandalizing the exterior of Rhonda's Workout, spray-painting such choice phrases as "Aerobicide" and "Death Spa" on the front window. Those damn dirty bastards! They have any idea how much that's gonna cost? Razza-frazzin' no-good muggerfuggin' crack-pipin' buzzard sons o' bitches. Kids. I fuckin' hate kids.

Proving, however, that there is a god, all three o' these rotten pricks ends up as minced meat in fairly short order. The last one meets her end when the killer hops up on the hood of her car and repeatedly stabs through the roof. She dodges the perilous blade strikes for a few minutes, until finally the cunt gets a few inches of metal jabbed through her brainpan. Mind you, that kill scene sounds really good on paper, but in execution it was fumbled horribly, failing to generate the foggiest lick of suspense at any moment. Nevertheless, the poorly realized results only add fuel to the fire of fandom that exists for KILLER WORKOUT. Another log for the burning, another half-baked cinematic foul-up that provides more entertainment value than if it had been pulled off correctly.

The next day, life inside the comfy confines of Rhonda's Workout continues as usual. The body bags are zipped up neatly and, you guessed it, the aerobics routines go off without a hitch.

Then two more gym-going nimrods meet their maker (one of 'em gets a lobotomy with that oversized novelty safety pin, the other gets his skull smashed in with a big-ass dumbbell). Jaimy comes in a second later and screams her trampy fuckin' lungs out, which brings Chuck in a-runnin'. Bad timing though. At the exact moment Chuck shows up at the crime scene, some other gym employee is standing there, obviously just an on-looker like Jaimy herself. Wrong place, wrong time. Chuck, apparently, is from the "shoot first, ask question later" school of private investigation, 'cause he instantly launches into a martial arts assault on the unsuspecting sucker. He seriously beats the ever-loving shit of this unfortunate fuckface And the funniest part is that, a second later, the movie cuts to an image of a body bag sitting at Chuck's feet. Clearly it's supposed to be the body of one of the slasher-whacked dead dudes in that cadaver-sack, but the way it's edited makes it look like Chuck unjustly murdered an innocent passer-by with his bare hands for no reason at all. That's good junk right there.

Okay, so Chuck and Detective Morgan exchange a few words. Morgan suspects Chuck is the killer, and we're supposed to suspect him as well, I guess, but there's no chance in hell that any of us are that stupid, since this guy comes off way too much like a shining, Captain America type hero, albeit one who happens to be a li'l quick on the draw. Besides, Morgan suspects that everyone is a fuckin' killer. After that, we get to see the guy Chuck laid out have a sweet fuckin' dream sequence in which Jaimy (finally!) doffs her tops, straddles him, and rides him like a pony. The dream only gets cooler when a mirror image of Guy-Who-Got-The-Crap-Kicked-Out-Of-Him-By-Chuck appears and slashes Jaimy's throat open. Blood and tits are always cool together, but throw in some trippy nightmare imagery and I'm fuckin' sold, champ. Disappointingly, all this coolness is way too short-lived, as the tits are soon taken away from us as Guy-Who-Got-The-Crap-Kicked-Out-Of-Him-By-Chuck is rudely yanked out of his slumber by Detective Morgan. Oh well. The dream sequence didn't make much sense in the context of the story anyway, so I suppose it's appropriate that it isn't dwelled upon for too long. In truth, it shouldn't be in the movie at all. But if I get to see titties, I ain't gonna complain. Truth be told, Jaimy may not be the hottest whore in the whorehouse that is Rhonda's Workout, but she does have some mighty fine torpedoes strapped to her chest. Yes sir, mighty fine indeed.

Anyhoo, Morgan leaves, and, despite the fact that he's in a room with only one entrance which is being guarded by a police officer in full uniform, the killer shows up not even a minute later, to turn Guy-Who-Got-The-Crap-Kicked-Out-Of-Him-By-Chuck into Guy-Who-Got-The-Crap-Kicked-Out-Of-Him-By-Chuck-And-Then-Suffered-Further-Indignity-At-The-Hands-Of-A-Psycho-With-An-Absurdly-Large-Safety-Pin.

