133. Death Spa (1989)

March 4, 2014

I had forgotten how insanely awesome this movie was! As part of the Alamo Drafthouse's new VHS Vortex series, they took a VCR and connected it to a projector and played an actual VHS tape for us. The quality was pretty dingy but it didn't matter. With a group of some of my best friends to share the Death Spa experience with me, we set out on a journey through the outstandingly bad and laughed harder than we have in a long time. In a state of the art health spa where computers run the show, a series of bizarre deaths start occurring, leading the police to suspect the spa's owner, Michael, and the man behind the computer, David. Turns out David is the twin brother of Michael's dead wife, Catherine, and the two of them shared a special twin bond even in the afterlife. With several crazy plot twists, random exploded and mangled body parts, beyond terrible acting (aside from the always endearing Rosalind Cash), gratuitous nudity, and some hilariously homoerotic & bizarre 80s workout scenes, Death Spa has it all. I'm hoping someone will pick it up and put it out on blu-ray, even though watching it on VHS was half the fun. I'm also hoping that the Alamo Drafthouse will continue to provide us with awesome selections like this one.