Death Spa

Oooooooh boy… we LOVE it when we find a hidden gem, one of those deliciously campy and endlessly entertaining 80’s horror flicks that has slipped under our radar for so long.

Just when we thought we knew it all, along comes Death Spa – an absolute must-watch for every fan of this podcast. Thankfully, it’s streaming for free in a few places, so you can catch all the delicious, bonkers joy before listening to us rave about it for an hour. You’re welcome!

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Automatic Transcript

Death Spa (1989)

Episode 330, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: All right, well, here we are in 2023 and Craig and I were talking about what movie would we do next. I had a few things on the list that I wanted to see and uh, one of them is called Death Spa from 1988. I don’t really remember how I found this movie.

I. I was looking at theme movies for theme months, and I noticed that at least one movie took place in like a spa. like a workout place. There’s a movie called Killer Workout. There’s this one Death Spa. We did The Toxic Avenger, a lot of which took place in a workout facility. Yeah, I think there was one other one.

There’s like one called Murder Rock, which is from Lucio Fulci, which is kind of a musical.

Craig: Yeah, very random.

Todd: And I found this one and I, um, acquired it a while ago and it had been on my list and I keep forgetting about it. And I just felt like I was in the mood for a cheesy eighties slasher movie.

Craig was willing, and I don’t regret it one bit Uhuh, not one bit. This, oh my God. This may be one of my all time new favorite movies.

Almost everything I had hoped it would be and so much more. It didn’t disappoint to the very last frame . And I’m so excited to talk about this with you. And you texted me and I don’t know if you had finished watching the movie or you were in the middle of it, but you texted me saying I’ve never been so excited to record in a long time.

Craig: I was, I wanted to do something fun too cuz uh, I. The last couple movies we’ve done, we just haven’t really liked all that much. So I wanted to do something fun. So like I was looking, I was Googling so bad, it’s good movies and stuff and uh, I shot you a couple of suggestions and you sent this one back and another one and I hadn’t heard of either of them.

So we picked this one for convenience cuz it was readily available. You can stream it on several platforms for free and do it because this movie Yes. Is. Amazing. It is do it now, it’s bananas. Seriously, do it right now. Don’t watch and don’t read anything about it. Now, I only read the synopsis, I think on IMDB, which is really vague.

After the movie, I looked it up on Wikipedia and the, uh, synopsis gives more away. And part of the reason that I liked this so movie is because it is just whackadoodle. Like the first, it is so crazy. The first 45 minutes or so, I’m like, what? This is kind of stupid, like . And I was like, I, I don’t, I don’t really get it.

I don’t really get what’s going on. And then there came a part where I was like, oh, I get it. I see what the twist is. I know what’s going on here. And then for the last 30 or 45 minutes, the whole time I was. What, like ,

Todd: it definitely

Craig: takes some turns and fi like when it became apparent what was actually happening, oh my God.

It was, uh, it was so good. And the, the last 30, 40 minutes of this movie are crazy and I loved every minute of it. I was like cheering and hysterically laughing out loud. So funny. Oh man,

Todd: this movie has so much heart to it. I just had to look up and find out as much as I could about the people who made it, because I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this before.

I know this is not talked about extensively in the horror community, this movie as, I mean, as far as I know, I. Maybe I’m just in the wrong circles. Uh, it needs to be a Cult Classic. If it’s not already. It 

Craig: really should be. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy. It, it…I don’t know. It doesn’t remind me of anything cuz I’ve never seen a movie just like it.

But it’s crazy in the way that Society was crazy or Yes. Uh, you know, David Yuzna, it’s, it, it feels like a David Yuzna kind of, 

Todd: it does. Movie does Night to the Creeps kind of thing.

Craig: Maybe I did. Uh, Silent Night, Deadly Night part four, or whichever one of those he did. It’s, it’s, it’s 

Todd: crazy. .

Craig: And really when it boils right down to it, the concept is very simple, but they tease it out for a really long time.

Mm-hmm. and then they take a very simple concept and like just go nuts. Like, what can we do like ?

Todd: Yes. So much fun. Well, it has an interesting backs. There’s this guy named Walter Sheen, who was most famous for producing the early Beatles films. Like A Hard Day’s Night. Yeah. He was, he’s a very well-respected British producer.

Made tons of money off of that. He still, his state still has the rights to those. That was before The Beatles were famous in the us so that was a good call. Anyway, he had been, uh, g became good friends with this producer called Jamie Beardsley, who had not done a lot, um, did, did a movie called The Munchies.

Yeah. Anyway, I’m not sure if Jamie Beardsley is a male or female. I’m just gonna say they just to be. Yeah. Jamie really wanted to do a horror movie and had been talking with, with, uh, Walter Jensen about it. It, and there was this Austrian guy who came into the picture who is a theater producer slash director, uh, there in the States who had just somehow really bonded with Jensen.

and his name was Michael Fisher and he ended up directing this movie. So yeah, Jensen recommended Fisher, Beards leap put together. Uh, they kind of chatted amongst themselves and decided, well, what kind of horror movie are we gonna make? And they decided to latch onto the health craze that was so popular.

Yeah. And said it in a health spa. They enlisted a writer, James Barro, who had never written any screenplays before to write it as like a ghost story. So there’s like a ghost in this health spa. It got finished in 1983, but quite frankly wasn’t very good. So they set it aside while they worked on a movie called Echo Park.

And then they brought in another writer named Mitch Paradise, which is a fantastic name for a writer. Mitch Paradise came in, he said he completely rewrote it. He said, Honestly, it’s just an act of charity that, uh, James Bart Tripp’s name is still on it because they co they co credit it to James Barri, Uhhuh and apparently uncredited, they brought in a famous film critic from the Hollywood reporter named Kirk Honeycutt, uh, to do a final polish on it.

So they had this script that is so wackadoodle and so fun, and I think that is like at the heart of this. The other thing about the movie that I think makes it work really well is, is done very earnestly. Apparently they all just had a ball working on this. Michael Fisher is just, loves this movie from start to finish.

So proud of it. The producers proud of it. Everybody’s really proud of what they came up with because they said that they accomplished exactly what they set out to do. That’s funny. Yeah. And then you look at the, at the people in this. and go to the, go to the IMD B page and just click one at a time through all the characters of which, by the way, there are like a thousand Yeah.

Bunch. But almost all of them have gone on, either just before this movie or after this movie have gone on to be working actors in television, in the movies, video game voicing and, and all that stuff. Almost everybody involved here is maybe not, you know, the name of the top of your list. There are no like Will Smiths or anything in here, but there are people who are continuous working actors and so it’s just, it’s gonna be so much fun to talk about this.

Like Ken Foci from Dawn of the Dead and several of Rob Zombies flicks is, plays a guy.

Craig: Yeah. Is he the, is he the, the big black guy, right?

Todd: Yeah, he is. Yeah. Yeah. Marvin in there. I recognized him. Mm-hmm. and then, you know, we not long ago did, um, uninvited. Right. Remember Uninvited also? Yeah. One of our absolute favorite, hilarious movies.

And Katherine the woman. Ghost in this movie, I guess you could say Sherry Shaddock, who was in Uninvited, and she ever since has been all over television. But in this movie, apparently her, her voice was dubbed by another actress. I thought that was kind of

Craig: interesting. Yeah. You could kind of tell. Mm-hmm.

her name sounded familiar, but I, I couldn’t place her. Um, it’s funny that you said no Will Smiths because Karen Parsons, this was her first movie and she played his, um, cousin on Fresh Prince, uh, she was his like, rich snooty cousin. Hillary. Hillary, right? Yeah. Uhhuh . And this, this was her first thing. I didn’t recognize her.

I, it wasn’t until after, uh, it wasn’t until after I read that she was in it and I looked her up and I Oh yeah. She was that girl. She was a funny part.

Todd: Apparently some NBC executive saw this movie on late night cable and called her up based on her performance in here, which isn’t a big role.

Craig: No, she is a small role.

Yeah. It’s a funny role. This is, it’s a funny movie. Oh, it’s so funny. And I couldn’t tell. . I’m glad to hear you say that they got exactly what they were going for because I kind of couldn’t tell because it’s played straight. Mm-hmm. , like everybody plays it super straight and it really seems like they are giving the, their all, but at the same time, it’s so campy.

It’s one of the campiest things I’ve ever seen. Mm-hmm. . And it’s hilarious with, uh, just gags, like gags that would fall flat in other places. Like this is what Frankenstein General Hospital dreamed of being. Yeah. You know, like, like silly goofy, you know, and lots of boobs and dance, aerobics and . This movie has everything

Todd: It does. And it’s such a time capsule of like our favorite era . You know, there’re beautiful people in here. There are tons of, there’s tons of nudity in this. There is loads of gore. Apparently when they were shooting this, they just had buckets. They had like a special effects team, a VFX team, and like a blood team.

All they did was manage the blood and mop up the blood. They, they were talking about how they would come to a shoot and just be drenched with the blood. Like the crew had to wear ponchos and booties and stuff on their feet. But because they were shooting this in a, a spa, it was basically an old spa that had long closed Uhhuh

So they were able to just kind of do whatever. They could just kind of mop things off the floor pretty quickly. Uh, but they said that the shoot was just like, I think it was one of the actors who walked into the movie. He plays, he has a very small role too, which I was kind of surprised by. Uh, David Shawny.

Yeah. He played Freddy, the curly-haired guy. Oh, yeah. Which seems early on, like he’s gonna be a bit of comic relief, but then he’s barely in it. Uhhuh . But, but this guy apparently walked into the set on the first day and was like, oh. So this is the kind of movie we’re making. . He has an extensive resume after this.

Uh, he actually played Dimus and a few other characters in Labyrinth, uh, before he came into this movie. Oh. And then he just became a voice actor. For the last 20 years, he has been in all the most famous video games. If you name a video game, he’s had a voice in it. It’s kind of insane. Grand Theft Auto, you know, mass Effect, D Destiny, all these games, tomb Raider, you name it.

Heath played something in it. . So, uh, that, you know, it’s, it’s just kind of funny how so, how so many people from this movie went on to have great careers, especially after this movie ,

Craig: which I know which, and I still, like, my mind is blown that I’ve never even heard of this movie. I, I, and I feel like it’s not super well known because I, you know, that I watch tons of, you know, yes.

Like documentaries about horror movie, you know, and, uh, the, the hundred greatest horror movies you’ve never seen. I’ve never. Heard of this. Yes. And it’s crazy. And I can’t wait to tell everybody I know about it. I know, right? It’s on my

Todd: list. Yeah. It’s it’s on my list for sure.

Craig: It’s low budget. Yeah. It, it was only like a $750,000 budget.

And that’s fine. Like you can kind of tell, but at the same time it’s skillfully done. Like there’s some really good camera work in it. There’s awesome camera work in here. Yeah. And the effects are all practical. And , on the one hand, they look kind of awful. And on the other hand, in the most excellent way, like it, it seems like a, an effects that you and I and Heather would set up and then execute it and it would go right.

And we would cheer and jump up into

Todd: like, .

Craig: It’s just, it’s just like these fun, crazy explosions and people’s heads blowing off and ah, oh man. And, and it’s, it’s all so be like ba because of the premise. Because what it. , even though this is only teased for the first half of the movie, it ends up that it is, it’s just a haunted house movie.

Except it’s not a haunted house, it’s a haunted health spa. Mm-hmm. . But because it’s a haunting, they can do whatever they want there, there are no rules, you know, like supernatural things can just happen. Yeah. So, you know, somebody’s head can just blow up for no reason. Or an entire wall can shatter and explode right in front of somebody and just completely obliterate them.

And that’s, that’s fine. It’s, it’s just the world that we’re in. Oh, I love it. And, and when you get to that last part, which I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but it’s all lit and neon, and you’re right, it’s in an eighties hell spa and all the women are in those, you know, like leotards and high cut leotards, you know,

Oh man. High cut on the sides. Um, the, I mean, it does, it, it looks just like the exercise. Videos that were advertised on TV incessantly in the eighties, and that ran on TV. And, uh, it, it, you’re right, it’s a total time capsule, uh, of, of that time. And we remember, I mean, this was a big deal, like this health craze.

Yeah. Especially, I think it came out mostly came out of Los Angeles, but it was all over the country. Mm-hmm. , you know, middle-aged housewives were doing jazzer size in their living rooms

Todd: everywhere. Jane fond a workout. I did it with my mom. Oh

Craig: gosh. Yeah. It’s just so nostalgic. I, I, I don’t know where to begin to,

Todd: it’s great.

And as a kid, I don’t know, you know, viewing this from afar, never ever having been to a health spa, actually, even as an adult, I’ve rarely been to a health spa, but like as a kid, they, I, they were seen as like the coolest thing. Like it seemed to be just endless rooms of machines and exercise and, and hot tubs and saunas and pools and things like that, that you would just go like a little mini resort in the middle of the city and just.

Socialize and hang out and bars where they would juice things up for you, you know? And it just seemed really, really cool. And this movie makes this health club seem really cool. It looks like it’s packed to the gills every day with people.

Craig: It looks like what we thought they were like, I don’t know what they were really like.

I never really went to one either. But it looks like they were portrayed in all of these movies. And of course, you know, it’s a movie, so everybody in there looks like they don’t really need to be at a hell spa. like they’re, they’re right . Then again, I guess the people who frequent gems are probably the people who look like that, but that’s true.

Uh, that’s, yeah, I mean, and you’re right, it’s, it’s, it’s packed all the time. The gimmick behind this particular health spa, which I totally believe from the eighties, is that it’s entirely automated. Like all of the equipment is automated and computerized. So like you have to have like a key card that you have to scan the machines, and I, I guess it probably has your workout information or whatever.

And so it’s all tailored to you. Yeah.

Todd: It sets the weights and everything for you, which are like hidden behind the wall even. Right. The resistance, the weights, everything like that, right? Like all these at first, you know, the opening shot when it first kind of pans through the building, which is an awesome shot by the way.

I looked at it, I was kind of skeptical. I was like, why this, this looks weird. Like there are fewer machines than I would expect in a health club, and then the bits are kind of jutting out from the. , you know, I’m like, where would you set the weights? What would you do? I, I was really skeptical at first when I saw it and I thought, oh man, this is gonna be super lame.

Like, these people don’t even know how to put a set together. But then, you know, once it was explained, it was actually really cool. And I would say forward thinking for the time. Yeah, I mean, it’s actually pretty clever for

Craig: the time. It probably felt a little bit sci-fi, you know, looking at it from 2022, I, I’m sure there are gems like this , you know, like Yeah, exactly.

Uh, but you’re right, uh, maybe a little bit, uh, ahead of their time in their thinking, which is creative and, and original. I had never seen anything like it before. It was a, it a fun setup.

Todd: Yeah, it really was. And that opening shot. Oh my gosh, I was so impressed. Oh, the music’s good too, by the way. It opens up with this kind of creepy music and it’s this huge crane shot that apparently they had to get a, a, a really tall cherry picker used for construction to, to, to get this shot to get up high enough and a steady cam operator up on there.

And it’s this huge shot that just pans kind of across LA as it slowly comes down onto this spa, which is called the, uh, the Star, star Body Health. The star body health Spa. Yeah. And this lit up sign, but it’s nighttime. Everybody’s leaving and

Craig: it’s a darkened, stormy night. ,

Todd: those flashes of lightning every now and then.

And as it comes down to the spa, you know, the last few people are leaving and they get in their car and they drive off, but the camera is still moving and, uh, eventually like a lightning bolt hits the, the sign which it sparks and it messes up the neon on the sign so that it Star Body Health Spa says Death Spa.

It’s great. Which was so clever and perfectly calm. fantastic. It was awesome. I was like, okay, this, this, this is gonna be cool. Then it slowly goes into the spa. We’re getting the credits and the music and it’s just taking us through. Just a little bit of the layout of the, of the front year. And then we see that there’s actually a girl inside, like, like a last person to leave, um, kind of through one of the windows.

Yeah.

Craig: And she’s dancing. There’s quite a bit of

Todd: dancing in this movie. , there is a lot of dancing. It’s not bad. I mean, you know. She’s dancing, exercising, whatever by herself in there. And the dim dimness as the lights are all coming off ,

Craig: then she takes USANA naked. Yeah. And it’s so gratuitous, like, oh God.

Yeah. But that’s, I everything about this there is so much gratuitous, nudity. It’s fantastic. In this movie. It’s great. It’s so eighties. I absolutely, like, of course, you know, this woman, I, I didn’t write down any of their names cuz I didn’t recognize many. This was Laura right? Her? This was Laura. And it turns out that she is the girlfriend of the manager.

Uh, yes. Or the owner. She’s the last one there. She’s got her own keys. She can let herself out or whatever. But she takes, you know, she goes into the sauna and is completely nude. Lays out completely flat in the sauna and the camera just lean, lean hands over her entire naked body.

Todd: also running her own hands across her body.

I literally

Craig: thought she was gonna start masturbating. I thought so too.

Todd: It was like, it was almost like, It was almost like that hand was like looking at us being like, oh, you see where I’m going? Oh, wait, no psych.

Craig: And her body was like, impossibly Dewey. I’m like, oh yeah. What? Like somebody is standing right off camera like spritzing this woman

Huh. And, and, and don’t get me wrong, she’s gorgeous. She has a beautiful body. It’s, it’s, it’s excellent. Eighties gratuitous. Nudity. Nudity. I was, I was completely 100% down for

Todd: it. Oh, oh, yeah. Totally. I mean, this sets the tone for the whole movie. I mean, this is like the first five minutes. And Laura, by the way, is played by Brenda Bki, who is in Hot Charts, part Dew, uh, tales from the Crip.

Demonn Night Under Siege two was all over. Television has got a ton of roles. It’s still working today. Yeah. She is visited before she pops in there by, uh, Marvin, who is, uh, Ken Forry, who I mentioned earlier, and yeah. Yeah. I think it’s kind of a, a cool scare, right? Because we got this P O V that just looks like a camera, p o v, and then somehow in the middle of it, it becomes like a person’s p o v.

and then we see the shadow come up from behind her. But you know, it’s just this guy who’s helping your clothes for the night. He works there. Yeah, he works there. Is he? It’s like a personal trainer or maybe like an assistant director or, I don’t know, or something. It’s hard to say.

Craig: That’s the thing. We just watched some movie where there were so many characters and we’re like, there are so many characters and I don’t care about any of them.

That’s kind of the case here too, like there are so many characters. It kind of took me a long time to keep track of who everybody was. Yeah. That I didn’t really care. Like . Yeah. In, in this case, I didn’t so much care. Like, okay, there’s like three. Blonde , you know, like three tall skinny blondes with big boobs.

Which one is, which I don’t really care. Right. Like that’s the, this movie doesn’t require a lot thought, character

Todd: depth. Yeah. It doesn’t, and it doesn’t matter, and Right.

Craig: It doesn’t. And, and I feel like that almost sounds hypocritical because I was just so critical of another movie for doing the same thing, but it’s a completely different tone.

Yeah. This is a movie about watching people die in interesting and creative ways. And the whole first part, like, I really didn’t know what was going on. Like, she’s there in the sauna and then all of a sudden, and we’ve seen this before, the, there’s too much steam. Um, and it’s getting too hot or something.

Todd: I think it was like smoke. Well, it turned out to be a vapor, right? It turned out to be a, yeah, it did something else, but yeah. You’re not quite sure. I I wasn’t sure if it was like poison gas. Yeah. Or if, if she was too hot or whatever. She just jumps up and screams and smashes a window. But, you know, collapses to the floor anyway.

And then it

Craig: cuts to what becomes our main character, I guess Michael, um, who is the club owner and he’s sleeping on a couch, but he’s dreaming of someone on fire. And I’m like, mm-hmm. , . I had to like rewind. I had to click that little like go back 30 seconds button on this movie so many times cuz I, what is, if I looked away for a second and I would look back and something totally bonkers would be going on and I would’ve no idea what was going on.

And then I would rewind it and it’s like, oh, there is no context. It’s just a random flash of somebody. Yeah. Completely a flame. And then he wakes up. I guess I actually thought this was smart

Todd: because, you know, we see these little flashbacks where clearly like his brain is, is bothered by something and has past or whatever.

He’s having these recurring dreams. We get a little bit more information with every single one of them until finally we see what happened, right? In a movie like this. I thought that was rather smart, actually. And he’s played by William Buil, who was all over TV in the eighties and nineties. He did a stint on Days of Our Lives.

I didn’t know if you. Knew

Craig: that. I know I saw that. But he played like four different characters, so I have a feeling he was just an extra .

Todd: Oh, okay. He wakes up. And, uh, it took me a while to figure out the relationships

Craig: here too. I know, because ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Like, so he, he owns the place.

There’s a brunette lady called Priscilla who’s the manager. He has a lawyer named Tom who hangs around there sometimes. And then there are two like detectives. Lieutenant Fletcher is like an older kind of, I don’t know, PUDR, rubbery guy, balding white guy. And yeah. And like then there’s Sergeant Stone, who’s like the toughest nails.

Black Lady Uhhuh, uh, totally playing, you know, not necessarily to racial stereotypes, but like, these are the detectives that you see in every movie for the eighties. Oh yeah, exactly. And so they’re like investigating cuz Laura, it turns out that the reason that she was freaking out is just because it was like condensed chlorine gas.

Mm-hmm. . Um, and, and it burned her skin. Her skin is mostly okay, but her eyes are burned. She’s gonna be fine, but she has to walk around blindfolded for the rest of

Todd: the movie. For the rest of the movie. Which is interesting, at least to some really interesting situations. Yeah. And

Craig: she has to walk around the house that she either lives in, it’s, it’s her boyfriend’s house.

I don’t know if she lives there or not, but she’s there for most of the movie. It’s like a multi-level house where none of the levels have railings. So

Todd: like , it’s the worst house for a, a blinded person to be poking around in. They, they would punch you. Why she didn’t fall to her own dad. She would be dead just walking around the house to the kitchen to get a snack.

You know, I think it was kinda weird. It was an awesome looking house though. Sergeant Stone was Rosalyn Cash. She was Lisa in Omega man, the original Charles Naton one, which was one of my, oh, favorite movies growing up. And do you remember Tales from the Hood? The last segment, I think, where the guy goes down and there’s like some doctors talking to him about Yes.

You know, that’s her.

Craig: Yep. And I remember talking about her at the time, and she had done a lot of tv, uh, in the eighties too. Yeah.

Todd: Mm-hmm. . Uh, and the same deal with Lieutenant Fletcher, this Francis x McCarthy guy over 140 credits in and out of every television show you could think of in the, in the eighties, all the way up to today.

He’s still on tv.

Craig: Yeah. A almost all of these people. Either had been working and are still working, or are still working, sadly, except for the other kind of main character, even though he really probably only has five minutes of screen time total. Mm-hmm. . Um, but David is the computer programmer of the, you know, like he controls all this stuff in the gym.

Yeah, he designed it. He designed it. He’s played by a guy named Merri Buttrick who passed away, like right after this came out. And he was young I 29. I didn’t read what happened to him. Did

Todd: you? Yeah. Um, it’s toxoplasmosis, which is kind of like, um, a parasite that you get from food poisoning generally. Oh, wow.

Which normally is no big deal. You don’t even notice it. But because he, uh, had. It, uh, ah, it’s an, it’s, you know, specifically targets your immune system and, and so. Gotcha. That’s pretty tragic. He was in Star Trek, two and three, Uhhuh . He was the son of Captain Kirk, I believe, in those movies, and seemed to have a rising career when he died.

He’s also Inright night too, I guess, but yeah, I haven’t seen that.

Craig: I don’t know if I have either. He didn’t look familiar to me, but he was a young, handsome guy. I mean, it’s, it’s too bad. Yeah, he plays a weirdo in this movie. It’s also super convoluted because we, what’s his name? Michael is with Laura. But he’s also a recent widower.

His wife Katherine is dead. We don’t know what happened to her yet, but Katherine was David’s twin sister and , like, I don’t even what, because David and Michael kind of have this. Um, weird conversation because, um, Michael thinks that maybe the computer had something to do with it or maybe David had something to do with it.

You’re here because you know the system and because you’re Catherine’s brother, both circumstances must be terribly trying for you. If I thought for one moment that you put chlorine in the steam system, he resort to the only weapon in your prosthetic arsenal. Jock violence. I think there’s a

Todd: glitch in your precious system.

That’s impossible.

Craig: Why are you so full of hate? You found some comfort for your sorrow, I noticed. But then Laura was always there. If he wasn’t, she, she

Todd: and others.

Craig: I loved Catherine. She never wanted that child. How do you get things so twisted up? We share thoughts? You’d never understand like that. Some of the dialogue. Is golden. Is golden. Absolutely golden because it is so terrible, God. And it’s just like, it’s so badly written and then delivered with absolute sincerity.

It’s great. Oh, it’s fantastic. So there’s a dead wife, but the dead wife has a twin sister and the the twins are like, have Telesis and Yeah,

Todd: it’s, it’s the twin brother. It’s so good. Yeah, it’s, it’s nuts. So yeah, you’re kind of confused, but it all kind of comes together and I mean, basically what it is, is, and, and we learned this over time based on various people’s comments and the investigation that kind of ensues and the, the cops asking the questions, the F B I investigators asking the questions is that David’s wife was pregnant with apparently a child she didn’t want.

And in the childbirth there was some complication that led to her breaking her lower back and maybe it was an epidural that went wrong or something like that. Anyway, she ended up paralyzed and lost the baby. And lost the baby, descended into depression and then. Emulated herself, herself, like took her wheelchair out to the field, behind their house, dumped gasoline all over herself, and set herself on fire, which he

Craig: keeps dreaming about.

Yeah. And, and weird stuff keeps happening. I mean, that’s the thing, like weird stuff keeps happening at the spa, but at one point, uh, Michael finds like a. Bird fetus, or something in his, there was so much that I didn’t understand.

Todd: Bird nets with a fetus in, in his, uh, in his office, which he gets really pissed about, immediately runs to David, believes that David put it there.

Oh God. And I was like, is that related to the baby he was talking about? I wasn’t quite sure what, I

Craig: guess I think so. And then we like, uh, a diving board breaks like somebody messed with the bolts and a girl almost got hurt. A

Todd: girl fell in the water. Oh my God. I, I couldn’t, yeah,

Craig: she, she was on a high dive.

She bounced like 10 times, but then it broke and she fell in the water. And you would think that she had, I don’t

Todd: know, uh, like hip concrete or something. Like why was everybody so concerned about her wellbeing? She literally just fell into the.

Craig: And then there’s a gratuitous shower scene where every woman in the place decides to take a shower at the same time.

And I’ve read that, you know, they, they, they called in extras from a porn casting company for this , it kind of looks like it. Lots of big boobs. Mm-hmm. . But during that, uh, shower, the jets start shooting really hard and then tiles start shooting off the wall and cutting the girls up. But after that’s over, Michael’s like comforting the girls who were in there and two of them were like, you too.

All right. Yeah. To tell you the truth, Michael, this place could use better maintenance. Yeah. Who needs weight reduction through terror. I’m sorry about the showers. I wanna extend your memberships for three months, no charge. Drop by my office and I’ll take care of it personally. Do you think you can handle both of us after jazz class tomorrow?

Well, I can sure have fun trying.

Todd: it’s like they just shake this off. And yeah, one

Craig: of these is Hillary from the, uh, from Fresh Prince Uhhuh and, and then, so it’s these two girls, these two cute girls talking to Michael after they’ve just been assaulted by a ghost in the shower. And this is all delivered as though people really talk like this.

Yeah, .

Todd: Everybody in this club is very handsy and flirty with each other. Everybody in this spa of death, especially these two girls, it’s like they’re fighting to like get, even though everybody knows everybody, they’re still trying to make it with Michael or something through this whole thing. It seems like both of them

Craig: at the same time, he’s not that good looking.

I guess. Maybe he’s rich, he doesn’t have a nice house. Well then, then some guy named Robert Gib. Crushed in the weight machine. Oh my gosh,

Todd: I loved that scene. The best thing about this movie is, you know, something bad is about to happen because the music changes to this very specific music that is absolutely sinister.

The, he swipes his card on this weight machine, which is one of these like, uh, where you pull your arms together in the front. Uhhuh, , he sits down and he puts his, I guess I, I just had so many questions. He’s doing this machine, and the computer goes, oh, the resistance is now a hundred pounds. Now it’s one 30, now it’s one 40.

He’s like, what, what? And he keeps doing his crunches and finally he can’t do it anymore. And he is like, aha, somebody helped me. Somebody helped me. Like I guess the machine is pulling his arms

Craig: back. It makes absolutely no sense.

Todd: There’s still parallel to.

Craig: Right. There’s nowhere for them to go because it’s right up against the wall.

Yeah. So it’s not like they can keep going back. They’re just Yeah. But ,

Todd: can he just take his hands out just right. Remove your arms from the machine You’re done.

Craig: But no, instead his like ribcage, like burst open. But that was, and it looks, I mean, it looks like a somewhat cheap practical effect, but I loved it.

I also, I loved the absurdity of it. Like, it was just absolutely absurd. It was, and I thought it was great. Like I, I was laughing out loud cause I thought it was so

Todd: funny. Michael runs into David’s room immediately after that and he’s blaming him. He thinks the computer had something to do with it.

David’s like the computer had nothing to do with the accident. You can’t blame the comp you computer for, for tiles flying off the walls. The computer doesn’t control tiles for Christ’s sake. had I thought about that for a minute, I was like, What does control the tiles? No, I

Craig: wanna know . Oh, and, and so they think a possible solution would be to change all of the machines to manual.

