Trancers
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Movie Reviews of Trancers
Movie Review: Classic SFI
Summary: 5 Stars
Loved this movie in the 80's can't go wrong! Helen Hunt still looks hott even 20 years later, haaa.Movie Review: Jack is a real hero
Summary: 5 Stars
Perhaps the best B-movie series of all time,You won't regret this one,entertaining,funny etc... A++Movie Review: Eerily Entertaining Sci-Fi Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
"What kind of name is Peter Gunn?" "What kind of name is Jack Deth?" is just one of the memorable lines you will see in this low budget 1985 cult thriller "Trancers," starring the ever reliable Tim Thomerson and a struggling Helen Hunt. "Trancers" spawned five sequels, all of which never quite duplicated the fun of the original. I saw somewhere on the Internet that Thomerson is the "King of the B movies," but "Trancers" is the one film he made that stands head and shoulders above all others. If you draw a blank with the name "Tim Thomerson," you most likely saw him in a few bigger budget pictures, such as "Air America, "Uncommon Valor," and "Who's Harry Crumb?" He's done television work as well, appearing on "Xena" and "The Days of Our Lives." Once you recognize Thomerson, you'll remember his appearance in numerous films. Helen Hunt should need no introduction, but the fact that she appears in this low budget film is oddly jarring. Hunt went on to appear in two "Trancers" sequels before moving on to "Mad About You" and eventual stardom. "Trancers" opens with a futuristic L.A. The majority of Los Angeles sits under water, a victim of a massive earthquake. A council rules the remaining areas of the city, but their reign is under fire by a man named Whistler, an evil psychic with the ability to put certain weak-minded people (called squids) under a "trance." Whistler hopes to overthrow the council with his trancer shock troops. Trancers tend to be rather ugly blokes, with crusty looking lips and yellowish skin. The council dealt a series of blows to Whistler and his movement with the help of trancer hunters like Jack Deth. Deth and his fellow officers move around the city, hunting down trancers in order to kill them. Jack refers to this process as "singeing" because a trancer shot with a gun burns away, leaving only a black, ashy outline on the ground.
After Jack quits the force over a dispute with his boss, he's suddenly called back to duty when an emergency arises. It seems Whistler sent himself "down the line" (read: time traveled into the past) to Los Angeles in 1985, where he hopes to hatch a plan that will doom the council and allow himself to take over. Jack Deth must now follow Whistler back in time in order to put an end to the nightmare of the trancers. When Jack goes down the line he meets Lena (Helen Hunt), who quickly becomes a part of the mission to track down Whistler. Predictably, a romance springs up between Deth and Lena as the two race around L.A. battling Whistler's new batch of trancers.
It's difficult to tell if "Trancers" is a serious science fiction film or a sly spoof. There are a lot of gags and jokes centered on Christmas in 1985 Los Angeles, especially with Lena's job as an elf at a department store. I don't want to spoil this scene for you, but it is one of the funniest things I've seen in awhile. Imagine a battle with foam candy canes, a set of antlers, and a falling Christmas prop and you'll get the idea. This battle in the mall also leads to one of the funniest lines in the film when a lady calls security on a walkie-talkie and squawks, "Security, we've got trouble at the North Pole." If the idea of a singed Santa named Murray appeals to you, buy "Trancers" right away.
There are other elements in this film that might appeal to the dedicated cheese lover. Watch how Thomerson drives the car; his hands twist and turn the wheel but the car continues moving in a straight line. Then there is the deadly effect of a tanning booth, which apparently can radiate enough heat to singe a raincoat or burn hands. Jack's special watch, which can freeze time for ten seconds, seems to stop time for minutes. These are small problems that instead of detracting from the film actually serve to add a chuckle or two. Arguably, the biggest joke in the film is the trancers themselves. They aren't that hard to kill, don't look particularly scary or dangerous, and have absolutely no powers whatsoever. You'd figure that at the very least the trancers would possess some sort of psychic power with which to threaten our heroes. You'd be wrong. These guys are so weak you could kill them by hitting them over the head with a rolled up newspaper. Be sure and watch for Deth's first encounter with a trancer in the diner of the future L.A.; I laughed for a long time over the uppercut he delivers to an old waitress when she turns out to be a trancer.
