Killer Workout

Plot synopsis:
Aerobics dance instructor Valerie arrives home and checks her answering machine to learn that she has gotten a modeling job for the cover of a magazine. She head to the Second Sun tanning salon for some tanning, but her tanning bed short circuits and flames burn her.At Rhonda's Work-Out, the owner and manager Rhonda is teaching Jaimy's class. Afterwords, Jimmy asks Rhonda out on a date and she turns him down. Rhonda then angrily tells Jaimy to stop arriving late. In the women's locker room, Rachel stays in the showers after everyone else leaves, and the lights are suddenly turned off. An unseen person wearing all black clothing enters and stabs Rhonda to death with a large safety pin. Jaimy almost walks into the locker room, but decides to go into the men's locker room, where she checks out the jockstraps. Rhonda walks in and laughs at Jaimy. Jaimy then goes into the women's locker room to clean up. After being frightened by an artificial arm falling from one locker, she is startled by Rachel's dead body falling from another.LAPD officers soon arrive and investigate the scene. The detective in charge of the investigation, Lieutenant Morgan, finds a bloody knitting needle inside the locker-coffin. He goes to Rhonda and Jaimy and asks them about Diane Matthews, who's locker was the storage area of the corpse.The next day, a couple of weightlifters are talking about Rachel's murder, but they quickly shut up when Rhonda scolds them. Rhonda next tells Jaimy to teach her class and stop "showing off". Rhonda finds Chuck Dawson in her office, looking through her files. He says that Rhonda's "senior partner", Mr. Erickson, has hired Chuck.Outside, Jimmy tells Chuck to stay away from Rhonda, and the two men fight. Debbie, clearly impressed by Chuck's combat skills, offers the man a ride, and they drive to Debbie's house, where Chuck asks for Jimmy's home address. While Debbie is inside, Chuck calls Mr. Erickson and tells him he is "working on it". Debbie gives Chuck the address and the two of them kiss.A little later, Jimmy is watching some aerobics classes as Diane eyes him. She asks him out, and Jimmy declines. Diane walks home and she is followed by someone in a car (who checks on a gun in the glove compartment). Diane gets home, and Morgan is outside by his own car. He knocks on her door, but she backs away, too frightened to answer. However, the unseen killer is inside. Diane is stabbed to death with the large safety pin. Morgan bursts inside as the killer jumps out a window and runs away. The lieutenant returns to his car to report it, and he is told that the knitting needle belonged to Diane, but is not the murder weapon, a fact which Morgan recently surmised.The next day, Rhonda is surprised by Jimmy showing up at the gym. He tells her: "Just relax, I'm not some kind of crazy killer."That evening, Debbie, Marsha, and Curtis deface the gym's front windows with spray paint (painting "Aerobicide" and "Death Spa") and they run away. While in the back of the gym, Curtis is attacked and stabbed in the neck by the killer with a large knife. Marsha goes looking for him when the killer grabs her too and slices her throat open. Debbie finds Curtis' dead body and runs back to her car. The killer jumps on top of the convertible roof and stabs through the fabric roof until one blow finally hits Debbie and kills her.The unseen killer returns to the gym where a weight lifter is working on a weight machine that has been loosened, and he is hit and falls to the floor. The killer is waiting to whack him in the face with a weight. The man's weightlifting friend finds him dead and he too is subsequently stabbed in the head with the pin. Tommy walks in and finds both men dead. Jaimy sees him by the bodies and screams. Chuck runs in and, mistakenly thinking that Tommy is the killer, beats him up. Later the police arrive and take the two latest dead victims away. Lt. Morgan mentions the coincidence that Chuck began work at soon as the killing started and that he "took Tommy out like a pro". Tommy, in handcuffs and waiting alone in the mens locker room, is also murdered by the real killer. His body is taken away too as one of the paramedics says: "See you tomorrow Lieutenant." Morgan tells Chuck that things have "picked up" sine has been there.The next morning, Morgan visits Rhonda in her office and after pointing out that she seems "handy" with a letter opener. He tells her he has several suspects but needs a motive. Meanwhile, Chuck snoops around Jimmy's house and discovers an assortment of guns as well as many pictures of Rhonda. Later, goes to Rhonda's place here Jimmy starts another fistfight with him. Chuck is finally kicked into the swimming pool and Jimmy leaves. Chuck comes around in Rhonda's house, and Morgan is there. The police lieutenant says that he knows that Chuck is really a private investigator and Chuck tells him that he was hired by Mr. Erickson and tells him about Jimmy's place and his