As "Killer Workout" opens, a young model named Valerie learns that she's been hired for a major shoot, but that night, when she uses a tanning bed at a health & fitness spa, there's a bad accident, causing the machine to burn her. Years later, her twin sister Rhonda (Marcia Karr) is running her own spa, and the clientèle soon start to get killed by some psycho.
As a low budget slasher designed to cash in on the fitness craze of the 1980s (and this movie just screams 1980s throughout), this would make agreeable viewing, alone or as a double feature with the equally silly "Death Spa". Overall, it's not as outrageously tacky as one might wish it to be, nor is it as hilarious in its awfulness as would be appreciated. Still, people looking to have a bad movie night would likely have a good time with this one.
There's plenty of padding, but it's padding of the kind that many audience members will appreciate, with leering shots of well choreographed dancers grinding along to some insidiously catchy 80s style pop. The ladies are lovely, and the men are studly; their performances add a bit to the fun. Karr is entertainingly bitchy, while David James Campbell ("Scarecrows") is the required weary detective on the case. Ted Prior, brother of writer / director David A. Prior, and Fritz Matthews co-star; they also did "Deadly Prey" for David A. P. the same year as this. Teresa Van der Woude ("Night Visitor") and Joel Hoffman ("Pumpkinhead") have smaller roles.
The much too talky finale and the resolution are not terribly satisfying, but getting there is still enjoyable.
Six out of 10.
