True story: in the early 80s my grandparents moved to a place in California called Valencia to be near my newborn cousin and watch her grow up in a place called Thousand Oaks and all of that, as grandparents do. This was when I was probably 12 or so and over the next 6 years my mom would get rid of me send me out to lovely Southern California for summer and Christmas vacations. Before I turned 16 and we learned to drive and hang around in the beach towns and LA and Hollywood, I was confined to the apartment complex my grandparents managed and mostly read books and hung around the swimming pool bored as shit for three months. Over time I became friends with some of the tenants there and one of them worked as a cameraman for some NBC something or other and had one of those gigantic but brand new Videotape recorders and one day we decided to make an idiotic video recording of me we called Tarzan’s Son and it was basically me wandering through the shrubs around the apartment complex. Eventually I – in the lead role – ran across some stuffed lion they had won at Magic Mountain and I wrestled it and was now the king of everything or something like that. Now that I’ve written that you might be wondering dear lord what happened to Eric back in the 80s but it was innocent fun and the sole purpose of that long intro was to say that Killer Workout might be just a smidge better than Tarzan’s Son and that smidge would probably be in the form of some shapely female bodies and not me hiding in some bushes.

This really does feel or seem like it is an actual video tape complete with those shitty scratching blips and bleeps and static and color flares and when I watched it stretched out over my big TV I hated it. Everything looked like a smeared fingerprint and by god the constant 80s aerobo-dance-synth grated my last nerve. I do have to be nice and say that whoever the singer was for ALL of those songs seemed to giving it her best shot. “She’s hot she’s so hot she’s got that hot hot body she works so hard to be so hot it’s so hot hot hot so she’s gotta bust to be so hot” or something and they play a version of that song every five minutes to lengthy cuts of women in their “aerobics clothes” jumping and grinding and pumping and humping and working those thighs and butts and well you probably know. And if that’s not necessarily what you’re looking for there’s some 80s beefcake in there for good measure but it’s older style muscly guys not Ryan Reynolds types all shaved with their jeans pulled down to the well you know. They pump iron and flex and fight and punch I think their balls might sneak out of their short shorts and like hi I’m a testicle how do you like me oops and they all have the beginnings of mullets.

Does this intrigue you? Does death by clothes pin and a woman smelling a jock strap because she wants to make it with you want to rent this? Does the sound of bop bop bop slap slap fist fighting sound effects compel you? If so, you might be in business here at Rhonda’s Workout.

A woman gets a phone call in the night! If must be good news because she seems happy! She heads to the local tanning bed to catch some rays because something important is going to happen we guess so she takes off her top and crawls in only to get zapped to death. Shit! This predates Final Destination by four decades so we are left to assume that the F D franchise is a fucking copycat!

Elsewhere and presumably some other time, a woman drives her convertible (Porsche) down some streets in what I’m guessing is the San Fernando Valley. I looked it up and I was wrong I’m sorry but this woman arrives at Rhonda’s Workout place and gets yelled at for being late to work. In the meantime, 20 or so women jump and sweat and gyrate and bend over and jump and smile and really get down to some dance music. Across the room some perv with big muscles eyeballs them like he’s the owner of the goddammed world and they don’t show it but he’s probably working the hog like the super collider and I’m just now realizing how groundbreaking this movie was really was. Below that, his ball falls out of his jockstrap. “Oops!” It says, salutes, urges kids to enlist and climbs back upstairs into its hairy nest. Elsewhere, a lady decides to take a long shower and is immediately murdered by something that looks like a big stick pen but I think they call it a sewing needle.

“Well shit she was hot” says someone as they cart her carcass out of the aerobics room. Elsewhere, someone else is murdered with a giant stick pen. The next day, Rhonda, who owns the joint, finds a tough guy in her office rifling through her file cabinet. “Why are you doing that and who do you think you are??” She demands. “Your partner hired me!” He rubs in her face. “ oh ok well the men’s locker room floor needs mopping!” “oh ok” he mumbles and goes outside to empty the mop bucket and gets in a fist fight with that one pervy guy with the saluting ball from earlier. “Don’t mess with Rhonda!” Perv guy says after getting his ass licked and drives off. “Want to go for a ride in my convertible?” Asks an aerobics lady nearby. “Sure!” he says and musses his hair and hops in her car forgetting or not giving a shit about his first day of work. Soon, more people are murdered and it doesn’t matter if it’s day or not or inside or outside or if someone’s in the other room or anything people are getting stabbed and shot and hung and everything else. I think someone even takes a popped nut to the forehead and wanders around for a few days with a severe concussion until he falls in front of an oncoming bus. That last one might not be in there but it could have been – it might have made this more fun.

But really and essentially – people do aerobics and get killed, both women and perv guys. And there’s a big foot chase through a ship yard. And lots of gyrating humps. And the worst music you’ve ever heard. I mean maybe not but I would be REALLY SURPRISED to hear that was your favorite type of song. I’m think dying disco flopping around on the ground half dead but someone is really trying to make her move type of music.

I’ve been peppering this with pictures Steve Loggins made for me because the ones I’ve found on the webs are all pretty much the same: women bent over in some sort of pose that are likely associated with leg warmers and yoga pants and such and I’m not trying to be crude out here and plus I like my images to have a 600 width and most of the things I found are around 120 and when they’re stretched out they look about as bad as this video did on my big screen tv for god’s sake the humanity how did it ever get to this point is it time for me to return to the soil?

In conclusion this movie is not at all good and not even “aw it’s cute” in that quaint way some things can be like that 80s Alien rip off I liked about Hollywood’s Number 1 Driver what was that called shit come on The Being I thought that was good fun but this thing is not and probably shouldn’t be considered as something to get to unless you’re making a diagram of all of the countless 80s aerobics videos that were produced back then. I guess if you’re doing that I would be really proud of you and encourage you and offer any help I could give but this one sure wasn’t my favorite.

FILED UNDER: LEG WARMERS AND LEG KICKS AND BURNED BOOBIES AND I THINK THAT CAR MODEL WAS A MUSTANG TWO AND TELEPHONES IN THE FRONT YARD AND RETURN TO THE SOIL AND THERES THIS NEW FUCKING GUY AT WORK THAT LAUGHS LIKE A HYENA AND I WANT TO TELL HIM TO SHUT UP JUST SHUT UP PLEASE WONT YOU SHUT UP PLEASE JUST SHUT UP

And, because we’re fair, here’s some beefcake: