This hour long opus ranks with the notorious Alyssa Milano workout video TEEN STEAM (1988) and the even more notorious Linda Blair hosted HOW TO GET REVENGE (1989). This means LINNEA QUIGLEY’S HORROR WORKOUT, released to unsuspecting video stores in 1990, is completely ridiculous, with its most endearing aspect being the outrageously dated fashions, music and hairstyles on display. It’s a time-capsule from an era in which such monumental silliness wasn’t merely tolerated but embraced wholeheartedly.
It begins with 1980s scream queen Linnea Quigley in the shower, soaping up her breasts. Next we see her, with extremely poofy hair, lounging in a leather bikini on the floor of a castle, where she introduces herself as “the girl who usually gets impaled by antlers or eaten by zombies in movies,” accompanied by clips of her work in CREEPAZOIDS, SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMBALL BOWLERAMA and HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS. After roughly ten minutes of her spiel, laced with the expected dumb-ass quips (“Ginger Rogers had Fred Astaire, I have Black & Decker”), Quigley gets around to discussing the importance of working out.
Female workout videos, let’s not forget, proliferated in the 1980s, with Jane Fonda and Kathy Smith being the queens (and Richard Simmons and Jake Steinfeld representing the male workout contingent). In those pre-internet days such fare was quite popular with poon hounds, about which this video is very aware. Close-ups of Quigley’s nether regions are common, and at one point she confronts the viewer with the admonition “I know what you’re doing when you watch my movies—how many calories do you think that burns?”
Anyway: following a few minutes of aerobics in front of a fireplace to some quintessentially eighties synthesizer music, we see Quigley jogging through a cemetery in the hills of Tusunga, CA. Several zombies rise and follow her to a swimming pool, where she reprimands them for “falling apart”—a point she accentuates by ripping off a zombie’s arm. She then leads the crowd in a bout of poolside aerobics, at the end of which everyone jumps into the water.
Next we’re in a living room sporting posters for several Linnea Quigley movies, with she and some gal pals (one of whom is played by fellow scream queen Cynthia Garris, who also choreographed the workout scenes) viewing clips from NIGHTMARE SISTERS (directed by the present video’s executive producer David DeCoteau), followed by Quigley taking the lead in yet another crotch shot-heavy aerobics routine. It ends with the lights going out and some clumsily staged slasher movie business—with Quigley leaving to check the fuse box and the remaining ladies getting picked off by an axe-wielding nut wearing a Ronald Reagan mask—that doesn’t work as straightforward horror moviemaking or as parody.
About the filming of LINNEA QUIGLEY’S HORROR WORKOUT, Quigley reports that it was “a nightmare,” as “We only had two days to do it and hardly any money.” That’s evident in a video whose outdoor filming was reportedly broken up at one point by firemen; it’s a shame the bust wasn’t included in the finished product, as it sounds more interesting than anything therein.
Vital Statistics
LINNEA QUIGLEY’S HORROR WORKOUT
Cinema Home Video Productions/Legacy Features
Director: Hal Kennedy
Producer: Fred Kennamer
Screenplay: Hal Kennedy
Cinematography: Mike Seaman
Editing: Clayton Woolley
Cast: Linnea Quigley, “B. Jane Holzer” (Cynthia Garris), Amy Hunt, Victoria Nesbitt, Kristine Seeley, Jeffrey Bowser, Patricia Harras, Randall Harvey, Erica Horn, Brent Jasmer, Prince Jones, Heather Jean McKenzie, Cyndi Newton, Kathi Obrecht, Rico Telles, Clayton Woolley, Cleve Hall