15 Greatest Guilty Pleasure Movies Of The 1980s
6. Never Too Young To Die
Shortly before he achieved small screen superstardom on sitcom Full House, young heartthrob John Stamos landed his first big screen leading role, in a movie which could only ever have been made in the 1980s.
Stamos is Lance Stargrove, a top high school gymnast and, though he doesn't know it, the son of a revered secret agent, played by none other than one-time James Bond, George Lazenby. When Stargrove Sr. is murdered by Velvet Van Ragnar, a villainous hermaphrodite played by Gene Simmons of Kiss (yes, you read that entire sentence correctly), Lance steps into his father's shoes to get revenge, aided by his father's ex-partner Danja (the late pop star Vanity).
Essentially an Americanised, teen-oriented play on Bond, Never Too Young To Die is clearly played a bit tongue in cheek, but it's still so outlandishly cartoonish it leaves you with your jaw hanging throughout.
It's loaded with ridiculous weapons and gadgets, painfully cheesy one-liners, icky sexual elements (Danja goes from father to son as partner in all senses of the word), and swarms of random villains who look like they wandered in off the set of a Mad Max movie by mistake.
Oh, and if this wasn't readily apparent, it's also screamingly non-PC thanks to the gender-bending baddie. Simmons enjoyed a brief movie career in the 80s with Runaway, Trick Or Treat and Wanted Dead or Alive, but Never Too Young To Die's Ragnar was his most colourful, memorable role - beyond that of the blood-spewing Demon, of course.