Killer Workout

Fun low-rent slasher schlock from the mid-80s

After a woman is burned in a horrible tanning salon accident, her sister (Marcia Karr) opens a gym in Los Angeles where the clients start dying one-by-one. David Campbell plays the grim detective, Ted Prior a new employee at the gym and Fritz Matthews a weirdo tough guy client.

“Killer Workout” (1987) is cut-rate slasher schlock focused around (big surprise) a gym in the Hollywood area. To be expected, there are a lot of shots of the women working out, mostly aerobic exercise, but don’t expect the voluptuous females in “Heavenly Bodies” (1984), although a few of the ladies are a’right, e.g. Teresa Van der Woude (Jaimy) and Dianne Copeland (Debbie).

The soundtrack is glaring mid-80’s pop (with the requisite electronic drums) while the dialog & acting are mostly bad, but in an amusing way, like the cast/crew had fun shooting. Meanwhile there’s some unexpected martial-arts action and a fairly long chase on foot. The first half is too one-dimensional in that it concentrates on events at the gym, but the second half opens things up a bit. The reveal in the third act surprised me.

Bottom line: It’s a cheap and quietly laugh-inducing 80’s slasher, but fairly entertaining.

The movie runs 1 hour, 25 minutes and was shot in Beverly Hills, North Hollywood and Sun Valley, Los Angeles.

GRADE: C