TRANCERS (1984)

TRANCERS (1984)

Tagline: Meet Jack Deth. He's a Cop From The Future Trapped in the Present, and he's chasing a 23rd-century menace in 1985

(Sci-Fi, Action, Sometimes You Have To Kill Zombie Santa) [PG-13]

If I catch you in L.A. again, I don't care if you're a kid, an old lady, or a kitty cat, I'm gonna kick you’re a-s!

One thing that doesn’t hurt this movie, or this series in general, is that I am a HUGE Helen Hunt (TWISTER) fan. I was a fan of hers back in the 80s and still am to this day. Now she is now as awesome as Kristy Swanson, but she is really awesome. I think the fact that in one scene she is wearing a jacket with a confederate flag isn’t great, but then again I grew up in a pretty much all minority section 8 apartment complexes and almost everyone’s favorite show was “Dukes of Hazard”. No one in the complex was racist against themselves. The other thing that helps is that Tim Thomerson (DOLLMAN)  is in it and he is an epic actor all well, still acting to this day. We also get a brief Art LaFleur (SANDLOT, COBRA, FIELD OF DREAMS) scene. He is one of those actors that is in a TON of stuff, only you don’t know his name. 

The premise is based around a cop named Jack Deth from the future that needs to travel back in time to into the body of an ancestor to stop a mind criminal that has the ability to turn people into zombies call “trancers” that will do his bidding. His ultimate goal is to take over the world. Jack befriends Leena and convinces her to help him track down the criminals in the distant past year of 1985. 

With everything from the worst punk rendition of “Jingle All The Way” to zombies that look like they were attacked by preschoolers with finger paint, this movie has all the cheese you can handle while managing to throw in a bit of heart, cool characters, romance, lasers and time travel that doesn’t feel like a gimmick. It is also possible this actually where James Cameron got the consciousness transfer idea for AVATAR. When the agents have to go back in time, they don’t take their own body. They transfer their consciousness into someone else’s so that if they die back in time, it won’t kill the time traveler.

What we don’t get in this movie is a bombastic over the top effects driven extravaganza. This is a low budget movie that cost about $400,000 to make. What they are able to do with that budget is actually pretty cool and I loved the practical effects aspect even though I made fun of the zombie effects. I should also note that this movie is in no way at all considered “horror”. The zombies don’t want your brains and we don’t see them eat anyone. 

The score is some pretty fun 80’s light techno and the soundtrack is fairly weak, but not horrifyingly bad. I guess a better way to say it, is that it’s forgettable. Regarding the lighting and cinematography is that it all works near perfectly for this budget and what they were trying to accomplish. 

Overall this is slightly better than DOLLMAN, but I am going to give it the same score, because DOLLMAN did involve more effects. As such TRANCERS gets a 5 out of 7. I am looking forward to watching more of this series as time permits.
 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF CHARLES BAND PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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