Directed by Charles Band
A while back (depending on when you read this) Charles Band and his company Full Moon made a comeback, offering a variety of great and long sought after merchandise, including the discontinued Puppet Master box set, the never before released Subspeices box set, and the long overdo Trancers box set. I was lucky enough to pick up the Trancers set in San Francisco at the Charles Band Road Show when it rolled into town. As a long-time fan of the franchise, I was happy with my choice.
Trancers follows the adventures of Jack Deth, a cop from the future who must travel through time to defeat the evil “vampire” like creatures known as Trancers. The Trancer-verse mode of time travel allows the person in the future to return to the body of one ancestor in the past. This adds a bit of comic relief when Deth’s superior (Art LaFleur), a hardboiled cop, must return to the body of a small, girl child.
It just happens that Jack Deth’s relative looks like him and is banging a young “Punk Rock” Helen Hunt (you know she is “Punk Rawk” because of the pink stripe in her hair). However, Helen is not the only ‘star” in the franchise. Trancers actually includes an all-star cast including the great Tim Thomerson (he played the drunk warrior in the first season of Xena and of course was also the great Dollman), that chick from 227, and Art LaFleur.
Trancers also boasts one of the greatest gadgets since James Bond, the long second watch, (which I believe is upgraded in part to 2 to the 2 second watch). This watch allows Jack to stretch one second into 30 or some shit like that. He winds up using it to save Helen from getting shot, blowing his first chance to capture the evil Whistler, the man (or Trancer) who he traveled back in time to capture. This is unfortunate because he can only use the watch once, but luckily Jack gets to go back to the future and retrieve another watch sometime during the film.
Fucking up his chance to dispatch Whistler early on, Jack must rely on an ex-baseball player turned bum, Helen, and his little girl child boss to chase down Whistler. This motley crew must stop Whistler from destroying the future’s “council” by killing off their ancestors. The cast of mismatched heroes for some reason brings to mind the film Angel, the one with the 16-year old student by day, and prostitute by night. Not since that film has there been such a fun supporting cast. Trancers’ cast may not be able to compete with the grumpy, dyke and flamboyant drag queen who backup our little Angel, but it is a distant second, especially because the Trancers characters actually make it through two sequels. Yes, even Helen Hunt was in the third film for a quick cameo, guess her career did not take off as quick as Brad Pitt’s after Cutting Class.
I wonder if she would come back for a Trancers remake if she did not look so old and have the jowls of a Saint Bernard. God knows the Trancers’ franchise is a whole lot better than that piece of shit Bobby she was recently in.
Back to Trancers. What is a Trancer in the first place? It is like a vampire but they don’t suck your blood. In fact, I actually watched these films a few more times than I should have and I still can’t explain one. They are humans that “trance” into things that look like the zombies from Night of the Comet, kind of just humans that just look fucked up. They also resemble the vampires from Buffy the Vampire Slayer a little. Whistler is one of the people who turn you into a Trancer by staring at you, but if you are strong willed you have no worries because you can’t be “tranced.” As Jack Deth would say only Squids can be tranced.
Charles Band, being the 90’s Roger Corman, is known for re-using, milking or “ripping off” other ideas, so Trancers could be his answer to Scanners, since they have the same kind of ring to them.
Trancers is one of the highlights of the Full Moon company. If Charles could just stop milking the tiny critter success of Ghoulies and Puppet Master maybe one day he could produce something as great as this franchise again. Until then we will be stuck with the newer Full Moon films Gingerdead Man and Killer Bong. As much as I enjoyed watching Gary Busey as a killer cookie, I long for the days of actors like Tim Thomerson and films like Trancers. They just don’t make them like they used to, and the video store shelves are just not as exciting as they used to be without the latest Full Moon goody like this one.