With that, another loser helps escalate KILLER WORKOUT's ever-growing body count. Man, lot o' people biting the dust 'round here, don'tcha think? Seems a little unlikely that Rhonda's Workout would be able to maintain such a sturdy hold on its client pool, what with so many of the customers turning up dead in fuckin' droves. As if the idea that a business like this would remain open after such an incident as murder wasn't mind-boggling enough, now you're gonna try n' tell me that people still even continue going there, spend their hard-earned cashy-money, n' stickin' their necks out knowing full-well they're liable to get a ludicrously large safety pin stabbed into their throats for all that trouble. Strikes me that the last group of people willing to take that kind of risk are those among us preoccupied with health. After all, what's more unhealthy than death? Untimely death no less. Something tells me that if you're willing to spend four hours a day pumpin' iron and doing jumping-jacks, for the purpose of extending your lifespan as much as possible, then the last thing you'd wanna do is hang around a vicious serial killer stomping grounds. Just goes to show ya the dauntless power of "brand loyalty," I suppose. Then again, if everybody who drank Dr. Pepper started pushin' up daisies, I think that'd make me switch to Mr. Pibb. But that's me.

Getting back to KILLER WORKOUT, the latest dead guy is hauled out in yet another body bag, and, in a particularly humorous moment, the fella whose job it is to cart corpses away from crime scenes departs with an especially cheeky, cheery disposition, going so far as to remind Morgan that his failure as a cop equals his own windfall as a mover-of-stiffs.

Hand to god, that corpse-hauler guy is my favorite character in the whole fuckin' movie.

Next up we get a couple boring dialogue scenes. Blah blah blah, boring dialogue scene between Morgan and Rhonda. Yada yada yada, boring dialogue scene between Rhonda and Jimmy. Not a single likeable character within fifty yards. Blech.

At night, Chuck continues to discretely investigate the macabre goings-on. His idea of a crafty disguise proves to be nothing more than a baseball cap paired with the same goddamn blue wifebeater he's been wearing the whole time, but, hey, give the lad points for tryin'. Alright, so, baseball cap on his empty, empty fucking head, Chuck lets himself into Jimmy's apartment while Jimmy's out. What does he find? A troublesome number of guns and photographs of Rhonda scotchtaped all over the walls. Fearing for the woman's life, Chuck runs over to Rhonda's house and proceeds to, uh, watch her from the bushes as she relaxes in her swimming pool. Turns out Jimbo's there too, though. The product of that formula turns out to be another comically bad fight scene between these two louts, which sees Chuck wield a hoe in a fashion akin to the American Gladiators, before sinking the apparently razor-sharp prongs of the time-honored gardening tool deep into the thigh of Jimmy, who shows his unquenchable madness by displaying nary a single sign of pain.

Jimmy-boy ends up winning this round with a spinning superkick that sends Chuck swan-diving into Rhonda's pool. When he comes to, Morgan and Rhonda are there to interrogate him, and he finally comes clean with the truth that every audience member with an I.Q. above 13 was able to pick up on ages ago: that he is, in truth, a P.I. trying to solve the Rhonda's Workout murder mystery.

Suspiciously, despite the fact that Rhonda was in the swimming pool just moments ago, as evidenced by the fact that her hair is still wet, when we see her in this scene she is curiously covered up. Again, no skin below the neck. How peculiar.

The next day, Jaimy winds up the next health nut to go tits up... er, I mean, uh... let's just say "kaput." Anyhoo, she gets strangled. It happens kinda hurriedly, and doesn't really seem to fit into the story very well. Seems like just a rushed excuse to rack up a bigger body count. Well, it does that much, at least. The corpses continue to pile up, and the police officers whose duty it was to protect the customers of the seemingly cursed fitness center starts rethinking his career choice. Outside, Chuck has decided to leave this whole sorry affair behind, and as he walks down the alleyway behind Rhonda's Workout with his suitcase in hand, we see that Jimmy is there, waiting for him. He hits Chuck with his car, then gets out (taking ample time to show off his sweet new Nike sneakers) and stabs Chuck to death. Exit Chuck, passive-aggressive defender of the downtrodden and champion of the mullet hairdo.

Elsewhere, Morgan confronts Rhonda with the information that he knows she is, in fact, Valerie, the woman who got sizzled in the tanning salon at the start of the picture. He informs of this with his trademark excessive cruelty, reminding her time after time that she used to have a perfect body but is now nothing more than a disgusting, malformed freak who includes uncontrollable nausea in anyone unlucky enough to view her burned body in the nude. He also voices his belief that she is the killer, not Jimmy, and that her murderous motivations come from a deep-seated hatred of good-looking people and her own bittneress over having her boobs turned into a couple servings o' extra crispy K.F.C. She contends that she's innocent, but Morgan arrests her anyway. Seconds later, news comes in of Jimbo's homicidal extracurricular activities, and Morgan is forced to let her go. He heads off to apprehend Jimmy, and a thrilling, pulse-pounding, immensely exciting (sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm) on-foot chase scene goes on for way too long. It ends, as so many things in movie tend to, nonsensically and without resolution. Jimbo knocks Morgans unconscious and the chase thusly comes to an abrupt, unsatisfying conclusion.

