’What kind of name is Jack Deth?’
I went into Trancers with fairly high expectations. Unreasonably so as it turns out. An early appearance from Helen Hunt. A warm reaction from critics. Four sequels en counting. This sounded like the kind of Christmas-adjacent horror treat that I could get behind. Alas… while there are fun moments, it felt too long even at well under 90 minutes…
The wonderfully named protagonist Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) is sent back in time from the 23rd century to 1980s Los Angeles to stop some guy who is turning people into mindless zombies. It’s also Christmas Time. Helen Hunt plays a punk chick named Leela and she had so much fun that she inexplicably returned for the next two films in the franchise also.
Trancers is definitely not a bad film. Thomerson and Hunt (who became friends in real life) both fully commit and director Charles Band keeps the action moving along nicely. A word too for the score (credited to Phil Davies and Mark Ryder). It’s a wonderful, synthy thing that could only have been created in 1984. Is it a Christmas film? Not really. Hunt wears a sexy Santa outfit at one point, and there are Christmas trees dotted around, but it’s never mentioned in the dialogue, nor does it have any bearing on the plot.
As B movies go, Trancers is one of the better ones, and if you like trashy cinema it’s worth checking out at 76 minutes but this is for garbage connoisseurs only. If you didn’t spend hours looking at VHS boxes in Blockbuster, this is not the film for you.