DEADLY SPA: DTMWaGL #11
DEADLY SPA: DTMWaGL #11
My friends, this movie is my heart. DEADLY SPA is my heart and my soul and I love it so much and I’m so happy I get to share it with you. (Content warnings for general violence, and also cult-related emotional abuse.)
We start out with a classic Lifetime movie in medias res opening, with a dirtbaggy guy driving down a remote stretch of road. He rudely ends a cell phone conversation with his mom before nearly hitting a young woman who stumbles into the road in front of his car. An interesting thing about this young woman is that she has a longbow and a quiver strapped to her back, but it was 2013, we were all very into Katniss Everdeen. Our noble dirtbag hustles the girl into his car while she tells him that she and her mom need help, and the camera lingers on a little sun and moon tattoo on her arm. Almost immediately though, a van comes up the road and runs the helpful but scummy guy’s car off the road. A man in a suit emerges from the van, smashes the windows of the car, and takes the girl to his van. Then the title screen! It’s DEADLY SPA, babyyyyyyy! (According to IMDb, it’s ZEPHYR SPRINGS actually, but, well, here on the Lifetime Movie Club it’s DEADLY SPA.)
Yes, this is literally thirty-nine seconds into this movie, DEADLY SPA hits the ground fuckin RUNNING
Some indeterminate amount of time earlier, we are in a city that I assume is Los Angeles. A young woman does yoga with her mom and complains about doing yoga with her mom. This is Kayla (pronounced, for some reason, “Kyla”), home for summer break, and her mom Dawn, who has A Job Somewhere, Doing Something. Oh, and what’s this, Kayla has a familiar tattoo, oh wow! On the way out of the yoga studio, they see an ad for a fancy resort called The Source. Kayla tells her mom that she works too much, and she should go to this place, which was apparently “created” by a guy named David James, who would like you to “insist on yourself. Believe in your dreams.” Dawn agrees to take time away from her time-consuming and vague job, if Kayla will go with her. It’s settled! Let’s go to the spa, where no one will be murdered!
On the shuttle bus to The Source, they marvel at how quiet it is out here, and learn just how remote it is when Kayla asks the driver, a young guy named Brett, if he has “anything less enjoyable” than the pop music playing on the radio and he spins the dial on nothing but static. Also, that’s a good line, “do you have anything less enjoyable,” I like Kayla. She wears a lot of eyeliner and combat boots and she has bangs, so you can tell she’s got problems. I’ve got problems! We have so much in common. Also, they pass a lake that Brett tells them is “fed by Zephyr Springs,” and that’s the only time those words ever appear in the movie. Good title though.
When they arrive at The Source, they are greeted by a white man who says “namaste” to them, and then by David James himself. David, also a white man who says “namaste” a lot, has scruff and glasses and a way of squinting into your soul that works on some people but not, I say confidently, on me. He introduces himself to Dawn by telling her that she looks just like his mother, “when she was young and beautiful,” so that’s the vibe here. David leads them on a tour of the grounds. It’s very pretty, all adobe and palms and yuccas and a big pool. David also takes the time to cure another guest of an old hamstring injury by telling them all that the secret to success is not letting pain and pleasure use you, and also stretching her hammie. He’s a miracle worker, and Dawn is Into It. As they head into the main building, Kayla asks David what if her mind is what’s stressing her, not her hamstring, and he tells her some bullshit about “ruling herself.” Dawn tells David that Kayla’s mind is a troubled place. Lady, you have known this man for twenty minutes and you are already selling your daughter out to him. Have some composure. Then David has them put their cell phones in lockers, so they can leave their city problems in the city, and introduces them to Lori, a blonde woman who is his “top administrator” (okay), and Siddhartha, a slightly older man in a kurta, who taught David everything he knows. Siddhartha is sort of vaguely ethnically ambiguous I guess, but also they named him Siddhartha and he is played by a French-American actor named Charles so who knows. Siddhartha singles out Dawn and Kayla to tell them they have beautiful auras, and Dawn wins back a point with me by saying, “thank you, I guess.”
Please experience the raw animal magnetism of David James, and,,, namaste
Dawn and Kayla do some spa stuff, and while getting a pedicure Kayla skeptically reads aloud some self-improvement bullshit from the brochure. Dawn asks her to keep an open mind, and Kayla correctly replies that the problem with an open mind is that people are always trying to cram something in there. Then Dawn notices that Kayla still wears a necklace she gave her, which matches the one she’s wearing. They’re a matched set, Dawn’s says “you are my” and Kayla’s says “sunshine,” which is a thing Dawn calls her even though, my goodness, the troubled mind and the eyeliner on this one. Then they get food, and Brett the van driver offers to find Kayla a burger when she’s a little leery of the vegetarian buffet on offer. Ooooh I think he liiiiikes her!