Cut to the gym later that night, Rhonda is by herself, taking a shower (revealing to us for the first time the entire extent of her hideous burn scars). Jimmy breaks in, again not doing himself any favors in the "winning over ladies" department, but before he can make an ass out of himself yet again, Rhonda pulls a revolvers out of her locker and plugs the buffoon full o' bullets. Just like that, it's over. Jimmy gets blamed for all the murders and Rhonda becomes a hero for takin' him out in "self-defense." The whole world is fooled, except for Detective Morgan. He knows the truth. He knows that Rhonda was really the killer, an that Jimmy only killed Chuck so as to take the fall for Rhonda's crimes in some misguided attempt to show his affections for her. He loved and adored her obsessively, and was more than willing to kill and die to protect her. Which is exactly what he did. Morgan knows this, even if no one else does. He feels it in his bones.

Determined to see Rhonda get her just desserts, Detective Morgan drags the bitch out to the woods and delivers a lengthy monologue about his father, his own purpose in life, the flaws inherent in the American justice system, and the importance of doing the right thing (I'm not joking). He then whips out his handcannon and announces his plan to murder her (again, not joking). This part is actually kinda cool, and the twist wherein Morgan reveals himself to be just as twisted and mentally disturbed as Rhonda and Jimmy plays well, even with all the hack acting and melodramatic, cardboard dialogue.

Alas, before Morgan can kill Rhonda, she kills him. See what happens when you waste precious murder time on boring didactic speeches? Anyway, Rhonda then returns to work with a renewed sense of self-confidence, goes into her office, plops herself down behind her desk, takes out her oversized novelty safety pin, and grins mischievously at the camera. The end. Credits roll, and what plays out before our very eyes? No surprise there. One... last... aerobics scene.

There you have it. David A. Prior's psycho killer disasterpiece, KILLER WORKOUT.

Interestingly, despite the mountains upon mountains upon mountains of padding present (we've got unnecessary aerobics scenes galore, not to mention unnecessary shots of fat guys vainly pedaling away on exercise bikes, unecessary shots of Jenny's car speedin' down the street, unnecessary shots of Morgan and Jimmy slinking around huge pieces of industrial machinery whilst searching for one another, etc.), KILLER WORKOUT just barely clocks in at feature length, with a flimsy runtime of only 80-some minutes. That's a shrimpy fuckin' runtime for a movie with so many asinine scenes that seem to go on and on to the point of being never-fucking-ending. And what's more, strange as it may sound, every last one of those completely pointless, totally irrelavent, way-too-long sequences is freakishly captivating. You can't turn your head. You don't want to. Even when what's happening on-screen has no importance in regards to the plot whatsoever, even when there aren't any tits or kills to look at, you find yourself having immeasurable amounts of fun watching this stinker.

Its attempts at dramatism fall laughably flat, and its equally unsuccessful efforts to craft an effective whodunnit plot are formulaic and predictable. But, even with all these failings, not a moment of KILLER WORKOUT is unwatchable or unenjoyable. The picture remains entertaining from beginning to end. Really, it's one of those times where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. It's like pizza. Cheese, tomatoes, and dough are all well n' good by themselves. And if you placed them on a counter together, you wouldn't think much of 'em. But when you combine 'em, you get magic. It's like fuckin' alchemy, man.

If you were to isolate and analyze any one of the many small pieces that come together to form KILLER WORKOUT, you'd undoubtedly find yourself looking at some hopelessly bungled, ludicrously daft sliver or z-grade crap cinema ineptitude. Virtually nothing about this movie is done well, or even correctly, with the only exception evidently being that the crew members were at least able to figure out how to turn the film cameras on, if nothing else. But, when you put all those catastrophically blundered elements together, what you get is more than just a pile of shit. You get a pile of shit that stinks sooooo sweet. No, it's more. It's not just a pile of shit, not even a pile of shit that stinks sweetly. KILLER WORKOUT... is a veritable shitstorm. A tornado of defecation, flinging steaming brown piles of thick, sloppy feces all over the place, until it runs down the walls, stains the carpets, and lodges in your throat, leaving you choking, asphyxiating, gasping for breath as shit fill your lungs. This, dear reader, is not simply a bad movie made up of bad movie-making decisions. This is a series of bad movie-making decisions that are so many, and so close together, that they actually blur and meld together into one, gigantic, seamless b-movie juggernaut.

