For no good reason I have picked up a set of the Trancers movies and I watched the first two today. I'll watch a couple more each week until I've seen all 6. I'd seen the first 4 but not in 15 - 20 years. I didn't have copies of any of them.
Trancers came out in 1984 and it was directed by Charles Band from a script by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo. Charles directed oodles of movies and I think they've gotten worse and worse over time. The Evil Bong series is piss poor compared to Trancers and some of the other work he did in the 80s. Danny and Paul wrote a lot of stuff together, they'd write some more stuff for Full Moon like Zone Troopers, Eliminators and Arena. Later they'll write the screenplay to The Rocketeer. Arena is a film I have a soft spot for though I know it sure has it's problems. I haven't really seen much of their work after The Rocketeer. I like that movie quite a bit.
Tim Thomerson is Jack Deth, he's from the future, 2247 in fact. Jack's a trancer hunter, trancers are controlled humans, created by a guy named Whistler. He's a maddie bent on world dom and Jack thought he was dead. Nope, he's alive and living in 1985. They've got time travel of a sort in the future. They can send your mind back to an ancestor's body and keep your body on a cart until you return. Jack is sent back to kill Whistler before the mad man kills the ancestors of the future council. Jack pops up in his ancestor and finds out his ancestor had just shagged Helen Hunt the night before.
Whistler has taken over the body of his ancestor, turns out the guy's a cop, and he's already turned several cops into his own gang of trancers. Jack and Helen develop a relationship while they're running about. They meet some characters and beat down the baddie. When it's all said and done, Jack gets stranded in the past. Oh, well, he's got Helen and his ancestor's body. What about that ancestor? He's just plain fucked out of his life.
The movie moves along OK, the script is good to fair, and they're decent actors for some parts. There's not a lot of cash on the screen but most of the movie is modern day so that's cheap as it gets. I enjoyed it mostly, the quality of the Full Moon video leaves something to be desired and there's a video promo that appears over the end credits. You can still see them but it's the sort of thing that deserves a smack in the family jewels with Paul Naschy's skull. By someone I mean Charles Band, Full Moon is his company, the buck stops there. I want to hear him howl. It's also payback for the Evil Bong series. That's some lazy ass, time wasting film making right there, at least Trancers is entertaining.
Trancers II - The Return Of Jack Deth came out in 1991, Tim Thomerson and Helen Hunt return as the same characters. They've been married for 7 years and live a quiet life in LA. Out of the blue Jack's past comes back to haunt him. Whistler's brother E D Wardo, played by Richard Lynch, is in 1991 LA and he's recruiting trancers for a private army. It's a poorly thought out plan, he can barely control the few dozen trancers he makes. Doomed to failure, E D will be a scorched spot on the ground before the end of the movie. The future council sends Jack's wife back in the form of Megan Ward. She died in Jack's arms but they've sent her back from the day before that happened. When she returns to the future she'll be killed. It's a sad future. LA's under water. There's some comedic tension when Jack's two wives meet. It will all work out in the end. Nice to see Jeffrey Combs in the cast even if he's not got that big a part. Barbara Crampton shows up for a bit playing a TV news interviewer.
Charles Band is the director, Jackson Barr wrote the story with Charles and Jackson wrote the screenplay. It's all OK and about as good as the previous. I gave them both a generous 6, they're both a bit of fun and and they're plenty of explosions. They aren't quite as good as I remembered but that's OK, I still got a few laughs. I know I intend to watch them again someday but who knows.