Aerobicide

Aero-bicide (aka Killer Workout) (1986)

This is another 80s slasher movie that tried to cash in on the popularity of the subgenre. You have someone killing off the beautiful people that workout at a local gym. The police are baffled and can’t come up with any suspects. The best part is that in spite of a half dozen bodies showing up over what seems like a couple of days it never occurs to anyone to shut the place down. In fact because of some terrible editing it seems that in spite of finding a pair of fresh victims that aren’t even cold they didn’t cancel the Aerobics class next door! After a lot of really boring shit and I do mean a lot, we finally get to see the killer and that persons motivation. It is almost as retarded as the rest of the movie, almost…

This is another “gem” from director David A. Prior (Sledgehammer) that isn’t available on DVD for a good reason. This thing is just awful and a mess. I can’t even bring myself to call Prior a filmmaker because Aero-bicide is nothing more than a series of barely related kills that are poorly executed lacking any decent gore. Wrap these scenes around a ton of close up footage of beautiful women working out with their assets barely contained in the jiggling spandex and put a stupid, flimsy plot on top tying it all together. Hell for several of the early kills the weapon of choice is an oversized safety pin, that shouldn’t really do anything but piss off the person you just poked! This is even more baffling after the identity of the killer is revealed and a couple of the early victims would have slapped the shit out of her! Now at some point the killer does switch to the more traditional pointy weapon of a knife, but by then the proceedings are well on their way to Sucksville.

Let me see if I can find any positives. The body count is high, about 10 I think. Though again the kills are badly done and the effects work sucks. You get to see some “vintage” 80s hair. Oh and there is one killer fistfight with a couple of pumped up dudes going mano y mano. But the one thing that I’ll always remember will be the spandex covered butts of all those lovely ladies. It seems that a good third of the movie is just watching them work out. Given the rest of the proceedings that is probably a good thing.

Guess what? I am going to recommend that everyone pass on Aero-bicide (aka Killer Workout). There are some movies that deserve a shot on DVD and then there are some that never should have been put out on VHS. Don’t waste your time.

½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer