Another one on my ‘Always wanted to watch, never quite got round to…’ list ‘Death Spa’ has a neat little idea that asks the question ‘What if ‘The Boogie Man’ had taken place in a health spa and gym, rather than a countryside back water home?
Well…It wasnt *quite* as good as i’d hoped for, but if your in the market for a fairly gory and at times *over the top* supernatural horror film with a SUPER heavy 80s flare. Then this one is right up your ally.
The basic plot is nothing out of the unusual, the new owners of a health spa and gym start to feel uneasy when a string of inexplicable deaths hit the new business around the same time that one of the business owners begins dating a new woman a year to the day after his wifes unfortunate demise.
The scripts a little on the lumpy side truthfully, the first act is a bit of a chugger to get going, but it builds up a decent steam behind it in terms of intricate death sequences and plot development. it seems to idle at this level for most of the 2nd act until it erupts with life in the closing 20 minutes. going from a fairly by the numbers slasher piece to something all together more extroadinary that reminded me of the end of ‘Prom Night’ and ‘Carrie’ but WAY more extreme in tone and style.
pacings a little all over the place, the murder sequences arnt very well worked into the script, it almost feels like the writers knew the film was getting a bit dialogue and plot heavy so they just hard cut a death scene in there every 15 minutes or so to stop people drifting off.
The plot itself is almost kind of inconsiquetial. theres a police investigation, and awkward romance/revenge plot line and a bit of a ‘whodunnit’ going on, but non of them really grabbed me and a lot of it felt faily by the numbers for the genre. Not helped by the fact that all the characters are woefully underwritten in terms of depth or personality and most of them feel almost interchangable in terms of what their actual function is in the movie.
The film also struggles a little bit in setting it’s tone because of all the dialogue scenes and heavy styalisation on hand. its clearly a campy horror movie. But it doesnt seem to know exactly HOW campy it wants to be. As such it kind of rides the line between a somewhat serious movie that just has a few campy moments sprinkled throughout, and a full blown camp super fest with scenery chewing to the nth degree. I liked the film when it chose a lane, because at least then it was more concise…but I struggled with the moments where I felt uncertain as to whether the film wanted to genuinely scare me or make me laugh.
While the script itself is a little uninspired, its really the direction and cine that helps save this thing. While the cast are a little lifeless plot wise; director Michael Fischa has been able to at least get them utilising their set space well and has coached them reasonably on how to deliver the lines with conviction and charisma. They might not be saying much interesting, but at least they’re saying it with STYLE!
this is a quite styalised piece and I feel like Fischa has managed to really bring his vision to life here. the camera team, lighting and the cast are all working in relative harmony, theres a distinct level of professionalism on creating this vision and with a decent sized effects budget theres a lot of scope here for crazy over the top gory effects and interesting use of camera tools such as rigs and jibs. a lot of this film visually feels like a professional production. Which is always a good sign.
Same goes for the cine, with pretty solid compositional choices across the runtime getting some really nice pieces combined with some more than decent lighting choices with cool blues, neon pinks and oranges REALLY getting to set the tone and scene of this thing to, what i’d say was mixed to decent success.
What DOES trip this thing over however is the editing unfortunately, which is lacklustre to say the least. sequences are problematic, with some scenes having weird cuts that seem to miss out chunks of the action (it feels like additional B-roll was planned to be shot and then the budget ran out as 2 shots that shouldnt cut together are suddenly rammed into each other) theres a couple of line fluffs here and there which take the professional edge off and bizarrely; contrasting the sequences where it feels like theres B-roll missing. We have sequences where it feels like TOO MUCH B-roll was captured and that they’re trying to cram in as many shots as they can.
it all results in an edit that takes some pretty decent footage and just…throws it in the trash for a good 70% of the runtime. it makes what looks like a fairly competent film and makes it feel like its some kind of ‘salvage’ job where they’ve had to reconstruct missing scenes with whatever footage was available. Its really odd.
The cast are pretty unremarkable too, which is another big dissapointment here. Ken Foree is probably the most likeable character of the bunch here playing a supporting role as a technician and security expert at the gym called Marvin. But even he feels like he’s phoning it in and the rest of the cast are poorer still. which is a real shame.
Oh. and I dont have much to say on it, but the soundtracks pretty cool. its generic 80s electro rock and pop with a bit of an aerobics/workout tone. it’s cool. I didnt fall head over heels for it, but it was one of the better lower budgeted scores i’ve heard.
All in all? I’d watch this again, I think it’d pair up quite well with something like “Phantom of the Mall: Erics Revenge” or “Night of the Demons” as a bit of a paranormal double header. But realistically; it’s not an essential watch, and it isnt enjoyable enough outright to get a full blown rec. Its fun in places, and the 3rd act is what really saves it…But its a problematic movie that I feel could have done with another draft or two to really nail it.
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