Ladies and jujubes, this is a movie that is entirely deserving of its legendary status. It may not have much in the way of originality, but what it lacks there it makes up for with oodles n' oodles of tart, tangy flavor. What's great about KILLER WORKOUT is that it's just so fucking sleazy and cheesy and silly and stupid. Really, it's awesome. Or, as any one of its myriad of one-dimensional 80's stereotype characters might be so inclined to say, "KILLER WORKOUT is, like, totally radical." Best of all, it's completely unflinching and unrepentant in all its exploitative glory. The movie is sinfully replete with completely gratuitous close-up shots of spandex-straining boobies n' booties. These shots quite clearly and shamelessly exist for one reason and one reason only: to objectify women. And let me tell you something... I don't mind one damn bit. Let's hear it for objectification!

Woo! Women are things! Yeah!

...

For the record, if you can't tell I'm joking right now, you might want to give yourself a lobotomy. Or at least a sterilization operation of some sort. 'Cause you definitely shouldn't be havin' kids.


Seriously though, this flick is just rife with big, full-screen, extreme zoom-in's of girly parts. It's baffling for me to imagine that the director stood there with a camera pointed directly at some chick's crotch and she was totally cool with it. "Tee hee, I'm gonna be a famous actress. Tee hee, I bet this is the same way Julia Roberts got her start. Tee hee, it's just like my junior high football player boyfriend told me way back on that night when he ravaged my bunghole the first time in the back of his dad's '76 Oldsmobile: guys will only respect you if you're easy. Tee hee, that means I'm super-dee-duper-respectable. Tee hee hee hee hee!" KILLER WORKOUT doesn't even bother hiding the fact that it's trying to give you wood. It just sticks its hand down your pants and gets a-workin'. In other words, it's 100% my kind of movie.

Subtlety and class, I assure you, are for chumps.

...

Not kidding at all.

The women in this flick are just about all the same. They all have big hair. They all wear too much make-up. And not a one of 'em has a thought in her garishly coiffed cranium. 'Course, the male characters aren't all that different. They all look like they've been punched in the head a few too many times. They all are almost completely devoid of necks. They all wear tanktop shirts that are about two sizes too small. And they're all about one exploded neck artery away from going into a full-on 'roid rage rampage of rabid madness. Mind you, when I say 'roid rage I'm talkin' 'bout both steroids and hemorrhoids, as I'm thoroughly convinced that all these dickweeds' bodies are comprised almost entirely of both (and precious little else). To put it succinctly, what we're dealin' with here, people, is meatheads. A fucking smorgasbord of meatheads. A colony. A horde, haven, hullabaloo. All dedicated to the perpetuation of the human meathead.

Hitler once said, "gods and beasts, that's what this world is made of." Well, how about this: sluts and meatheads, that's what KILLER WORKOUT is made of.

I think you'll agree that I am, if nothing else, at least moderately more likable than Hitler. Also, I'm a better painter.

Moving on...

One of the things that really sells KILLER WORKOUT is not its impressive cast of ingenious thespians though, but rather its soundtrack. The opening piece of music that plays over the credits in the beginning sounds like a cool, if not exactly special, chunk of standard slasher cinema score... at first. But then it transforms into some kind of weird, drum machine-driven, fast-paced 80's techno version of the HALLOWEEN theme. Most of the original score of this clunker is just... atrocious. Invariably, the part of your brain that like good music will weep. Yet, at the same time it's kind of addictive, and perversely pleasurable. It's just one of those things where, if you like the 1980's, and if you like shitty z-movie campiness, you'll like the score of KILLER WORKOUT even as you simultaneously revolt at how horrendous it is. The track that plays during Chuck and Jim's first fight is especially appalling. Very frantic, very spastic. Sounds like a bunch of chimpanzees hopped up on Pixie Sticks smashing their faces into a twenty-dollar keyboard rescued from the Salvation Army while smacking each other on the ass.