That night, on her way out of the sauna, Kayla passes a room in which David is scolding some guy we’ve never seen about something, I don’t know, but the important thing is that Siddhartha is holding the guy in a headlock while he desperately pleads with a cold and arrogant David. Kayla is alarmed at this scene and tries to walk away unnoticed, but David hears her and follows her down the hall, and when Kayla ducks into the sauna, he props up a shovel (???) under the door to trap her in there. I guess the temperature control for the sauna is on the outside? Because Kayla ends up screaming for help and rattling the door while we get menacing close-ups of the simmering water bowl in the sauna. Eventually she dislodges the shovel and runs back to her room, while we see Siddhartha absolutely snap that guy’s neck. Now, me, personally, before I murder someone in a building with dozens of other people in it, I close the door first, maybe even poke my head out and check the hallway for witnesses, but not Siddhartha, no sir. Kayla tells Dawn about being trapped in the sauna, and Dawn doesn’t really think much of it, and then David comes in to tell her that what she saw was an employee being fired for stealing from guests, and also he heard about the sauna and he’ll get that fixed right away. “Hmmmmmmm,” thinks Kayla.
The next morning, they hike out into the hills for their breakfast, and a lesson in archery and the power of believing in yourself. David tells them that hope lives in each of them, you just have to name your dreams and then you can live them. Sure. He asks the guests what they wanted to be when they were kids, and a guy named Al says he wanted to be a rock star, and Dawn, who is, incredibly, wearing what appears to be a leather safari hat, says she wanted to be a dancer. “What got in the way?” asks David. “Life,” replies Dawn, blinking back tears. She means Kayla, I think. Kayla, for her part, tells David she always wanted to be a motivational speaker, which gets a laugh, but he scolds her for hiding behind sarcasm. Sorry her jokes aren’t all about how handsome and great you are, David. The guests write their dreams on a piece of paper, strap it to a “truth arrow”, and shoot the arrows into a tree. Kayla hits the tree square and true, good job Kayla. After everyone goes back to the main grounds, David returns and looks at Kayla’s truth arrow, on which she’s written “I want to be beautiful.” Should’ve stuck with the motivational speaker thing, probably.
Dawn got dressed and thought, “what else? It needs something,” and then she put on the hat and nodded
After a quick shot of Dawn and Kayla doing yoga while David watches them and menacingly eats an apple, Dawn gets a hot stone massage. Surprise, it’s done by David! Consent, what’s that, never heard of it. He rubs her back while telling her that she has a beautiful neck and that she should wear her hair up more often, and it is incredibly creepy to me, but Dawn loves it and opens up to him about her ex, who can be summed up as “bad.” As the massage concludes, she moans, “you cannot possibly be this good,” and he says, “I have to apologize, I just am,” and it is just absolutely revolting. It turned me into a desiccated husk of a woman and it is hard to type now but I’m making it work.
That night, there’s some sort of dance party happening, and David calls up Al, who wanted to be a rock star, to perform a song he wrote for his wife, who accompanies him on tambourine. While Al sings his song, which is bad, David finds Dawn. She’s wearing her hair up and he tells her, again, how beautiful her neck is, and it seems like this might swerve into being a Twilight ripoff, but no, he’s just a human creep. Also, Dawn is dancing and while I admire her enthusiasm, it’s probably for the best that she got pregnant with Kayla and had her dancer dreams derailed. They chat about her ex some more, and he makes her say “nobody’s gonna hurt me again” over and over until he decides she means it. While this is happening, Kayla and Brett are flirting by a firepit, and also he tries to tell her that she should come work at The Source because he is starved for young female interaction, and she’s a girl! “Solid observation there, Brett,” replies Kayla. I love Kayla. She asks him what he isn’t telling her about this place, because it seems a little creepy, but they just end up ineptly dancing and it’s kind of cute. Brett walks Kayla back to her room and tries to pass her a note, but David and Dawn interrupt the moment. After the women turn in, David tells Brett a story about his childhood puppy, who shit in the house until his dad had had enough, and he drowned the puppy in the river, because his dad is the Judge from Blood Meridian. To make sure Brett understands the point of his story, he tells him to repeat “I understand” several times. This is a theme. Also, Kayla and Dawn have an argument because Kayla finds this place weird and wants to leave but Dawn is too enthralled by David to leave. This is where I start yelling about how this movie is about women submitting themselves to the patriarchy. Listen to your daughter!!!!