locker. Earlier, Rhonda had asked Chuck at what kind of pictures he had. Morgan tells Chuck to get out of town and leave the investigation of Rhonda and of her connection to the murders to the police.Cathy cleans out her locker and tells Rhonda that she is leaving. She goes to say good-bye to Jaimy and finds her dead. Cathy runs but the still unseen killer catches her. Later, Officer Peterson arrives and finds both women dead. Morgan then gets a call from some who has made a background check on Rhonda.Chuck is leaving from the back of the gym when Jimmy runs him down with his car. Jimmy gets out and finishes Chuck off by stabbing him with a knife.Morgan then goes to see Rhonda (who has just put on a wig over her scarred bald head). Morgan tells her that he made a background check on her and knows that she is formerly Valerie, who was burned five years ago. Morgan then arrests her, thinking that she killed all those people out of jealousy that they were beautiful to her while she is forced to hide her burn scars over her layers of clothing. In the car on their way to the station, Morgan is informed that Chuck was killed and witnesses saw Jimmy do it.Morgan chases Jimmy down, and he says he knows that he did not kill anybody, suggesting that Rhonda did it all. Jimmy hits the officer, leaving to see Rhonda. He turns the lights on in the locker room and reacts to Rhonda's nude, badly burnt body. She gets a gun out of her locker and shoots him. Dying, Jimmy tells Rhonda that he loves her and did not want to see her get caught. Rhonda thanks him and then finished him off by shooting him again.A few days later, Morgan takes Rhonda to a secluded area. He tells her about his law enforcing father and the mysterious disappearance of a guilty man who the courts let go on a legal technicality. Morgan gets out his gun and points it at Rhonda, aware that she really did kill all those 12 people and that Jimmy protected her out of love. Morgan points out that he would be "crossing the line" by killing her in a cold-blooded vigilante murder, but that it must be done. He forces her to dig a hole in the ground as her own grave. Rhonda quickly grabs the shovel and pounds the lieutenant on his head, killing him. She then buries his body in the freshly dug grave.In the final scene, a few days later, Rhonda is back in her office at her workout gym where her new assistant reads to her the latest advertisement for Rhonda's Work Out and is assured that the gym will be "packed with gorgeous bodies." Rhonda tells her that she is counting on it. When she is alone, Rhonda brings out from her desk her key chain... which has the large safety pin on it.

Tags: murder

Review:
This is, essentially, what Killer Workout is about following a series of murders that take place in this gym (Rhonda's Gym) by a safety pin wielding mad person, then getting to see a sexy workout montage set to corny synth music over and over.This is not a bad thing if you are into cheesy b-grade movies like myself.
The plot is pretty uninspired but it works and there are even a few surprising twists towards the end.All in all, the movie is bad but it has a lot of charm.
The movie is also a time capsule that lets us see just how ridiculous the 80s fitness craze got.In the end, Killer Workout comes highly recommended for the bad movie enthusiast, others might want to stay away..
It's better than good; the gratuitous nudity, the gratuitous close ups of women in lycra, the dumb death scenes, shockingly bad production and acting values, it's a work of suppressed genius!
One of the all time great so bad they're good movies every passing minute is a work of art.
Best described as a cross between a splatter movie and a CHER fitness video (!), AEROBICIDE (as it's known in the UK) tells the tale of a psychopathic nut that is killing the members of a fitness class one by one with a giant safety pin!
What a brave bunch!Now I know it's customary in a slasher movie to show the odd bit of T&A, but KILLER WORKOUT manages to completely pad the film full of it!
Director Prior does his best to keep a bit of cleavage in every shot including most of the murder scenes.It does not take long for the unseen killer to get hastily back to work, armed with a giant safety pin!
The acting is terrible as you might imagine, and the whole thing can't help but feel rushed and put together with minimal thought.Another great 'cheese point' of the flick comes in one or two fist fights that are down right hilarious.
While it's obviously hampered by the low budget (it's one of those films where the producer/director/actor are all the same person), the cult appeal of this atrocious film is such that I found myself having a great time while watching it.The acting is bad all around, with the possible exception of the actor playing the cop Morgan, who overacts a bit and chews the scenery in a fun way (at least this variety of 'acting' is better than standing around and delivering leaden lines straight off the cue card).