What really gets my juices flowin' 'bout the KILLER WORKOUT soundtrack, however, is not the score. It's the songs compiled for the movie that were performed by different artists. An almost indistinguishable mix of high-energy athletic girly pop and "triumphant" synth-rock ballads a la' those in the aforementioned SAVAGE STREETS, the list of songs that pop up throughout KILLER WORKOUT are astounding in their badness. But that's "so bad it's good" badness I'm talking about my friends, not the "so bad it's just plain bad" kind. It's the kind of thing you wish you owned on cassette tape. Not C.D. Fuckin' cassette!!!

F.Y.I., my favorite tracks here are "Aerobicide," which is the sort-of theme song considering AEROBICIDE is KILLER WORKOUT's "other" title, "Knockout," which plays over the scenes of Chuck and Jenny hanging out together, "Only You Tonight," which is the song that plays over the very first aerobics/dance routine padding scene of the movie, "Love Is A Four Letter Word" which plays over the second aerobics scene, and "Woman On Fire" which plays over the very final aerobics montage that assaults our eyes during the end credits. I also am required by law to mention the song entitled "Rock & Rock," simply because "Rock & Rock" might actually be the worst song title ever dreamed up in the entire span of human history.

"Aerobicide" is basically just about exercising (bum, bum, bum! ...to death!!!), while "Rock & Rock" is about rocking and, um, rocking. "Knockout" is about how salaciously scrumptious Jenny is. It may as well be called "Dude, That Chick Is Hot." The lyrics might go a bit like this: "Dude, that chick is hot! Woah-oh! So fuckin' hot. Oh yeah! Check out her boobies! They are top-shelf, man! I totally wanna have sex with that chick! Bay-beh!" Hilariously, if I told you those were the actual lyrics, you'd probably laugh in my face, but the reality is that such a claim isn't really that far from the truth. All the songs are either about sex, exercising, rocking, love, or how awesome it is to be as bone-able as Jenny. I imagine that there's at least one song that I missed somewhere on the soundtrack that's actually about having Jenny having sex with someone she loves while exercising, rocking out, and contemplating her own bottomless hotness.

Yeah! Sheeeeeee's... a knockout!!! Better watch out! She'll take you out!

Christ, this crapola puts me on cloud frickin' nine, dudes n' dudettes. That may mean I have serious psychological problems, but, if that is indeed the case, then so be it. Sheeeeeee's... a knockout!!!

It is frustrating to note, then, that the audio of the movie is pretty wonky. It varies wildly. Sometimes it's way too quiet, and other times it's way too loud. Like really, really loud. Like freakishly loud. Like... as loud as Lady Gaga's wardrobe (for the record, her music might suck and her fashion sense might be baffling, but the bitch could take a ride on my disco stick anytime).

Anyway, all this sonic instability naturally means that when it's loud you turn the volume down, but then it gets quiet again and you have to turn the volume up. But then when the volume's up because of how quiet it was, suddenly it'll get shockingly loud and you'll have to turn the volume back down again, for fear of noise complaints from the old lady next door with the ill-tempered chihuahua and the Easter decorations on her apartment door that she leaves up all year long until Christmas rolls around even though Easter fucking ended eight fucking months ago you irritating old bitch, I'm gonna kill you, arrrrrrrrg!!!

Ahem. Sorry 'bout that. Happens sometimes. Where was I? Oh yes, the piss-poor audio on my copy of KILLER WORKOUT.

As I was saying, the audio of the movie is pretty wonky. At first I thought it was just my tape, 'cause it looks like it's been through some rough times over the many years it spent as rental fodder before I rescued it from such derogatory, destructive conditions. But then I picked up a D.V.D.-R copy from Stumpy-Disks.com, and the audio was about the same. Furthermore, I've read several reviews of KILLER WORKOUT since, and it seems like the audio problem is a common one, so I blame it more on the filmmakers (and their decision to have the music almost never, ever, ever stop playing, even when it's in danger of drowning out crucial pieces of dialogue) than on my poor, innocent, put-upon V.H.S. copy. My guess is that either the audio mix was fucked up by amateurs in the post-production, or the audio recording was fucked up by similar amateurs during the actual shooting. Who knows? Maybe it was both. In any case, the audio on KILLER WORKOUT blows. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just an extraordinary coincidence that so many copies seem to share the same problems. Yeah, and maybe The Bible Code isn't just a fabrication created by delusional crackpots who don't understand the notion that if you're determined to find something you ultimately will regardless of whether it was really ever there or not. Maybe. But I doubt it.