Rather than leaving this accursed place, Dawn and Kayla join another hike the next morning. David leads them in a meditation, which Kayla enjoys, much to her surprise, and then he jumps off a cliff, into a lake they didn’t know was there. He is fully clothed. Everyone is so thrilled by this! Ha ha, jumping into a lake with all your clothes on! How subversive and unexpected! Dawn is so moved that she, also, jumps into the lake with all her clothes on. You’re going to hike back, in your squelchy shoes? Are you? Okay. She is. It’s time to head back now, but Kayla hangs back to ask Brett about what he was trying to tell her last night. He tells her that sure, David helps people, but he also exploits vulnerabilities in some people, like her mom. If he sees that thing in you, he’ll never let go, until he’s drained you and your bank account and you’re completely in his power. Kayla needs to get her mom out of here before it’s too late, and he gives her directions to leave without being spotted. Kayla kisses him for his trouble, but then David, still wet from that lake he jumped into, appears and shoos Brett away so he can get Kayla on her own and gently harangue her for not thinking she’s beautiful. Kayla wants to leave, but David wants to say a bunch of stuff to her about her dad, and her fear of rejection, and makes her say “I’m not ugly” several times. I hate it.
Dawn, no, Dawn, don’t jump, Dawn, your shoes, your hoodie, Dawn, oh no
On her way to breakfast, Kayla literally stumbles across the body of that guy Siddhartha killed. So that’s not ideal, for several reasons, and she runs screaming to tell her mom what she saw, and David tells her she definitely didn’t find a body but reluctantly agrees to go look. Al the erstwhile rock star tags along because he has EMT training, and he, David, and Lori the administrator stand at the creek bed saying, “well, I don’t see any dead bodies,” even though if Al had turned his head literally like ten degrees to the right, he would have seen Siddhartha, in plain sight, dragging the body into the brush. I cannot overemphasize how openly Siddhartha is dragging this body. His kurta today has “this is the kurta I wear to drag bodies around” embroidered on it. Regardless, Al does not turn his head. But if he had!
“Nice day to drag a body around,” thinks Siddhartha
Back at the lodge, Dawn and Kayla are packing to leave, because Kayla has had it up to HERE with the deadliness of this spa. David pokes his head in to check on them, and Dawn asks him to call a ride, since he has the only phone line. He “goes” to “do that”, and Kayla asks Dawn if she even believes her. Dawn clearly does not believe that her daughter found a dead body or has been specifically warned by an employee of the resort that she needs to leave, and tells her that she’s always doing this, and “whatever you’re scared of is bigger than this!” Like, is Kayla always ruining family vacations that turn out to be cult nightmares? Did they go to Jellystone Park, and did Kayla run out of the forest wildly announcing that she saw Yogi Bear eat a man whole? That is the only circumstance in which this would be acceptable mothering. As they haul their suitcases out of their room, David reappears to pull Dawn aside so that she can whine that she wants to stay. David tells her that maybe she has to let Kayla go, after all she’s an adult, and she’s holding Dawn back. And then they kiss?? And I hate it, and Kayla, who is watching them from afar, hates it.
And now it is night, and they are still at the deadly spa! Kayla makes an unsuccessful attempt to call 911 from David’s phone, but David finds her and asks her if he can change her mind. He keeps touching her hair. It’s gross. He tells Kayla that some people want to say goodbye to her, and pulls her into a room that appears to be hosting some kind of struggle session? Struggle sessions: all the best spas have them now, I subscribe to Goop so I know these things. Kayla takes to the microphone and warns everyone that he won’t let them leave, and they’ll be killed if they try, but David assures them that Kayla is just speaking from a place of paranoia and fear and it’s very sad, really. It’s because her dad left her! Brett knows what I’m talking about, right Brett, your dad left you! David goes on and on about how she’s just scared, and she’s beautiful and she’s the divine, and all she has to do is say “I’m not my father” into the microphone. She grudgingly does this, because maybe if she does, she can leave, and also Dawn is here encouraging her to say it, because you know what, Dawn is a terrible mother. Once Kayla accedes to the demands of the patriarchy, she’s allowed off the stage, and Dawn is thrilled with the breakthrough she just had. Kayla is like, “oh my GOD we are LEAVING,” and she doesn’t trust the van, if it ever shows up, so she’s leaving on foot. Dawn pleads with her to stay, telling her that “this is the moment you have to stop running from and start running to,” and Kayla and I both yell, “OH MY GOD,” but Dawn is staying. Kayla tearfully leaves, but she gets about ten feet before Siddhartha grabs her. Nobody saw that, right? It’s not like there are dozens of people at this resort, with relative freedom of movement. Oh, there are? But no one saw? Great.
This is exactly the look I get when a man touches my shoulder
Well, now Kayla is tied to a beam in a barn or something. A bright light flashes in her face while a recording of David’s voice tells her things like, “you let fear live in you because you’re weak,” but also here is flesh David to harangue Kayla in person. He says a bunch of garbage about her dad, and about her defensiveness, and whatever, you have probably had a man say this to you before. He tells her he’s doing this for her own good, and he won’t give up on her, leaving her with the recording saying “hopeless, helpless, you are nothing.”
