Second Clue: March's Mystery Movie

Clue #2: This month's movie was written and directed by a long time genre actor.

Tape Freaks Presents: March's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, March 6th @ 7:00pm, only $5!

****Purchase advance ticket here****

Aerobics-sploitation: The 80's Horror Aerobics Obsession

Guest post: Tim Holly is one half of Tape Freaks, but he's usually too busy designing and printing all our merchandise to write posts, luckily he found time this month to write this killer list post ♥

Jane Fonda's widely popular workout videos, coupled with the relentlessness of the 80s fitness obsession, cemented aerobics in our pop culture lexicon. From hugely successful movies like Flashdance to televised aerobics competitions, it's popularity in it's heyday was hard to ignore, causing many creators to jump on the bandwagon hoping to cash in while the checks were still good. Horror directors (never ones to shy away from he latest craze) were no exception, resulting in some strange inclusions in otherwise workout-free films. Here are some of our favorite horror films featuring aerobics:




Murder Rock (aka Dancing Death): Even the Italians got in on the aerobic action with Lucio Fulci making a murder-filled version of Flashdance. It takes place in a NYC dance school where a mystery killer is murdering the students by running them through the breast with a hat pin. How did they shoehorn aerobics into this movie? This is more a dance school movie but the routines are very much in the Aerobics vein.

Blood Diner: Jackie Kong's horror-comedy remake of Blood Feast is about a couple of brothers who run a diner that serves people to people. How did she shoehorn aerobics into this movie? While one of the brothers is out roaming the city hunting for fresh meat, there's a cut to a Nude Aerobics studio... A wacky collision course is bound to ensue! 

The Stay Awake: A group of high school girls have organized a lock-in to raise money for their school. Unfortunately, they've also locked in a killer hellbent on revenge. How did they shoehorn aerobics into this movie? In the middle of the night the girls have an aerobics session in the empty gym, because why wouldn't they?

Death Spa: Someone is wreaking havoc on the worlds most needlessly high-tech gym, but is this a ghost haunting the gym, or just a maniacal killer making it look that way? How did they shoehorn aerobics into this movie? Featuring aerobics in this one actually makes sense, considering the whole movie takes place in a gym. (However, the filmmakers clearly thought "spa" and "gym" were entirely interchangeable terms, which doesn't feel accurate.) This movie is wild in all the best ways, if you missed it when we screened it years ago, add it to your "to watch" list!

Killer Workout (aka Aerobicide): A pretty straightforward slasher-whodunnit movie where members of a local aerobics gym are picked off one at a time in interesting ways. How did they shoehorn aerobics into this movie? Again this one is entirely built around the aerobics so good on them for going all in! We found this one to be a little tedious when we watched it, but we should probably give it a second watch to be sure we judged it fairly.

Ninja III: The Domination: This installment is tenuously connected to the previous movies in the series. It opens on an incredible shootout and car chase on a golf course, that leads our titular ninja to a utility worker who's out on a call. The only way he can escape the hell raining down on him, is by possessing the utility worker so she'll go on a killing spree to seeking revenge on his behalf. How on earth did they shoehorn aerobics into this movie? While picking off LAPD cops one by one, our utility worker finds time to maintain her day job and her side gig as an aerobics instructor. Another one we highly recommend, featuring Sho Kosugi, and a scene that will forever change the way you look at V8.

Bonus:

Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout: Horror icon Linnea Quigley decided to cash in on her notoriety and delivered her own version of the Jane Fonda workout tape. Complete with zombies and a slumber party massacre workout routine!

March's Mystery Movie: First Clue

Clue #1: This month's movie is likely the only 80s aerobics-sploitation drama that's unintentionally full of humor.

Tape Freaks Presents: March's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, March 6th @ 7:00pm, only $5!

****Purchase advance ticket here****

February's Mystery Movie: Third Clue

Clue#3: The director of this month's movie also directed one of each of our top favorite films (that's a different movie for each of us). Double bonus points if you can guess the titles of each of those films!

Tape Freaks Presents: December's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, February 6th @ 7:00pm, only $5!

****Purchase advance ticket here****

Colette’s Wildcard Birthday Movie: Revenge

(Content Warning: This film begins with a sexual assault, and sexual assault is discussed in multiple sections below.)

This movie was on our "to watch" list for a long time, I wish we'd watched it earlier! I'm always hesitant to watch flicks in the rape-revenge category, but honestly, this movie was a breath of fresh air.

Plot unfolds something like this: The night before his annual desert hunting retreat, Richard, his two friends, and his mistress (Jen) take part in a night of partying and drug fueled debauchery. The next morning, Richard leaves Jen with his two friends while he runs into town. Nothing good comes from this. One of the fiends* decides he's entitled to Jen's body, so he rapes her. The other friend walks in on his buddy just in time to save Jen, but opts to ignore her peril and go for a swim instead. Richard returns from town and upon discovering what's transpired, decides Jen has become a liability. Jen is now trapped in the middle of the desert with three men she thought she was safe with; but let's not forget the title of this little movie... [*"Fiend" was a typo, but it feels like it was meant to be.]

Not your usual rape-revenge film: Men tend to shoot rape scenes as though they are sex scenes, use sexual violence as shorthand for inexcusable evil, and tend use sexual brutalization of female protagonists as the harrowing source of their strength. These kinds of depictions are damaging to our societal views of women, and they're also detrimental to our societal understanding of sexual assault. Rape depicted as an extension of sex reinforces the views that rape is another form of sex (which it ABSOLUTELY is not). When sexual assault is used to communicate over the top evil, we forget that these atrocities are committed by people we know personally and interact with on a daily basis. When sexual brutalization is used as the source of a woman's strength, we erase that sexual assault can destroy someone's mental well being, and leaves a victim with a lifetime of trying to heal and live with their assault. All of that is bad. However, when we see the complexity of sexual assault in film (and other media), we start to get a better picture of what it means to everyone involved, and we absolutely need more of that kind of representation in our media at the moment.

Written and directed with complexity in mind: Coralie Fargeat doesn't use any of the tropes mentioned above, and instead gives you just enough context to know that sexual assault occurs, without exploiting the act for titillation purposes. The assault is also mostly seen through the eyes of a bystander who is willingly ignoring her assault. Jen's brutalization is also not the sole source of her strength, she's pushed to the edge not by the acts of her rapist, but by the betrayal of her (married) boyfriend. All of this makes this movie more nuanced than most movies containing a rape scene, never mind a rape-revenge flick, and it's honestly 400 kinds of refreshing.

Between 9 and 12 pints (or just over a gallon): That's how much blood the human body contains, but by the end of this film, they're getting close to Dead Alive levels of blood use, even though there are only 4 characters in the entire film. It sort of goes from sort of funny, to comical, to just wild by the end of the film.

But did we like it?: Hell yes! It was far more satisfying than we thought it would be, on just about every level. I would watch this movie again in a heartbeat, and I really need a pair of those earrings.

February's Mystery Movie: Second Clue

Clue#2: This month's movie features a friendship theme that doesn't get much play in films, especially from the time period.

Tape Freaks Presents: December's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, February 6th @ 7:00pm, only $5!

****Purchase advance ticket here****

February's Mystery Movie: First Clue

Clue#1: This month's movie is an underrated dark comedy with a dash of horror. 

Tape Freaks Presents: December's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, February 6th @ 7:00pm, only $5!

****Purchase advance ticket here****