But Tom, the lawyer slash business partner, I don’t really know. He says he doesn’t want to do that because that would take away the only unique thing about the spa. He’s

Todd: shady. Yeah. It’s nice that, uh, Mike, you know, actually wants to correct this by disconnecting the computer, but it’s against him and I, and I love what Tom.

Mike, the partners, and I agreed that nothing can ruin the success of the Mardi Gras party on Friday night. And I was like, oh, there’s gonna be a Mardi Gras party. Yes. This movie is just full of happy surprises. Oh, it’s

Craig: glorious. I know. That’s why the last half hour is so good. Oh God. But then, so Mark brings Laura home.

She’s fine, except for she has to wear these big bandages over her eyes. So he gives her a gift wrap blazer with enormous shoulder pads in it that she can’t see. And then Seductively feeds her asparagus in front of the fire .

Todd: Oh God, that’s so great. It looks so awkward. But that closeup of that semi limp asparagus, it

Craig: looks like a parody of something.

Yes. It, because it’s a limp piece of asparagus, and he just puts the tip right on her lip, and she like flicks her tongue on it.

and then takes a bite. She’s like, mm sure. Beats hospital food. Oh God. It’s so stupid and so hilarious. Yeah. Oh God. So then there’s another girl, Marcy alone in the locker room. I don’t know who she is, .

Todd: I don’t. She just kind of came outta nowhere, .

Craig: But the lockers start slamming and, and she doesn’t run or she doesn’t do anything.

She just kind of looks around and kind of just gingerly backs up and doesn’t realize that one of the lockers directly behind her is open and has an enormous spear coming out of it.

Todd: I don’t know. , , just for some reason, the very locker she’s standing in front of has this spear that. Shoots right through her neck.

Uhhuh . So then like we don’t see her again, but they kind of mentioned that she’s missing. Yeah, we do

Craig: actually, we see her dead body in the locker because it’s apparently Laura’s locker because Michael brings Laura back to the spot to like collect her things. Why? Yeah. We need,

Todd: which is weird because, okay, so they talking about how they haven’t seen her for two days.

Laura opens up the locker to uh, get her things and that’s creepy, right? Because there’s the dead body right in front of them. But now her face is messed up too.

Craig: That happens more than once. I don’t, yeah. I don’t know what’s going on there. That happens later with the pirate too.

Todd: Mm-hmm. ? Um, it’s weird. Yeah.

It’s

Craig: a pirate. Yes. There is a pirate later .

Todd: Of course there is. But we do see like, kind of our first indication that things are, are weirder than just a computer like malfunctioning. Michael is up in the room waiting cuz he has to unlock the lockers. He has to like override the master security or something for her to just open her locker and he types on his computer like his password, which is Catherine, interestingly enough.

And then later on the computer shows a message and says, Michael, I miss you. And it turns on the security camera and he can see there’s this like, ghostly figure walking down the hallway towards the locker room. So he jumps up, he runs down there and uh, this figure is walking straight into the locker room.

He comes up behind it, puts his arm around his neck and rips the mask off of its face and it’s Priscilla. Who just goes, ha ha, don’t you like my Mardi Gras costume? I’m just trying it out. What?

Craig: I don’t know. I, yeah, it was stupid. I, I honestly, I mean, it was a tense moment. It was, it was just a dumb payoff.

But I, but again, I don’t care. Like no, I I, in a different movie, I would criticize it in this movie, whatever. It’s all par for the course. Yeah. It can be as stupid as it wants to, and I don’t care. Yeah. Then we see in a flashback, his wife burns herself. She, he says he feels her presence in everywhere thinks that she’s causing trouble.

So he goes and sees Dr. Lido Moray, who is a paranormal investigator who does psychometry, and he has a magic gun that can like sense the paranormal or something.

Todd: Oh God.

Craig: It’s so great. Mike gives him like a broach of Catherine’s or something, and he knows her entire. story. He’s like, uh, I see a bird’s nest.

Cuz that’s what she thought of your family. You were, you know, family making your nest. And it’s so weird. And then it cuts to. A scene where you don’t see people, you just hear people talking and it sounds like two people talking. Yeah. And it’s like in a messy house, and there’s like sex noises. I, I can’t do this anymore, Jasmine.

We’re hurting people. Yes, you can.

That’s better. They’re so weak. And together we are so strong. And I have in my notes Catherine and David

Todd: Like . Yeah,

Craig: right. Because there were weird sex noises. I still don’t understand. I still, what

Todd: was happening? I still don’t understand why there were sex noises in that room. Oh, it’s weird. Uh, yeah. .

Craig: What? I don’t know, there’s just, I feel like the end is the good part.

I’m trying to think. Uh, one of those girls who wanted to have a three-way with Michael gets a note after her next workout that says, meet me in the basement, Michael. And so she goes down there and gets attacked by acid sprinklers,

Todd: I guess. Yeah. The sprinkler system is now have acid in it or something.

Craig: I just feel the movie just, it seems red herrings isn’t the right term, but I feel like there’s a lot of misleading going on.

Like it and they’re trying to, they’re trying to make you think it could be a number of things. Like David very ominously visits Laura and kind of menaces her like with a, uh, screwdriver that she can’t even see cuz she’s still blind. Yeah. Um, and I guess he was there to do something to Michael’s computer, but we never find out what, and we never.

Yeah, really know what was going, I don’t know, there’s just a lot of diversion stuff going on, which is great because then at I, at the end, I had no idea what

Todd: was happening. Then the lawyer with Priscilla goes down and disconnects the computer from the air conditioning. I know.

Craig: And I had, I was like, what are

Todd: they doing?

I have, I still don’t understand why they did that.

Craig: They do. They explain it later.

Todd: Oh, they were trying to sabotage the party,

Craig: right? Yes. And when he confronts them with that, they’re just like, Yeah. Yep. .