The killer kills people with a giant safety pin, which gives you some idea of the ingenuity of this film (the cleverest thing is the title AEROBICIDE).
Killer workout or Aero-bicide is a tale of a serial killer who preys on victims in a gym.It incorporates both inventive murders using an oversized safety pin and good looking sweaty bodies grooving to an intense 80s sound track.This movie is so damm bad it is great from the hardnosed detective who is so suspicious and unsympathetic it is truly shocking to the undercover private-eye who doles out beatings to angry gym members.The director truly new what he was doing with explicit shots of workouts after every death(you would have thought they would have shut the gym down but no).Overall it clearly is a must see movie with awfull acting,cliched characters and graphic workout shots,I applaud the maker of this film and just hope more people get the opportunity to see it..
Oddly enough, there is a whole little sub-genre of this type of film, so if watching frizz-haired leotards bounce enthusiastically to songs called "Animal Workout" while evading certain death at the hands of a crazed fitness director or bloodthirsty demon is your cup of tea, I'd recommend this or Death Spa. Killer Workout is bad.
Now this director knows how to sell sleaziness.Still a far cry from the Italian sleazy gialli but more than enough to give this bad movie the spice that it needs.Let there be no doubt about it.This movie is bad.Real bad.No,not the Michael Jackson kind.I mean it could be considered awful.But it is so bad and awful that it is good.I mean I laughed almost throughout.It went from one hilarious scene to another.Which was intensified by the fact that everything was taken seriously by director and the actors.Resulting in a parody of the slasher genre without intending it to be.Pay special attention to the detective who thinks of himself as a hard boiled and intelligent cop who is amazingly stupid.There is not one moment in the film where you can look at him in action and say now that is some fine acting.Not a hint of damn,"I got to pay the bills that is why I am in this rotten movie".On top of that the director tries to make a film that combines all the Eighties goodness or badness whatever you prefer resulting in something that I could describe as one huge mistake.
Slasher,kungfu flick,crime film,flashdance type film,you name it is there.And of course enough crotch and boob shots to please the people who like that sort of thing.Who me?I can't deny giggling at some of the gratuitous shots made.It was like,"we are serious film makers trying to film scenes where serious actresses portray some difficult exercises and these are so difficult in fact that the camera has trouble recording them so we have to zoom in to spots we know very well to get back on the right track.Well,we got lost a lot of times."Or some other excuse like this.OK,I admit it I was expecting these shots and thank god they were there.Otherwise the film would not have been nearly as entertaining as it was.Do I really need to explain to you why Killer Workout is not a proper slasher or horror film?
Later, at another place "Rhonda's Work-Out" women are being killed, most often by a giant safety pin.There are a lot of long scenes with exploitive camera-work covering the women doing their workouts to cheesy 80s music in their cheesy '80s outfits (day-glo colors, strange patterns, leg warmers) showing off cleavage, buttocks and big hairstyles.
This is quite possibly the most retarded 80's slasher ever realized, but how can you be harsh on a film that features non-stop images of dozens of gorgeous ladies with exhilarating bodies doing aerobic exercises, taking showers and wandering about in tight gym outfits?
Plenty of time to improvise a plot about a sadist killer slaughtering young health-freaks with a big safety pin (yeah).
"Killer Workout") is recommended in case you want to switch of all your brain functions off for one night, but nevertheless feel like watching a film!
Set in Rhonda's Work-out, an L.A. aerobics gym where the only the gorgeous are welcome (well, with the exception of a token fatty on an exercise bike, presumably there for the hard-bodies to make fun of), Aerobicide sees a killer hacking through the establishment's clientèle with a giant safety pin (!).
