People were obsessed with fitness in the 1980s. It was everywhere. There was even a product on the toy market called "Get In Shape, Girl." I earnestly pestered my parents to get this for me, but they never did, possibly (and if so, righly) guessing that it would only serve to exacerbate my burgeoning body image issues. Fitness is obviously still a huge industry, but the mid to late 80s is when it exploded, and it even bled over into horror movies, giving us a little cluster of movies that either heavily featured -- or were entirely set in -- health clubs. Such as...
KILLER WORKOUT (1987) -- Oh wow. This movie (which is alternately titled Aerobicide, as in the poster above) is something else. Not good, by any stretch of the imagination, but fascinating. Around 13 minutes of the movie's 85-minute runtime is nothing but scenes of women doing low-impact aerobics and calisthenics -- no story, no character development, just five - and - six - and - reach - and - stretch! The killer's weapon of choice is a comically oversized safety pin. There is burn-victim nudity, which is one of the most perverse things I've ever seen. You'll probably guess who the killer is pretty early on, but the motive is a nice little mystery. More of a mystery than you have any right to expect from a movie like this, at any rate.
NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (1984) -- I know what you might be thinking at this point: If this is III, is there a I and II that I should see first? Great news -- though there are two previous "ninja" movies in this pseudo-series, you don't have to see them to understand what's going on here. Enter the Ninja and Revenge of the Ninja are only connected to this movie by name, and barely that. Our Ninja III heroine is a telephone linewoman by day and an aerobics instructor by ... other days. She is possessed by the evil spirit of a dead ninja who uses her body to exact revenge on the people who killed him, and only through combat with another ninja can she be rid of him! It contains what I'm pretty sure is the only instance in film of someone using V8 juice in foreplay. It's a Cannon film, so that may suggest something to you about its quality, but their Ninja movies are some of their better fare.
DEATH SPA (1989) -- Holy moley, this movie RADIATES 1980s. The clothes, the mullets, the skeeze masquerading as confidence. Death Spa, like its older sister Killer Workout, is set almost entirely in a health club. But Death Spa's setting is a health club of THE FUTURE! Where everything is automated (swipe your card at the bench press and it sets the weights according to your personal needs), which sounds great until you think about how horribly things could go wrong if there's a glitch or a hack. This being a horror movie, you can guess how that goes, and all these shenanigans lead to some cool inventive deaths (the shoulder press death alone is worth the price of admission). (Streaming on Amazon, for free if you have Prime.)
Almost Made the List: DEMONS 2 (Streaming on Shudder.) Apartment building's residents start becoming possessed by demons and patrons of the building's gym try to escape through the parking garage!
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