"Jack Deth is a kind of cop/bounty hunter in the bleak Los Angeles of the future. He's become obssessed with chasing Whistler - an evil criminal who uses powerful hypnotic powers to convert people into zombie like creatures known as trancers. Whistler has managed to escape through time travel and is loose in 1980s L.A. but Deth is on his trail." (IMDb)
Trancers is a fun low-budget action flick directed by Charles Band and starring Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, Michael Stefani, Art LaFleur and Telma Hopkins.
Thomerson was ultracool as Jack "I want to watch Peter Gunn" Deth and Helen Hunt was cute and lovable as his lover/partner Leena.
I liked how the future L.A. "Angel City" looked but obviously this was a low-budget film so they couldnīt show more of it.
Some of the sequences are amazing, like the scene including children watching while Deth kills the trancer santa. Pure Cannon film mentality
Thomerson had some cool cadgets, especially the "long second" wrist watch rocked. We donīt need Matrix, we already have Trancers.
Itīs a short film, about 76 minutes, but i like it this way.
Trancers has six direct to video sequels. Iīm going to watch part II next but donīt have the others.
On an '80's movie kick, so recently re-watched Trancers for the first time in about 20 years - the last time I saw this was on VHS tape.
Great low-budget sci-fi film; it reminded me somewhat of the first "Terminator" movie, but was still very original. I liked the storyline & minimal effects. Time travel movies are sometimes confusing, but this was fairly good - i.e., it made a weird sort of sense to have Tim Thomerson's distant ancestor (in 1985 L.A.) look exactly like him, but with a different hair color - LOL. The sequences when the regular people turned into "creatures" (i.e., the Santa Claus, the tanning salon owner, etc.) was somewhat well-done, in a low budget way. Also cool to see a very young & hot Helen Hunt!
I will say that the transfer I saw sucked; I got the DVD out of the library & it must have been an older one. It was widescreen, but seemed to be a VHS rip - extremely poor picture quality. I'll have to look for a better copy of the film at some point.
I also want to see the numerous sequels, but will try to watch them in order.
[ 12. November 2016, 20:22: Message edited by: Nostalgic for the '80's ]
Posted by the young warrior (Member # 9554) on :
The UK Blu Ray from 88 films that I own Nostalgic is region free and sports a pretty decent picture transfer plus unlike the American Blu release from Full Moon Features it also has lossless HD audio so it sounds great as well!
Really fun low budget sci-fi fi flick though I have never checked out any of the many sequels but I well expect that they don't live up to the original!
Posted by Helen_S (Member # 5804) on :
I watched this earlier in the year. I found it really confusing at first but then got into it and had a good giggle with it. Maybe one of the cheesiest things I've seen, in a good way. Felt more like a TV ep than a film at times.
Posted by Logan 5 (Member # 1467) on :
Deffo a low budget charmer that's for sure. But back before multi-channel TV an unlimited 'stuff' this was a nice little rental.
Posted by Nostalgic for the '80's (Member # 37454) on :
quote:Originally posted by the young warrior: The UK Blu Ray from 88 films that I own Nostalgic is region free and sports a pretty decent picture transfer plus unlike the American Blu release from Full Moon Features it also has lossless HD audio so it sounds great as well!
Really fun low budget sci-fi fi flick though I have never checked out any of the many sequels but I well expect that they don't live up to the original!
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