Todd: That’s right. This is our plan. , we

Craig: and, and I think that they confessed to being behind the initial attack.

Yeah. The chlorine stuff. So like that was them. Presumably. The, the only thing is the Priscilla says, well, she should have been fine because that door doesn’t lock. So they weren’t trying to hurt her. I think they were just trying to maybe scare her, have something go wrong, but still something went not according to plan.

Right. But it, it just so happens that they are trying to sabotage the business so that it will go under and they can sweep in and buy it out from under him. Yep. Which I couldn’t believe, it was so hilarious to me that he just is like, you did this, didn’t you? And she.

Todd: Pretty

Craig: much No, no. Trying to, no question skirt around it.

Nothing.

Todd: Nope. Nope. Oh God. Then the paranormal investigators walking around with his device. He goes to the basement, he discovers that girl’s body, which wa looked absolutely disgusting because apparently she’s still alive, still slowly melting, like her heart is still beating. I know she’s making noises.

Craig: The heart that we can see, like she’s completely melted. Oh, it’s so, like her bones are melted, but she’s still moving and making it’s awesome. Whimpering noises.

Todd: Makes no sense. But it’s gross and awesome.

Craig: No, it looks like, uh, night of the living dead or something. Mm-hmm. , I don’t know. It’s. Silly and and awesome.

Yeah, I loved it. But then it’s my favorite scene when again, we have this weird thing where it’s the two voices and you hear the guy’s voice say, we should stop now. I see their faces, I hear their screams. It’s horrible. And then the woman says, well, I’m tired of waiting for Michael. And then it cuts up like it had shown us.

Presumably a woman like shaving her legs or uh, putting lotion on her shaved legs or something. But then it cuts up and it’s David Yeah. Sitting there and he just screams no. Yeah. This is the part where in my notes I’m like, oh, okay. I have this figured out. I thought that I knew what was going on. I thought that he was crazy.

Yeah, me too. That it was like a multiple personalities kind of thing. Like like a psycho kind of thing? Yes, exactly. Like a psycho thing. He had been traumatized by her death. They were so close. They had this connection that, uh, he is lost his, he’s broken with reality and he’s both of them. Nope. ,

Todd: no. Cause it doesn’t explain, it doesn’t explain what this, uh, this figure does to the paranormal investigator.

He grabs him, throws him all the way up to this high ceiling, just like with superhuman strength, and it falls down. and then the paranormal investigator pulls out a gun, but his hand just explodes. Explodes, Uhhuh, and starts break blood everywhere, . And then this figure that looks like a woman in a dress and everything.

It looks like that Catherine figure we’d seen earlier just starts chucking him around the room, like way up the top of these stairs and he ends up dead . I was so confused. I was like, is this paranormal? Like what? Just because even if it’s David, like he wouldn’t have that superhuman strength to be able to do these things, right?

Why is the guy’s hand exploding? You know, and

Craig: Michael thinks it’s David. He’s convinced that it’s David now. And so he takes the cops to David’s house. So many hilarious things. First of all, the cops pull in onto the street and like park in the middle of the street on a. Zone, which just cracks me up for some reason.

And then they follow Michael up to David’s apartment and the door is locked and nobody’s answering. So he goes, he looks at them and says, I’m gonna break in. So they both turn around like , like, um, we can’t be party to this, we can’t see this, so we’ll just turn our backs while

Todd: you break in because this is how the F B I

Craig: works.

And then when he gets the door open, he like, looks back and they look back, they’re like, oh, okay, . And they go in and his apartment looks like it’s been kind of packed up, like everything’s covered in sheets and stuff, but he’s obviously still living there. But they also see all these women’s clothing. So they put out an a p B for him, but the, the guy’s like, uh, he’s a small guy, slight build 135 pounds, about five eight oh and get this.

He might be in drag . So they thought the same thing that I did. They thought that. And I mean, it’s kind of right, but not really. It’s even better than that. Oh, it’s way better than, but that’s when we get to the party, Mardi Gras, it’s a Mardi Gras party, so everybody is in costume and there’s tons of people there, like the whole place is packed and they’ve got music and people are dancing.

It’s so cool and it’s hilarious. And they’re, they’ve got like bars set up and , oh, it’s fantastic. And that’s the whole last half hour and it’s just excellent.

Todd: I just, I love it how the investigators show up and they spend about 30 seconds looking for who they think is Catherine. And the rest of the time, , they’re just hanging out at the party.

Uhhuh, , I’ll put a move beer around drinking. But in the meantime, this Catherine figure is walking through and we see the face. She’s just walking around clearly. Right? They just miss her. She

Craig: only died less than a year ago and she was the wife of the owner and nobody knows what she looks like.

Todd: apparently.

So unless they think somebody’s dressed up like Kathryn for Mardi Gras ,

Craig: I hope that would be tacky . But anyway, Michael tells a pirate to go guard the computer room. So there’s a pirate guarding the computer room and Kathryn goes in there and turns all the computers on with magic, like with a wave of her hand.

Uh, and then she seduces the pirate by like sitting on the desk and like looking at him seductively. And I think she kind of goes in for a kiss, but instead she grabs his face and like, Crushes his head

Todd: twists it or something. I don’t know. I don’t know. The aftermath we see later looks really bizarre.

It’s like Uhhuh . It’s like his face has been mushed, like putty in one direction actually looks like the, like the pig noses people from that famous Twilight Zone episode, I think. Yes.

Craig: Yeah, it did. You only see it for a second, but you do see it for a second and it, that is what it looks like. So then Katherine puts on the pirate costume and grabs Laura and ties her

Todd: up to the tanning bed in the tanning.

This ties her up in a tanning bed, which, which is the only room in this entire place that doesn’t have people in it. It just thought it was funny that this whole tanning facility has one tanning bed and,

Craig: and, and Laura I think kind of wakes up as she’s getting tied up maybe, and Katherine says to her, what a shock.