Meanwhile, police detective Lt. Morgan (David James Campbell) and private investigator Chuck Dawson (Ted Prior) attempt to uncover the identity of the murderer, and gym owner Rhonda Johnson (Marcia Karr) tries to prevent her customers from cancelling their memberships.As a slasher film, Aerobicide is a complete failure, devoid of scares, tension, or decent kills (there's very little in the way of gore); however, as an opportunity to ogle hot 80s women flaunting their flawless, toned bodies in skimpy lycra outfits, it can't be beat.With the 'horror' regularly punctuated by cheesy 80s dance routines, fans of the female form are guaranteed plenty to enjoy: shapely butt's gyrate, groins thrust, and big breasts jiggle to a hi-energy disco soundtrack, and additional titillation comes in the form of a nekkid bird who gets grilled like a cheese toastie in a sun bed, tasty Teresa Van der Woude whipping her top off during a dream sequence, a victim being killed whilst taking a shower, and buxom Dianne Copeland flashing her ample charms in a bikini that is quite clearly struggling to contain such a well developed physique.Fans of trashy 80s nonsense should also get a kick out of an unbelievably hideous gold and black outfit worn by Rhonda, a couple of ridiculous punch-ups between the gym's beefcake male instructors, one of horror cinema's silliest jump scares in the shape of a spring-loaded rubber arm (which pops out a locker not once, but twice), and a seriously unconvincing wig (to explain more would be to spoil the film, but you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it).If you've watched and enjoyed similarly themed slashers Death Spa and Murderock, then this voyeuristic piece of low-brow entertainment from the days when big hair and leg-warmers ruled the world will no doubt also hit the spot..
If you're ever in the mood for some mindless fun, "Killer Workout" aka, "Aerobicide", is not a bad way to spend some time, especially with some friends.
If you're a slasher fan, forget the bad reviews for Killer Workout, or Aerobicide as I know it.
If you liked this you might also want to check out Fatal Games and Death Spa, which have similar themes to Killer Workout and are entertaining in their own ways..
We may as well establish that the lesser-known category within Slasher flicks, the killer exercise variety, consists of two films: Killer Workout, aka Aerobicide, and seated at the right hand of it - Death Spa, released one year later.
Toss in your average "bad cop" authority figure who's willing to play hardball and a new muscle head employee who's actually a private investigator and you're ready to stir up the contents of a stereotypical 80s cheese-fest.Moments worth cherishing within Killer Workout mostly pertain to the excellently delivered dialog, such as this bread-winner of Shakespearean-level achievement:Typical Workout Jock: I just wanna know one thing.
Killer Workout is a pathetic movie in literally every facet of film-making imaginable.
As "Killer Workout" opens, a young model named Valerie learns that she's been hired for a major shoot, but that night, when she uses a tanning bed at a health & fitness spa, there's a bad accident, causing the machine to burn her.
Years later, her twin sister Rhonda (Marcia Karr) is running her own spa, and the clientèle soon start to get killed by some psycho.As a low budget slasher designed to cash in on the fitness craze of the 1980s (and this movie just screams 1980s throughout), this would make agreeable viewing, alone or as a double feature with the equally silly "Death Spa".
Still, people looking to have a bad movie night would likely have a good time with this one.There's plenty of padding, but it's padding of the kind that many audience members will appreciate, with leering shots of well choreographed dancers grinding along to some insidiously catchy 80s style pop.
A random killings occur at an aerobics studio.Sexy exercising girls are murdered by an unknown maniac.The studio remains constantly open despite the growing pile of bodies.A cop played by David Cambpell of "Deadly Prey" fame starts investigating the crimes."Killer Workout" is VERY cheesy slasher flick that mixes "Flashdance" with "Halloween".The death scenes are plentiful and some of them even occur during various dream sequences.The workout scenes are drawn out and pretty hot,on the other hand the chase scenes are ineptly handled.The songs in "Killer Workout" are some of the cheesiest I have ever heard.7 out of 10.Fans of David Prior,Ted Prior and David Campbell will certainly enjoy this ultra-cheese..
Want to know the secret to making a slasher film set at a fitness center work?
This is the worst slasher film I have ever seen, but every time I was ready to switch the channel, they'd add another scene with the workout girls and I'd stay put.
As a slasher film, Killer Workout fails in every category I can think of.
It was also the only movie I'VE seen, anyhow, which the killer killed people with a large safety pin!
That's right, in Killer Workout, a dumb slasher movie if I've ever seen one, the unseen murderer dispatches his (or her?) victims with an oversized, novelty safety pin.
Director David Prior knew what he was doing when named the movie Killer Workout and not Logical Workout.Cop chases, explosive tanning beds, and hundreds of shots of women's exposed flesh are thrown in for good measure.
The killer uses a giant safety pin for some unexplained reason to kill the victims, having to stab each of them in the neck like ten times.
