DEATH SPA

Death Spa Movie Review

Sometime after his wife commits suicide, Michael Evans (William Bumiller) sees his hip spa become the scene of grisly accidents. Could the ghost of his dead wife be haunting the club? Why is she appearing in his dreams? Were they truly accidents? If you've seen this 1988 low-budget film, you know the answers...actually, even if you haven't see it, you still likely know the answers to the questions surrounding Death Spa or,

How Starbody Health Spa

Became

Death Spa

With such a premise, we know we're getting a rather ridiculous movie. The special effects are hilariously bad, and you could probably accurately guess the year this movie was made as well, as this flick has that odd combination of 1980s and 1990s horror films that really only movies that came out in 1988 or 1989 can claim. They sure loved this whole cutting edge computers thing back in the day, and they tease that perhaps a master hacker is behind everything, via computer operated exercise machines. There's actually some recognizable faces here too, led by horror icon Ken Foree. Merritt Butrick of Fright Night 2 fame pops up in what is his final movie appearance--on the flip side, Karyn Parsons, known worldwide as Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and more locally (at least in 1993) as the star of my friend's dreams, makes her film debut.

For you, Jeff

Walking out of this one, more than remembering the movie as a whole, you will likely only recall its parts. Such scenes include a machine designed to work out the shoulders tearing the ribs from a man's body; a woman bleeding to death after an unplugged blender eats her hand; the shower scene from Porky's if the girls had been attacked by hot water, flying tiles, and broken glass; and, probably most memorably, a man being attacked by a reanimated fish.

Fish heads, fish heads

There's a lot to sit through to get to it, but the final act is absolute madness--there's hilarity, chaos, deaths, and cheesy effects to take you to the finish line. It's just a shame the rest of the movie wasn't quite as interesting. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5

Death Spa Movie Trailer