Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 7, 1992                   TAG: 9203070196
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

`TERMINAL BLISS' WAS DEAD FROM THE START

It's a relentlessly bad and ugly little movie that never would have been released theatrically if he hadn't become so popular on television's "Beverly Hills 90210." As it is, films twice this good appear as video originals every week.

The production values are substandard. Large chunks of the film are underlit, overlit or out-of-focus. When writer/director Jordan Alan gets the camera too close to his subjects, they tend to slip in and out of the picture. The characters are, without exception, spoiled and unsympathetic. This one can't even earn any points as a guilty pleasure.

Perry plays Johnny, the worst of a bad lot of rich South Carolina high school kids. He steals Alex's (Timothy Owen) girl Stevie (Estee Chandler), and the three of them spend the rest of the movie sorting things out. Along with their friends, they use a lot of drugs, engage in casual sex with each other and find life meaningless.

If this is meant to be a cautionary tale, its messages are anti-drug, anti-abortion, anti-Grateful Dead and pro-Nixon. Ouch. The existential ending is appropriately inane.

`Terminal Bliss' : A Cannon release playing at the Salem Valley 8. Rated R for strong language, drug use, sexual content. 93 min.