Many films are targeted at teens, but few are actually made by teenagers themselves. Written and directed by 19-year-old Jordan Alan, 1987's Terminal Bliss illustrates why the shortage isn't such a bad thing. Set in the sort of neighborhood where people invariably turn to drugs and booze in an attempt to forget their lives of obscene wealth and privilege, Terminal Bliss stars Tim Owen and Luke Perry as classmates who remain best friends despite their hatred for each other. Owen, apparently cursed with a disease that forces him to communicate only via sarcasm, is first seen checking out some lacrosse groupies before heading to a nightclub with a broad cross-section of upper-class humanity: a drug dealer, a drug addict, a Deadhead, and a surly teen idol. En route to the club, the denim-clad addict gives Owen's tripping girlfriend some friendship beads "to help keep the nightmare trips away." The beads apparently work, but unfortunately fail to keep Owen's high-school sweetheart from adjourning to a unisex bathroom for eight seconds of blissful, lava-lamp-lit intimacy with Perry. Driven into surliness and even more sarcasm by his girlfriend's indiscretion, Owen retreats into a nightmare world of China White, black beauties, and mind-altering substances with even sillier nicknames. Owen's bikini-clad, valium-popping mother is of little help, perhaps because she appears to be only five or ten years older than her son. At a loss for guidance, Owen spends a month in rehab, emerging clean, sober, and as unpleasant as ever. But his life continues to imitate the work of Bret Easton Ellis, as his friends spiral out of control in increasingly hilarious ways. "Look at your precious little angel now, daddy! You always told me to finish my plate!" cries the addict, shortly before finishing a mirror-full of coke, capturing succinctly the torment of the young, rich, and atrociously written. Desperate for a new start, Perry and Owen head to the lake, where several days of reading, water-skiing, adolescent philosophizing, and LSD climax in a horrible death, which slaps a downbeat ending on what must now be as embarrassing to Alan as a drawer full of yearbook photos.
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