Poor deer. The. Re the, the dead past returning to haunt you. And, and she, like Katherine, beckons Michael through the intercom. And so he goes to the control room and the printer is printing out like pages and pages of I miss you. And then Katherine is there first she’s not there. Then she is there. Ah. And she brings up video of Laura and the tanning bed and she says, one click of a button and she’s fried chicken

This whole scene is so surreal. Everything’s lit and red. She’s in like a white gown. Ah-huh. . And she wants him to kill himself. She, and, and she says, if you don’t kill yourself, I’ll kill everybody. She knocks him out. And then we cut to Tom, the lawyer, and Priscilla, it’s not Priscilla Priscilla’s, the dark-haired one.

This is one of the blondes. I don’t know which one this was. Oh, oh, okay. It was one of the hot blondes. And there she’s of course, Fully naked. Mm-hmm. , he’s wearing a towel around his waist, but they sit down and start to make out and then something just .

Todd: What

Craig: happens? Does her head explode? Does something like, it seems like something shoots through the back of her head.

Todd: But her whole head. His head. His head right. I think, I think it was a piece of wood from the wall because it’s one of those saunas that’s, you know, clad and wood because later bits of wood are coming off the wall and kind of like, and kind of all over her. But I had to rewind it. And watch it in slow motion to see actually what happened to him.

And I think that’s what it was. Yeah.

Craig: It’s, it’s insane. It is just like his whole head is just goo and she’s screaming. Then it cuts away. And then my favorite in my , in my notes, in my notes, I have Catherine, is David, question mark. What the

Todd: fuck? Like, . . It’s the best.

Craig: This scene is so good. Like, I don’t even remember why he, she, they are lying on the floor writhing around, but like they ride one way and it’s David and then they r the other way.

And it’s Kathryn, I know just keeps going

Todd: back and forth all the while. Uh, Mike is standing over him going, David, David, fight back. Fight back David.

Craig: We can’t do it justice. We can’t. No, we can’t. I’m sure it sounds really dumb and it is really dumb, but it is so fun to watch. Like, I swear to God, I, I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.

Todd: Well, and half of what makes it fun is it’s really well done actually, like Uhhuh , it’s a good, it’s a good editing job.

It’s quite skillful. It’s really nice. Like it’s, you know, it’s goofy, but it actually looks convincing. Michael takes advantage of David’s freak out, I guess, and runs out smashes through the doors of attaining parlor Unties Laura, and then immediately she’s back there. And nobody else is in the room. And she says, now is your chance, Michael.

Come with me into the inferno. Come with me and let’s

Craig: live forever in hell. . Yeah, let’s die together and live forever in hell. Yeah, it’s great. I love before that, like when it was going back between her and David and, uh, I don’t remember. Michael said something to her like, uh, I’ll do whatever you say. Just let Laura go first.

And she says, don’t give me ultimatums. Like, just the, the lines were so funny and the delivery delivery is so funny. And, and this ghost is just play, the lady who’s playing this ghost is playing it, so all of them are playing it completely straight and it’s so

Todd: silly. That’s Sherry Shad. Yeah. Oh man, it’s so great.

Oh, okay. Yeah, she’s,

Craig: that’s Katherine, right? Sherry Shaddock. Uhhuh . Um, I read somewhere that the girl, the lady who played, um, Laura. Claims that she doesn’t remember making this movie . I dunno

Todd: how convenient for you. Yeah, .

Craig: I mean, she’s not bad in it. Everybody’s fine. Nobody’s terrible. So after she says, let’s die together and live forever in hell, Marvin bursts in and grabs her from behind, but she hurls him through a window and then like she hurls him through a window into the party.

Yes. And then it just switches to another shot and the party is just going on like, yes, , nobody cares at all that people are dying everywhere.

Todd: I did begin to wonder when everyone was gonna start to care, cuz I was waiting for my pandemonium moment. Right. And that happens right away. Like she says, fine, everyone in this place is going to

Craig: die.

But not before waits. No, not before the, there are several good things that happen here. Um, after the guy gets thrown through the window, then. A blender eats a girl. This, this girl had

Todd: made, that’s all. This is it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. .

Craig: Okay. So this, this bartender girl, she’s like making a smoothie or something, and the, her hand gets stuck in the blender,

And the fat cop is trying to help her get it out. But it goes on for, it had to have been at least a minute and a half. Yes. And, and she just like, just take

Todd: your hand out, . Take your hand out. The pl like, no, it’s

Craig: fucking, and there’s so much blood, they’re like waiting in blood by the end.

Todd: Oh, it’s great. And then the

Craig: investigator, yeah, he gives up and he gives up and then, and then and then the freezer door behind him shoots open and all this cold air shoots at him, and he gets dragged into the freezer where he’s, I don’t know, assaulted, like

Todd: fish.

Fish,

Craig: And not, not only like this fish like this. It, it’s just a fish carcass, like lunges at him and bites his throat and, and he’s holding it and it’s flopping and, and the tail is like flopping in his crotch and he dies and it’s just, and blood is squirting everywhere. It’s fantastic. It looks it, oh, it, it’s so great.

And then, uh, Priscilla . Tom had knocked her out earlier for reasons unknown, but she comes too, and she goes in to look at herself in the mirror in the bathroom, and the mirror starts going all wonky and then explodes. And it had to have, I have no idea how they did this, but it had to have been some big explosion right in front of some sort of dummy, because it just blew that dummy to Smithery.

Yes,

Todd: yes. She’s just like disintegrated by this mirror. . And that’s what everybody sees. You know, this happening. And that’s, I think, when the panic sets in, finally. Three people instead, you know, witnessed this going on.

Craig: I almost texted this to you because my next notes are chaos, fire, boobs, , that’s it. And everybody’s trying to get out and they’re like, and it’s course, it’s locked.

And, and nobody can break a window, apparently glass front and nobody can get out. And they’re like piling up. They’re trampling over one another. Like bodies are just piling up. It’s insane. The whole place is burning.

Todd: They’re even just shots of the dead bodies here and there up against the window PE people

Craig: smashed dead up there.

And I loved that shot. You get an exterior shot with all the pem cuz it’s all glass front, so you can see, see all the pandemonium going on on inside and the, the sign death spa, like, uh, yes