Death Spa (1989)
Directed by Michael Fischa
By the end of the slasher craze, every good idea was already taken, used, and even parodied. It was getting rather difficult for companies to think of new ideas, some of them good others of them bad. The idea of a supernatural/slasher movie taking place at a health club surprisingly wasn’t new. Death Spa could really be shown back to back with Killer Workout (1986) aka Aerobicide (hilarious), hell they could be spliced together and who would really know the difference? Although Killer Workout wasn’t supernatural like Death Spa is, you get a lot of the same elements and horrible 80s workout attire.
The plot of the movie is that Michael, the owner of a hip health club in Los Angeles is dealing with a string of crazy events involving women members. Slowly one by one the women are being injured or killed by strange occurrences. Michael’s girlfriend is the first victim, she survives but its greatly injured, blinded in the process. Michael is also dealing with the loss of his wife, a year earlier. His former brother in law David has great tension with Michael and they constantly fight. Is David the one sabotaging Michael’s club? Or is there another unworldly presence running amok?
The acting isn’t really anything to write home about and some of the dialogue is clunky and laughable. William Bumiller plays Michael and he is fairly competent, compared to the rest of the cast that is. You get a wide array of faces, by which I mean hot chicks that look great but can’t act worth a shit. Brenda Bakke plays Laura, Michael’s girlfriend she was in a handful of movies in the late 80s and early 90s including Hot Shots Part Deux and Under Siege 2. Bakke is ok, probably the best actress in the film, but that’s like saying you’re the best Quarterback on the Cleveland Browns. David is played by Merritt Butrick (lol Butt-Trick). David is difficult to figure out, at times you can feel the tension between him and Michael and it is an intriguing part of the movie, other times he delivers his lines so horribly that its painful.
Supernatural occurrences are abundant in this movie. Michael constantly has visions of his wife, and dreams of killing himself for her. The deaths seem to happen out of nowhere, kind of like Final Destination or scenes in A Nightmare on Elm street. Towards the end you see Michael’s wife plenty of times and we know that she is dead, either she comes back in ghost form or living in the body of another person. That part I won’t ruin for you, if you choose to watch this.
The special effects are pretty good for the genre. The gore is heavy, the kills are pretty good, and the aftermath shown is goopy fun. There is one scene where a guy is chest pressing and the machine wigs out and blows out his ribs, it is kind of funny because I use those machines on a regular basis and all the guy had to do was take his arms off the pressing pads. The best kill, in my opinion is the shower scene where the girl is melted, the aftermath of that is a big soupy mess of the woman’s body while she sobs. The scene had me laugh because the woman was smoking hot, but her screams of terror were so, so horrible. It is really a scene that you should check out to get the full effect.
Lastly one of the things I HAVE to mention is that this movie has more nudity than some softcore porn does. My lord, every five minutes you see tits, ass, and bush. Like I mentioned previously, the women in this movie are all gorgeous, so you really can’t complain. It was difficult watching this anywhere but at my house. I even had to close the blinds to my big front window, in fear that someone would walk by and think that I’m cranking one out to some odd 80s porn. I even got a few “what the hell are you watching” moments from my wife. This movie really is everything the genre is known for, to the extreme. Lots of blood, lots of gore, and lots of boobs.
In conclusion, Death Spa isn’t great, hell it isn’t even that good, but I can appreciate it for what it is. At the end of the day I prefer Killer Workout over this, if I’m in the mood to watch an exercise slasher. The acting and dialogue ruin scenes for me. All the sex scenes and boobs are cool for the first 40 minutes then you find yourself saying “jeesh again!” Not complaining because I do typically enjoy a good set of boobs in a horror movie, but when it outweighs the scary elements of said movie, then it becomes a little excessive. I have seen worse in the genre, but I have definitely seen better, a C- it is.
Side note…I had a hard time finding a movie poster for this, but I figured the VHS cover was a little more fitting anyway.