I guess it’s morning now, I have lost track of how time works in this movie (classic cult tactic). Dawn finds Kayla’s “sunshine” necklace where Siddhartha attacked her, and thinks, “hmm,” maybe for the first time in her life. She finds David and asks him if they’ve found Kayla, and he tells her no, but it’s probably fine, she’s run off before, right? “She is her father’s daughter,” replies Dawn, who simply cannot stop being the worst. She asks to use the phone to ask Kayla’s dad if he’s heard from her, but David says the phone is down and “goes” to “check on that.” Dawn asks Brett if he knows anything, and shows him the necklace, which Kayla never would have left behind. They set up a secret meeting in the secret woods, somewhere.
Dawn meets Brett in the woods, next to a small pole barn. Brett thinks Kayla is in that barn, and that David is trying to break her spirit in there, but before they can, I don’t know, go in the barn to rescue Kayla, they hear a car pull up and Dawn hides behind a tree. Look at the self-preservation instincts on this one! David emerges from the car, tells Brett he’s so disappointed in him, and then stabs him in the side of the neck with an arrow. Dawn watches him bleed out, and also watches David do a little “namaste” at the body, which to be fair is VERY funny. Siddhartha starts digging a grave, because here is as good a place as any, but Dawn makes a little noise trying to escape and also reckon with the horror of this whole business, and he goes to investigate. Dawn is slightly too quick for him, but she gets picked up on the road by David and Lori.
Kayla: still in the barn.
David is talking to Dawn, who is pretending she didn’t just see him murder someone with an arrow. He is trying to convince her to stay, she’s not the same person she was when she got here, and if she leaves now she’ll miss out on all the murders to come. Oh no wait he said “miracles”, not “murders”, my mistake. He gets Dawn to say, “I’m going to stay” over and over, until Lori interrupts the programming to tell him he has a phone call. Oh, the phones are working! Dawn can call Kayla’s dad! David grudgingly agrees to let her use the phone, and sits at his desk while she makes the call. While Dawn makes the call, she spots a framed photo of David’s mom, who really does look just like her, and smashes it over David’s head. Finally! I mean, it’s just a picture frame, but it leaves David woozy enough for Dawn to grab a bow and quiver and head out.
Dawn runs through the woods, pursued by Siddhartha. He catches up to her at that cliff where Dawn jumped into the water wearing all her clothes. You can tell it’s the same one because there’s still a large Oriental rug there, on the ground. They scuffle, and she ends up flipping Siddhartha off the cliff. He seems like he’s hurt pretty bad? Like, slightly worse than if he’d been hit with a picture frame.
Soft-headed David has recovered enough to grab a gun from his desk and head out in pursuit of Dawn. Dawn is still running. How far away is the barn? It seemed like she just popped over there on Brett’s lunch break before, but now she is just, running and running. She finally gets to the barn and kills the recording of “you are nothing, not even alive,” and the flashing light, then unties Kayla. Their very slow escape is foiled by David, though, because he has a van. Remember the van? David grabs Dawn but Kayla takes the bow and arrows and runs off. How far is the road? How far is The Source? How far is the moon? This disorientation is my home, I live here now.
Maybe Dawn is just a really slow runner? Maybe The Source is riddled with wormholes?
We have arrived back at the first scene, with the attempted dirtbag rescue. Also, it’s nighttime. I love it. In the van, David tells a bound and gagged Dawn that she is such a disappointment, she thinks about no one but herself. Well, I mean. The van versus car chase ensues, and a very woozy Kayla is thrown in the back of the van with her mom.
Because there are only like four locations in this movie, we end up back at that barn, and David yells at Dawn some more. I didn’t write down what he’s saying, because it’s all the same abusively patriarchal bullshit. I guess he left Kayla in the van, because she has set off the car alarm and is waiting for him with the bow and arrow. She shoots an arrow clean through his shoulder, and he stumbles back inside to pull it out and hold it up to Dawn’s neck. Dawn twists away from him and reunites with Kayla in the barn loft. David turns the blinking light and recording back, then comes up the stairs saying, “you are nothing,” in Kayla’s general direction. Kayla pops out, arrow notched, hisses, “I. Am. Everything,” and shoots him in the chest. He falls down the stairs and honestly? Honestly. It rules. It is so fucking good. It is so satisfying. Kayla has been through so much and her mother has been so unhelpful and she still murdered this man, for her. She could have let David stab her in the throat with an arrow! And she didn’t. Kayla! Kayla! Kayla! And then because this is a Lifetime movie, Kayla pulls her mom to her feet and says, “Mom, let’s go home.” They flag down a pickup truck somewhere and return to their lives, having learned several important lessons about life.
At this point I am hooting and hollering and banging on pots and pans
There’s a little stinger at the end, an ad for The Source where Lori is in charge now, smilingly intoning, “Welcome to your best decision.” That’s it! The end! DEADLY SPA!