THE HEALTH SPA sets out merely to showcase the beauty and sexual talents of Abigail Clayton and Kay Parker, and succeeds well. Hardly an ambitious project, but quality porn from actress-turned-helmer Clair Dia.
I had just seen two of Dia's best films as actress, the unsung but highly rewarding soap opera WHAT ABOUT JANE and DESIRES WITHIN YOUNG GIRLS. She was a major talent, worthy of rediscovery.
It is interesting that Dia cast in the lead role Clayton, who resembles her (facially, not the same body type at all). Watching the film one can see Dia herself in the part, and obviously identifying with it vicariously from behind the camera.
Kay is a reporter working for the scandal sheet aptly named International Expose Magazine, assigned to go undercover and write a story trashing a private health spa/sex club.
Script is extremely straightforward, with just a minimum of the expected proselytizing undercurrent that I find so annoying in porn. To be specific, film's theme is that combining sex with exercise is, like the old Sexual Encounter Group movement of the '70s, yet another admirable liberation emanating from the "free love" era.
Before coming around to this point-of-view, Kay digs for dirt, under pressure from her boss (not so well-cast 1-shot Rudy Graham) to come up with the goods for the next edition, or she's fired.
Kay brings with her to the spa her young co-worker Clayton, who goes with the flow, and is instantly absorbed in the lovemaking. Suspense is generated by "how long will it take Kay to see the light".
Always reliable John Seeman is on the spa's staff, showing new members how it's done, and he delivers plenty of money shots, as usual. His femme partner there is a rather alluring and mysterious (to me) porn performer Phaery Burd (a very unfortunate stage name), who gets lots of screen time compared to her usual small roles. As the grey-haired owner of the spa, another 1-shot thesp Robert Girard merely showed up for XXX work.
On IMDb, a commenter signing in as Justin Lisson pretends to review THE HEALTH SPA under the guise of actually reviewing RETURN TO HORROR HIGH, a film which happens to be written by Mark Lisson. I don't know what that's all about (some sort of obscure in-joke?), but it amounts to merely spurious misinformation.
