Angel City, the year 2247. Trooper Jak Deth (Tim Thomerson) is a gruff cop whose dogged, extracurricular pursuit of the last remaining members of a zombie-like cult has landed him in hot water with his superiors. Detective McNulty (Art La Fleur) warns Jak that trancer hunting is out of bounds, so Jak reacts in the way that most VHS rental era police officers did, by slinging his badge on the deck and quitting the force.
However, Jak’s self-imposed retirement doesn’t last long as his dive into the sunken ruins of Lost Angeles (nice one) is interrupted by McNulty with the unwelcome news that the cult’s leader, Martin Whistler, believed to have been previously singed by Deth, is very much alive, having gone down the timeline to 1980s Los Angeles. Whistler is inhabiting the body of an ancestor in order to kill off members of Angel City’s Security Council whose forefathers were also present two and a half centuries earlier. As Deth also has links to that particular past – a sleazy photographer called Phil – his law enforcement credentials are reinstated and he’s sent back in time to step into Phil’s shoes and stop Whistler…
If, like me, you walked out of the video shop with whatever the latest Entertainment In Video title was at a certain point in time, the trailer for Trancers would show up more regularly on those tapes than repeats on the BBC. It is one of the greatest previews ever assembled and would often be better than the feature film it preceded. I would say that it spoiled many of the film’s highlights, but that’s not strictly true as those sequences can be enjoyed over and over.
Directed by Charles Band, this possesses all of the can-do scrappiness and budget-squeezing antics of other Empire Pictures releases, but is lifted far above other mildly diverting but also slightly threadbare stablemates such as The Dungeonmaster (making its UK video bow as Ragewar) and Troll by virtue of a smart, amusing script from Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, a smattering of inspired action set pieces and an iconic investigative duo as Deth teams up with Phil’s date Leena (Helen Hunt) to track down the last surviving Council members, who are to be found somewhere on the mean streets of L.A.
It’s interesting to note that Bilson and De Meo – whose work apparently caught the attention of a certain James Cameron – were also on script duty for the following year’s bizarre sci-fi/World War Two collision that is Zone Troopers, also starring Thomerson. Another dynamic duo well worth a mention is Phil Davies and Mark Ryder, who are responsible for the terrific score which underpins the adventures of the twenty-third century’s grumpiest sleuth.
What’s that? Helen Hunt? Yes, you read that correctly. It’s that Helen Hunt, showing bundles of star quality in her second feature film as the sparky, no-nonsense city guide for Jak, who has little problem believing that her companion is from the twenty-third century, seeing as there’s much weirder stuff happening in her home city on a daily basis. She also introduces Deth, in amusing fashion, to local punk rock culture as they lay low in her sketchy neighbourhood to avoid being discovered by the L.A.P.D. Whistler’s ancestor just happens to be a lieutenant in said organisation and has launched a city-wide hunt for Deth and Leena, who have been framed for murder.
Tim Thomerson is perfectly cast as Jak Deth, bringing his finely honed comedic skills to a role which lands halfway between Chandleresque 1930’s ‘tec and Replicant-chasing Rick Deckard, lightly taking the rise out of both. The weary voiceover of the opening scene, a regular supply of quips and the love/hate relationship with the city he’s only previously studied as an archaeological curiosity are occasionally touching, often hilarious and always entertaining. The enduring appeal of the character, in tandem with Empire Pictures’ general M.O., led to a fun, if slightly undercooked, twenty-odd minute segment in the Pulse Pounders anthology and five full-length – well, full-ish length – sequels. As far as the follow-ups go, definitely check out the second and third. As for the fourth and fifth, Deth completists need only apply and the sixth has Deth stepping into the body of his daughter for most of the runtime.
For all of Trancers’ reliance on snappy dialogue and a plot powered more by ideas than expensive visual trickery, it does deploy a number of effects which still work well in a comfortingly creaky way, with the zapped bad guys disappearing in a flash of light and leaving a body-shaped scorch mark. Deth’s only piece of future kit – the “long second” watch – comes from an era which relied less on snarky couch dwellers moaning about how it could possibly work and more on an audience just waiting to see how it’s going to get Deth out of a monumental scrape.
As for the matte work depicting the suburbs and landscapes of the future, that’s also likely going to provoke snickering from those weaned on two hundred dollar blockbusters but, as Jak says at one point, “Fuck ‘em!” I love what Band and his talented team created with just a fraction of the budget of big studio output, resulting in a film which has more heart, enthusiasm and honest to goodness joy than a dozen modern day superhero flicks.
Forty years on from its release, Trancers continues to be a delight. It’s exciting, often laugh out loud funny, relentlessly imaginative and it has the good grace to get out of your gel-slicked hair in just over an hour and a quarter. Gel-slicked? Well, you wouldn’t want your barnet in any other state because, as Jak Deth reminds us, “Dry hair’s for squids.”
The Spirit of Independence Festival returns for its sixth year to Sheffield’s Showroom Cinema from 27th-29th September. For more information, including tickets, click here.