Whatever. If anybody out there does, by chance, have a video of KILLER WORKOUT with pristine audio, let me know. I'll give you a hug or something.

Although its Bearded Weirdo "tally o' splatter" grade is depressingly low for a slasher flick, KILLER WORKOUT more than makes up for it with an incredibly high rating on the patented Bearded Weirdo "Erection-O-Meter." Despite the scant instances of full-on nipple, and the flat-out nonexistence of any bush or twat, KILLER WORKOUT manages to achieve the almost impossible. Without showing more than a few, fleeting glimpses of true gratuitous nudity, this movie earns itself a "Rock-Hard Super-Chubby" rating on Erection-O-Meter, purely on the strength of it's nearly endless parade of skeezy retro-babes thrusting their tits out and wobblin' their asses back n' forth in a series of thinly disguised sexual pantomimes disguised as "aerobic exercises." There more than enough sweaty, toned female bodies clad in body-hugging neon leotards here to please even the most voraciously masturbating 80's bimbo junkie. And since I am a voraciously masturbating 80's bimbo junkie, I would fuckin' know. Swear to god, if I had been around for more of the 1980's, I would've spent most of my time hanging around Motley Crue concerts and Rhonda's Workout-esque health spas, wearing a stained n' tattered overcoat, spankin' my salami to the image of all those tight li'l buns and gravity-defying hairdo's. I'm a dirty, deviant lecher. Who cares? Leave me alone.

Couple all that seedy "naughty old pervert" exploitation action with a stellar soundtrack defined by a truly terrible score composed solely on a Casio and a collection of embarrassingly godawful/enthusiastically kick-ass pop songs, then throw in one of the most inane slasher signature weapons ever employed by a bloodthirsty psychopath in horror movie history, sprinkle liberally with mounds of wickedly bad giggle-inducing dialogue (from Morgan, to unseen recipient on other end of police radio: "You get over to the lab and tell that college boy, if he doesn't have that report ready in thirty minutes, I'm gonna come over there and do an autopsy on his face!!!" ...from Rhonda to Jaimy "Just teach the class and stop showing off your tits and your tight little ass!!!") and altogether you got yourself one prime piece of entertainment awesomeness.

This, fellow freaks n' geeks, is a paragon of cinematic suckiness, a crossbreed comprised of equal parts lame 80's slasher flick, lame 80's aerobicsploitation flick, and lame 80's karate cop action flick. It feels somewhat like the inbred love child you might from an unholy union between ACTION JACKSON, ALYSSA MILANO'S TEEN STEAM, and CHEERLEADER CAMP. Imagine if Crockett and Tubbs of Miami Vice got together n' gang-raped Jane Fonda, then raised the resulting offspring on little more than spoiled macaroni n' cheese and S.O.V. horror movies. KILLER WORKOUT is as shallow and vacuous as the kind of people who actually did frequent fitness centers like Rhonda's Workout back in the 1980's.

Sounds fun to me.

Having said all that, I must confess that, although I like it a lot, I don't find KILLER WORKOUT quite as entertaining as I know many other bad movie enthusiasts do. I simply cannot look past how unequivocally detestable the audio mix is, and, once again, unless new evidence suggests otherwise, I will continue to refuse to blame by admittedly beat-up V.H.S. copy in favor of blaming the actually filmmakers behind this abominable auditory anomaly. In the end, I can't give this otherwise shining video gem a perfect score. Maybe if the sound was cleaned up a bit, maybe if a few more of the corny synth-pop songs were as memorable as "Knockout" and "Woman On Fire," maybe if there were just a few more exposed knockers or sequences of graphic bloodshed, maybe then I could give KILLER WORKOUT a perfect score. For now, it'll just to have to settle for a near-perfect score. In the end, this is a definite must-have for anyone with a taste for trashy bottom-shelf slasher badness, and an insatiable appetite for sleaze, cheese, n' exploitation. It's particularly worth your time if you're a nostalgic Decade Of Excess-fixated pop culture buff with a weakness for craptastic synthesizer-dependent movie soundtrack ballads.


Also, if you just so happen to be a voraciously masturbating 80's bimbo junkie, you might want to pick it up. That, or just go ahead n' watch Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" music video for the sixtieth time. Whichever.

Until next slime...
Stay sick!
Your pickled pal,
William Weird.



Rating: 4 out of 5 grue-speckled day-glo pink legwarmers
Recommendation: buy it
Best moment: Jaimy's topless slit-throat seduction in dreamland