Death Spa (1989)

Death Spa, Death Spa, what have ye done? You was born from the agony of starving screenwriters, just two years after Killer Workout (aka Aerobicide)... why didn't you scream, why didn't anyone stop you from being born in this cruel, non-pink and light-blu, world? I think, somehow, it was a genius who got the idea, carried it to a wealthy producer and said: "Hey man, we're gonna make a horror movie like never before and it's called HAUNTED GYM!". The wealthy producer laughed and slapped himself at the knees, "No boy, we're gonna call it... DEATH SPA!". And classic was born.

Right now I stopped writing this next and posted this on my Facebook:

"Writing a review of Death Spa, and I'm not really here. Gonna be an interesting experience. It will be a classic text about a classic movie."

Gah, I guess I have a lot to live up to now. And what the hell do I mean with "I'm not really here"?

Puh... anyway, here we have a brand new high-technological gym and it's about to be open for the big public very soon, after the opening party of course. But someone, or something, is disturbing the computer controlled gym equipment and people is starting to get really hurt in weird accidents. But that's not all, soon the wife of the owner - she died in a freak accident, or murder, or suicide - and wants to get revenge for somehing. So she flies there and starts killing of the nasty, sinful, shallow visitors and of course hunts down the person responsible for her death!

So what the hell do we have here anyway? Yeah, it's a lot of pink and light-blue colours, sweatbands, aerobics, body socks and lots and lots and lots and lots of bright, eighties neon - and this movie is from 1989, it's basically the nineties! Why? I don't know, but I really like crap like this. It's unpretentious but still serious. It doesn't pretend to be a dark nasty horror movie, it wants to make people happy with its all shining neon and cute faces getting ripped apart.

I always forget how gory this film is. There's lots of bloody deaths, and if they're not graphic they are more odd, like the man getting killed by a dead fish (oh, which ends with a lot of blood!). My favourite must be the girl that gets ripped to shreds when a mirror explodes in front of her. Spectacular, to say the least. The final is my favourite form of final, when a lot of partying people gets locked up in a room and then all hell breaks loose (see also, for example, Hellraiser 3, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and Wishmaster) and lots of people gets killed in creative ways.

Death Spa - or Witch Bitch as my Dutch DVD says - isn't here to tell us something. It's here to entertain... and maybe educate us in how not to be dressed in spa's, or maybe that we should stay away from spa's and gym's and live happily ever after. It also has the mighty Ken Foree, an actors so legendary people tend to not understand how legendary he is, because if you're one of the leads in George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, then you're more or less immortal. He hasn't much to do in Death Spa actually, which is a pity. He gets a chance to sport some ridiculous gym wear instead, which he always will be remembered for.

Death Spa is here to not make us think so much. It want to make us laugh because of the absurdity and feel down because the movie ended to quickly. I'm not sure I can go so far as "underrated", but it's a good little movie with the heart at the right place, and that's what I expected when want to see some goofy, bloody, eighties horror.