Never Too Young to Die is a low budget action/spy movie released in 1986. It deals with the evil hermaphrodite Velvet Von Ragnar (played by Gene Simmons) who rules a gang of Mad Max-style modern-day barbarians and seeks to poison the water supply in Southern California with radioactive waste and make it undrinkable for 10,000 years. His main enemy is the Secret Agent Drew Stargrove (George Lazenby), who has hold of the Ram-K (a disk he needs to execute his plan). When the two meet up early on, Ragnar kills Stargrove once he finds out he doesn't have the Ram-K. As such, his son Lance Stargrove (John Stamos) has to team up with Danja Deering (played by singer Vanity) to stop him.
The movie was fairly obscure for some time, but gained some more recognition after The Agony Booth and Something Awful reviewed it. It wasn't until 2017 that the company Shout!factory gave it a proper DVD and Blu-ray release.
Never Too Young to Die contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Danja
- Actor Allusion: George Lazenby playing a secret service agent.
- Alliterative Name: Danja Deering.
- And Starring: George Lazenby gets "Special Guest Star" billing in the opening credits.
- Artistic Licence – Biology: Intersex people can be born with a variety of biological traits typically associated with one biological sex or another. They are not, as Ragnar claims of himself, "half man, half woman".
- Asian and Nerdy: Lance's friend Cliff who also invented among other things a flamethrower.
- Attempted Rape: Implied; at one point, a mook (who is later revealed to be The Dragon) starts threatening Danja, and when she won't tell him what he wants to know, he starts ripping her shirt off. Luckily, Lance comes in to rescue her just in time.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: At one point, the villains have kidnapped Danja and plan to burn her to death in an industrial oven. Lance saves her in time, and she is unharmed even though the thermometer says it's over 500 degrees inside.
- Depraved Bisexual: Ragnar is our villain, and is equally excited to stick his massive tongue down both Danja and Lance's throats.
- Disney Villain Death: After stabbing Ragnar with his own fingernail, Lance chucks him off the top of a dam. We even get a Plummet Perspective.
- Evil Is Hammy: Ragnar is constantly doing a high pitched Evil Laugh and seems really excited all the time for no apparent reason.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Ragnar's voice alternates between this when he talks normally and a Creepy High-Pitched Voice when he's excited.
- Fan Disservice: Gene Simmons in drag. Unless you're into that, in which case...
- Fanservice: Gene Simmons in drag. Also Vanity.
- Femme Fatalons: Ragnar has a really sharp fingernail he uses to kill multiple people. At the end, Lance stabs him in the neck with his own fingernail.
- For the Evulz: Ragnar admits he has no reason to do his evil other than he loves it.Ragnar: So you see? You can do bad things! And they don't come back to you!
- Hermaphrodite: Velvet Von Ragnar is one, dressed in a dominatrix outfit. He also has a scene where he sings a song titled "It Takes a Man Like Me to Love a Woman Like Me".
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: At one point Cliff is seen wearing a hideous outfit consisting of a yellow top, dark green pants, and a red harness.
- Just Eat Gilligan: For some reason none of the good guys think to just destroy the Ram-K once they have it instead of hiding it. There's not even a Hand Wave about how it's really important for something else so they can't just destroy it.
- Kill It with Fire: Cliff invents a flamethrower/rocket launcher called the fireblaster.
- The Mole: Carruthers, Drew Stargrove's spy partner. This is revealed early in the film, so it's not a spoiler; the real spoiler is that Carruthers is actually Ragnar in disguise.
- No Name Given: We never find out who the girl at the beginning who took the Ram-K is, although it's implied that she was Drew Stargrove's lover due to her wearing his symbol.
- Sissy Villain: Ragnar is both a terrorist leader and a Drag Queen.
- Title Drop: Ragnar not long before his Disney Villain Death.
- Villain Song: Ragnar's "It Takes a Man Like Me to Love a Woman Like Me" during the nightclub scene.
- Water Source Tampering: Ragnar's whole plan is use the Ram-K to poison the water supply with radioactive waste that will make it mutate all the local wildlife. At first, he plans to do this for money, but when he's almost beaten, he tries to do it anyway just For the Evulz.
- Wham Shot: Carruthers pulling down his sunglasses to reveal Ragnar's eyeshadow.