Technological Terror: Death Spa (1989)
My dear readers, though this may come dangerously close to boasting, I must admit I often find my life to be the very picture of contentment. It brings me no small pleasure to wake each day and face my tasks alone, master to no one but myself and the constant fear of financial ruin. Admittedly, not every person can count themselves so fortunate and your average fellow is expected to navigate the tricky business of social dealings with coworkers. My curious relative Lancaster Hauntedhouse was a prime example of how such arrangements can go awry. The man found himself in the business of pest extermination during the profession’s earlier years and he was, by all accounts, a savvy and efficient craftsman. But while his methods for dispatching various Rodentia left no room for complaint, he apparently suffered from some confusion over how to approach their remains. Unfortunately, his uncertainty about what to do with their dear little carcasses overlapped uncomfortably with an amateur interest in children’s puppet theater and I understand the subsequent performances made him a character to be avoided in professional circles.
The sort of environment that leads to suicide
Michael Evans (William Bumiller) and David Avery (Merritt Butrick) are deeply familiar with tense work environments. Together, they operate a technologically advanced health spa with state-of-the-art exercise equipment and a truly alarming degree of surveillance. Unfortunately, their day-to-day interactions have become fairly strained ever since the demise of Catherine Avery Evans (Shari Shattuck), David’s sister and Michael’s former fiancé. Apparently, some sort of accident left Catherine wheelchair-bound and she found it impossible to adjust to such a sedentary lifestyle. Spending her days watching leotard-sporting folk legging it up with great exuberance did not improve her mood one bit and so she decided it best to vacate this world prematurely, setting herself aflame in the very wheelchair that confined her and allowing herself to be consumed in a potent symbolic blaze.
Despite this seemingly climactic gesture, Catherine finds that death is not quite as satisfactory a solution as she had envisioned and decides that she could do with a bit of company. And so she unleashes supernatural havoc on the electronic gadgetry at the gym, turning what were meant to be modern marvels of fitness technology into medieval death traps. Michael is not at all pleased with how much these fatal episodes conflict with the establishment’s promise of betterment and good health and he implores David to help him rid the system of Catherine’s presence, forcing David to choose between his homicidal spirit sibling and a man who was nearly his brother-in-law.
Not what one would call a victory on the marketing front
At the risk of sounding like some obstinate old codger who wags a disapproving finger at every unfamiliar gadget, I have often found myself apprehensive about introducing advanced technology to appliances that have worked just fine without any additional tinkering. Though I understand that our toasters and telephones are currently only capable of “artificial” intelligence, it seems awfully likely that they’ll get their hands on the real stuff sooner or later and I doubt they will find much satisfaction in the tasks we have given them. How reassuring, then, to be reminded that my reservations are not entirely alien or unprecedented. Aside from a brief interlude involving reanimated fish corpses, Death Spa really sticks rather close to the technology angle and while it is certainly not the first cautionary tale about tempering the pace of our advancement, few others relate so clearly the hazards that ignoring such warnings might pose to one’s health. As Lancaster Hauntedhouse said before being removed from his position, “just because a better mousetrap is possible does not mean that it is necessary.”
Death Spa runs 88 minutes and is rated R.
