It doesn’t get more 80s than 1987’s Aerobicide, a rather ludicrous slasher film that is also known as Killer Workout.
The clients and the staff at Rhonda’s Work-Out are in danger. People are being murdered inside the gym, left and right. One member of the gym is slashed to death in the showers. Another one is beaten to death with a barbell while his friend is killed with a very large safety pin. One instructors ends up hanging in a closet while another is stabbed to death in a locker room. A group of teens show up to spray graffiti on the outside of the club and they all end up getting murdered as well.
Most people would assume that, with all of those murders going on, that the place would be closed down or, at the very least, people would stop frequenting the gym. But no, the opposite happens. Every murder is followed by an aerobics class, in which the camera shamelessly lingers on the lycra-clad participants, none of whom seem to be particularly concerned about working out at a crime scene. ( If your body’s looking too big, one of the film’s many songs tells us, Like a hippo or a pig/ Gotta workout/ gotta work out….) The gym’s owner, Rhonda Johnson (Marica Karr), doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned about the gym getting a bad reputation as a result of all the murders. Instead, she’s more annoyed with her surviving instructors, snapping at one, “Stop showing off your tits and that tight little ass!” Personally, I would think looking good would be a top priority for someone working at a gym but apparently, Rhonda feels differently.
(Then again, if people were being murdered at my gym, I’d probably cancel my membership, despite the fact that my gym is only a few blocks away from my house and most of the people who go there are relatively cool. That said, the main reason why I signed up for a membership was so my sister could get a discount on her membership fees. Personally, I prefer running.)
Even if Rhonda refuses to close the gym, you would think that Lt. Morgan (David James Campbell) would make sure that the gym had a full-time police presence. Eventually, Morgan does assign one policeman to watch the gym but that’s only after several murders have already occurred and that one policeman’s presence doesn’t really do much good. Then again, Lt. Morgan never comes across as being a particularly good cop. Morgan is spectacularly bad at his job, which wouldn’t be a huge problem if not for the fact that Morgan is also the hero of the film. Eventually, he does figure out that the murders are connected to a tragic tanning bed accident but it’s hard to say how exactly he managed to do that. Rather than actually showing us Lt. Morgan gathering clues and drawing conclusions, the film just has him randomly blurt stuff out.
It’s all pretty ridiculous but, because the film is such a film of it’s time, it’s also rather fascinating. Killer Workout may not have been the only or even the first film to combine Flashdance with slasher chills but it is the first one to feature a song with lyrics like, “It’s the perfect body you’re looking for/it’s aerobocide.” This is one of those films where you come for the big hair and the 80s fashions and the bass-heavy score and you stay for the ludicrous plot twists, the overacting, the overheated dialogue, and the out-of-nowhere plot twists that dominate the film’s final 30 minutes. It’s not necessarily a “good” film but I defy anyone to look away once it begins.
Previous Guilty Pleasures
- Half-Baked
- Save The Last Dance
- Every Rose Has Its Thorns
- The Jeremy Kyle Show
- Invasion USA
- The Golden Child
- Final Destination 2
- Paparazzi
- The Principal
- The Substitute
- Terror In The Family
- Pandorum
- Lambada
- Fear
- Cocktail
- Keep Off The Grass
- Girls, Girls, Girls
- Class
- Tart
- King Kong vs. Godzilla
- Hawk the Slayer
- Battle Beyond the Stars
- Meridian
- Walk of Shame
- From Justin To Kelly
- Project Greenlight
- Sex Decoy: Love Stings
- Swimfan
- On the Line
- Wolfen
- Hail Caesar!
- It’s So Cold In The D
- In the Mix
- Healed By Grace
- Valley of the Dolls
- The Legend of Billie Jean
- Death Wish
- Shipping Wars
- Ghost Whisperer
- Parking Wars
- The Dead Are After Me
- Harper’s Island
- The Resurrection of Gavin Stone
- Paranormal State
- Utopia
- Bar Rescue
- The Powers of Matthew Star
- Spiker
- Heavenly Bodies
- Maid in Manhattan
- Rage and Honor
- Saved By The Bell 3. 21 “No Hope With Dope”
- Happy Gilmore
- Solarbabies
- The Dawn of Correction
- Once You Understand
- The Voyeurs
- Robot Jox
- Teen Wolf
- The Running Man
- Double Dragon
- Backtrack
- Julie and Jack
- Karate Warrior
- Invaders From Mars
- Cloverfield