"Trancers" is actually entertaining overall, with an occasionally cool soundtrack, funny dialogue, and better acting than one usually finds in a movie of this caliber. I really enjoyed Thomerson as Jack Deth; he's fun to watch and actually makes you root for his character. It's too bad the people who made the DVD didn't take the film seriously, as the transfer is fuzzy, there's a dead spot in the middle of the movie, and no commentary. What the DVD does have, amazingly enough, is a whopping FORTY-FIVE trailers on the reverse side of the disc. Sure, the trailers are for low budget clunkers like "Puppet Master" and "Robot Wars," but it's still great to watch them. For the price, "Trancers" is well worth the time. Hopefully, the rest of the series will come out on DVD soon.
Movie Review: Dry hair's for squids
Summary: 4 Stars
Any real fan of low-budget sci-fi and horror has to have a soft spot in his heart for Charles Band, the crown prince of B-movies who is perhaps best known for the Puppet Master Collection, and 1985's Trancers is one of the films that helped put him on the proverbial map. This film, packed with quotable cheesy lines, some gloriously bad acting, and oftentimes laughable special effects, went on to inspire multiple sequels - but the biggest thought this movie inspired in my head was "Man, Helen Hunt was pretty hot back in 1985." In fact, Hunt's character's inexplicable attraction to clumsy, middle-aged oafs from the future had me wishing someone could transport me back in time to that year, as well. What's Trooper Jack Deth got that I don't have? Oh, yeah - a watch that can stop time for ten incredibly long seconds and a mission to kill Whistler's mother's son. Whistler, of course, is the evil genius who killed Deth's wife and has now gone back in time three centuries to 1985 to kill the ancestors of the three Council members who run Angel City. You know the old saying - if you can't beat `em, go back in time and kill their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers (and, of course, be sure to tell them exactly what your plan is in advance, especially if they think you're already dead and no longer a threat to them).
I guess I should explain that "trancers" are the murderous, weak-minded slaves (or "squids," in 23rd century parlance) whom Whistler has put in a trance - they do his bidding until they're killed (or "singed"), at which point they spontaneously combust radioactively for no apparent reason. I should also point out that there's one big catch to traveling back in time (or "down the line," as Deth would say) - you can only do so by taking over the body of one of your direct ancestors. This works out great for Deth, as his crusty ancestor had just scored with Leena (a very young Helen Hunt), and Whistler, whose ancestor is a high-ranking detective - but not so much for Deth's blowhard boss who shows up later to yell at him. Anyway, Leena actually buys Deth's crazy story about being a cop from the future, and the two of them set out to find the two surviving Council member's less than illustrious ancestors before Whistler gets to them.
Of course, the story begs several questions. For instance, why not go a little bit further back in time to try and save the first Council member's ancestor? Come to think of it, how do they even know about the first Council member since the death of his direct ancestor means he suddenly never existed? You just can't let yourself get bogged down with this kind of thinking, though. Just sit back and enjoy Deth's battle royales against an elderly waitress and a mall Santa, revel in Deth's punk rock -dancing prowess, watch him drive the heck out of a convertible even on perfectly straight roads, and laugh at all of the intentional - and unintentional - comic moments on display over the course of the film's relatively short 76 minutes. This is Grade A B-movie cheese as only the legendary Charles Band can deliver.
Movie Review: Jack Deth is BACK!
Summary: 4 Stars
And he's never even been here before! Classic quotable ad line for the cult hit Trancers back when it played in theaters in 1985. Yeah, Trancers really played the big screen venues back before video ate up the grindhouse theater chains that booked these exploitive little trash movie gems. Charles Band (of Full Moon fame) created his own little movie studio, the now defunct Empire Pictures, which scored a megahit with Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator and, from 1983 until 1988 (or 89), released many a great piece of low rent cinema, Trancers being one the tiny studio's bigger non-Stuart Gordon hits (Ghoulies was the other one).Jack Deth is an Angel City cop tracking down the last few Trancers, people who have become mental zombies enslaved to their psychic leader Whistler, who Deth singed (slang for dispatch revolver style) on one of the 'Rim Worlds'. But it turns out that Whistler is not dead, he has gone 'down the line' to wipe out the current Angel City Council members family lines. Deth has to go back in time, to 1985 Los Angeles, and snag Whistler before he rewrites the future to his power mad liking.
Although Trancers has plot holes and paradoxes you can drive several highways through, the script manages some real wit and fun with its premise and character actor Tim Thomerson is obviously having a blast playing Deth. The Full Moon (now Koch Distributing) DVD is just a copy of the Vestron Video laserdisc release, presenting the movie in full frame and offering up some bios and filmographies of the various actors. 40 trailers for most of Band's Full Moon output is offered on the b-side and that makes this disc all the more worth having. Recommended.