...When Violence Demands Revenge
Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except is a 1985 American Action Genre film featuring Sam Raimi as the villain.
Staff Sergeant Jack Stryker is a Vietnam veteran who is trying desperately to lead a normal life. When an insane cult shows up, kills his girlfriend's father and kidnaps the girlfriend, all that falls apart. Breaking out a stash of weaponry he kept with him the whole time, Stryker calls up his buddies for a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
It was distributed on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment.
This film contains examples of:
- The '60s: The film is set in 1969.
- Action Prologue: Stryker and his platoon raiding a Vietnamese camp. Unlike many Action Prologues, it ends very poorly, with most of the platoon dead and Stryker being badly injured.
- Attempted Rape: When Stryker's buddies arrive in town, they end up rescuing a girl from a group of bikers trying to gang rape her.
- Big Bad: The unnamed cult leader terrorizing the area.
- Cult: The main antagonists are a cult on a killing spree.
- Disney Villain Death: The cult leader is blasted off a cliff by Stryker, and falls straight onto the wreckage of a motorcycle.
- Handicapped Badass: Stryker walks using a cane due to a leg injury during the war.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Stryker and his buddies are going after the cult just as much to rescue Stryker's girlfriend as to avenge their other crimes.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: A war veteran calls up his old buddies to destroy a cult that killed his girlfriend and her dad.
- The Sociopath: The cult leader, who claims that he is the Second Coming of Christ, and can therefore murder anybody he wants.
- Trauma Conga Line: Stryker gets shot in the leg and loses half his platoon in Vietnam, then when he gets back he loses a close friend to murder, his girlfriend is kidnapped and his dog is killed. This all culminates in him snapping and killing the cult who are responsible for everything after he got home.