Workout music, non stop shots of good looking woman in aerobics gear, and terrible acting.
The 80's obsession with aerobics come into full play here, and despite how bad this movie is, it ends up being fun anyway.
KILLER WORKOUT (as retitled for home video) does not have any break dancing Menudo clones like NIGHT TRAIN did, but it has something even better: AEROBICIZING!!THE PLOT: A young ditz manages to fry herself in a tanning bed in the film's opening segment.
Details like those are usually added to confuse viewers into thinking they are watching a story about people rather than a series of contrivances designed to kill off the supporting cast in a horror movie by their relative importance to the plot.
Life is short, and this video (if you can find one) will help make it seem even shorter.What makes AEROBICIDE (the original theatrical title) kind of nifty is that it knows these things, does not dwell on them, and concentrates on the killings, some T&A, and LOTS & LOTS of footage of various leotard and legwarmer festooned big haired '80's hotties (and one fat guy on a stationary bike) working out to the film's atrocious musical score.
Sadly there was no KILLER WORKOUT 2, because I liked the ambiguous good/bad/insane character of the woman scarred by the accident, the fact that there were three homicidal psychopaths in the film clamoring for screen time, and the movie's self awareness about being essentially a low-rent, brutal, misogynistic little Califiornia Aryan parable about the 1980's Yuppie Workout Generation ...
KILLER WORKOUT also features the best weapon of choice - a large safety pin used to off the client's one by one!
Sorting out a bundle of DVD's with my dad to be traded into CEX,I suddenly noticed a DVD in the bundle for a film that I had never heard of before.Taking a look on Amazon Uk,I was surprised to discover that the movie was a near-forgotten late 80's Slasher movie,that sounded like a workout worth taking part in.The plot:Having recently opened a gym,Rhonda Jackson is focused in getting as many people through the doors as possible,and also keeping her less them helpful staff in line.Sadly for Rhonda,the gym's name gets seriously tarnished,when someone begins going round brutally killing members of her staff and the general public.Being desperate to stop the murders from continuing, Det. Lt.
Girl has an accident on a sun bed, flash forward two years later, and someone is killing members of a gym with a giant safety pin.
It doesn't matter though the patrons are more or less seeing the murders downright before their eyes, but still return the next day.So it's up to your atypical grizzled detective from the eighties to solve the crime, not that you'd need a degree in criminology to guess the outcome of the film......it's not exactly Se7en......If you were to take away the prolonged dance sequences and workouts, then you would a have a very short film indeed, and this is because the makers wanted to pad their film, because there isn't much of a plot, and even less of a narrative.So all you can do is sit back and tolerate the garish eighties clothing, the wonderfully ridiculous big hair, and the occasional murder with a giant safety pin.There is some sort of strange twist at the end of the film, featuring the tables being turned, but even though it's only a slight film, you feel like you've sat through a four hour training video on how to use gym equipment safely.Not good, the burn make up almost makes the film worth watching, but at the end of the day, it's only a cash in on the slasher movie.See Death Spa instead..
I have seen a lot of slashers in my time, a lot of cheesy slashers and I have to say that this is the cheesiest of the lot, or at least the cheesiest I've ever seen.Anyway with a title like "Aerobcide" aka "Killer Workout" you basically get what you'd expect maybe a fair amount of aerobics, especially if it's centered on deaths happening in a fitness center.
A "fair amount" is an understatement, because we are given shots of various women doing an aerobic workout literally every 15 minutes, it kinda makes you feel like you're watching a soft porn movie.The plot, well lack of as you'd expect from a movie of this calibare follows a fitness center that's now run by the twin sister of the girl who died in the opening scene in a tanning bed.
Big hair, big boobs, bad music and a giant safety pin.......these are the words to best describe this terrible movie.
The plot is paper thin and ridiculous, the acting is an abomination, the script is completely laughable(the best is the end showdown with the cop and how he worked out who the killer is-it's just so damn terribly written), the clothes are sickening and funny in equal measures, the hair is big, lots of boobs bounce, men wear those cut tee-shirts that show off their stomachs(sickening that men actually wore them!!) and the music is just synthesiser trash that plays over and over again...in almost every scene there is trashy music, boobs and paramedics taking away bodies....and the gym still doesn't close for bereavement!!
These here are the film's best parts.The Bad News: There isn't a whole lot to this that doesn't work.