Death Spa

NOTE: Due to the convention, I missed an Album Cover of the Week, so that will occur tomorrow (Friday) night.  On Saturday, I shall pen a Blood Capsule.  I'm on a roll, baby!  Don't stop me now!

The first half of 1989's Death Spa rivals Spookies in terms of waggish ineptitude.  It's goddamn flaky.  You and I have known each other since we were spermatozoa, just a couple of thallophytes in the oogonium of an oomycete (try not to dwell on my mismanaged metonymy).  You know how much I love Spookies.  If I'm saying that Death Spa approaches that level of brilliance - and that's precisely what I'm saying - you need to take me seriously.  To be clear, this b-cream does not dethrone Spookies.  It splinters toward the end, but it earns four whole Z'Dars without breaking a sweat.  Did you know that movies could sweat?  Because they can...like a whore in church!

I once foot-fucked a colored hussy with psoriasis behind a cabinet in a synagogue that contained the Torah scrolls.  Offended?  Me, too.  Cancel The Colbert Report!  If this review seems inordinately caustic and scattershot, it's because I wanted it to mirror the absurdity of Death Spa.  The script begins with a health club being struck by lightning.  Since this is a horror picture from the 80's, the firebolt kindles ghost-powered calamity.  Over the span of two days, a trim blonde is scorched (and subsequently blinded) by low-grade chlorine vapor, tiles fly off the walls of a locker room (it's okay; that bitch didn't need her right cheek anyway), a meathead is ripped apart by a shoulder press machine and a diving board malfunctions, narrowly missing a swimmer's head.

Now, the owner is aware of these mystifying happenings.  He suspects that something weird might be going on, but hold the motherfucking phone!  The Mardi Gras Party is creeping around the corner.  If they surcease the resort's activity, they risk losing money AND memberships!  Besides, how much damage can a shark cause?  I mean, what?  I haven't even mentioned the wheelchair garden suicide and the gun-toting parapsychologist.  See, I told you that Death Spa was nucking futs.  The pace races in hyperdrive, the gore is ample and there is female nudity everywhere.  I had to have a smile surgically removed from my doltish face.

At a certain juncture, our suave hero romances the aforestated trim blonde after she comes home from the hospital.  I guess the bandages and the comically huge sunglasses turn him on?  I couldn't contain my laughter.  The viewer is supposed to root for the virile jock, but it's strongly implied that he cheated on his then-disabled/now-dead wife.  It's also implied that he still cheats on a regular basis.  Does he show any signs of remorse?  Nope!  So that's a bummer, as is the errant, contumacious finale.  It stumbles forward on fumes, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't quite understand how the baddie was routed.  Electricity?  How in the hell does that work?

Death Spa pairs well with 1986's Killer Workout.  Shit, I need that double feature to happen.  And soon!