I had never seen Trancers, but I was aware of the series growing up. I saw the poster for the second movie regularly at a local video store while seeing trailers for the third through fifth movies as well. I don’t remember ever seeing this movie in person growing up. I think it might have been because where Trancers was an Empire Pictures movie. Empire was the precursor to Full Moon, with both having been started by Charles Band. But I have to say that I loved Trancers. Its like a neo noir sci-fi movie with a hint of horror which is a mélange of stuff I love.
Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo wrote Trancers while Charles Band directed it while also producing. I mentioned the different elements of the movie and how well they all work together. The time travel in the movie is really interesting and I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t been reused more. I also really want to mention how awesome of a name Jack Deth is, which is a continuation of detectives having really cool sounding names. Even the horror elements work really well, with the titular creatures being surprisingly gruesome.
Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, Michael Stefani, Art LaFleur, Telma Hopkins, and Biff Manard star. I knew Helen Hunt was involved in the series, mostly because of the aforementioned poster, but I was confused why the woman from Mad About You was in a movie with Dollman. My introduction to Tim Thomerson was Dollman, where he played a more hard-nosed version of a detective. Thomerson and Hunt had amazing chemistry and make the movie as enjoyable as it is. Michael Stefani made for a fantastic villain. The entire cast really makes the movie.
The effects for the Trancers look great. The stark contrast between the humans and the Trancers show how well the effects work. The early VFX looks pretty good even now. The costume and set designs do a lot to show the differences in the time periods. The music from Phil Davies and Mark Ryder is awesome. It handles the different aspects of the movie incredibly well.
Trancers is an awesome movie that was the beginning of six movie series. I immediately became a fan of this series so I’ll be watching all of the movies in the series that I can. Trancers is even a Christmas movie, since its set during Christmas time and that’s really all that makes a movie a Christmas movie to me. I was once again able to watch this movie thanks to the Full Moon channel on Tubi, which continues to be a gem. I give Trancers 9 long second watches out of 10.