Trancers

Released by: Full Moon Entertainment
Released on: July, 2014.
Director: Charles Band
Cast: Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, Art LaFleur, Telma Hopkins, Michael Stefani
Year: 1984
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The Movie:

Produced and directed by Charles Band, Trancers follows a tough guy future cop in 2247 named Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) who not that long ago lost his wife at the hands of a murderer named Martin Whistler (Michael Stefani). This fiend is no ordinary maniac, however, as he can turn anyone who lacks the mental strength to push back into a 'trancer' - essentially a zombie that will do his bidding. Deth thinks he's finally done away with him, but soon finds out that there are plenty more trancers out there needing to be dealt with. When he runs into one at a diner, he deals with the killer his own way but after being held accountable by his superior officers, he quits the force.

When those in charge learn that Whistler has travelled through time to 1985 with the intentions of killing off the ancestors of those who would do away with him, the force knows that there's only one man for the job. Deth is back on the force and sent through time to stop Whistler, whose mind has travelled back to inhabit the body of one of his own ancestors, a cop named Weisler. Death, meanwhile, has to connect with the ancestor of a councilman named Hap Ashby (Biff Manard by way of a baseball card he's been given. Deth, meanwhile, takes over the body of one of his ancestors, Phil Denton, a philandering journalist in cahoots with a pretty young 'punk' girl named Lena (Helen Hunt). When a killer mall Santa turns out to be one of Whistler's trancers, Deth knows he's on the right track and he fights back but soon enough Weisler has got the LAPD after Deth, sending he and Lena on the run.

Trancers does a really good job of channeling the sci-fi elements of movies like The Terminator and Blade Runner into what is effectively a film noir story about a man clearing his name and trying to bring in the bad guy. Tim Thomerson is a blast to watch, obviously pulling from classic noir performances delivered by the likes of Bogart and Mitchum, and he plays the tough guy part really well here. Stefani makes for a pretty decent bad guy, bringing a bit of menace to the role with style while, perhaps in the film's biggest surprise, Helen Hunt is actually quite good here. You won't buy her as a 'punker' for an instant, even when she's dancing around while some punk band plays in the background of a nightclub scene and even when she's got color in her hair but she is really cute here and you can see the appeal.

As the film was made on a modest budget, Band and company make up for a lack of big time special effects set pieces with a lean and efficient script. The movie is on the short side but it movies quickly and features some solid action intertwined with its sci-fi elements. Add to that some decent location work and a few interesting twists in the storyline and it's easy to see why Trancers became and remains a genuine cult classic. It's slick enough to work without feeling too polished and even when it borrows elements from other movies it manages to keep enough of a fresh spin on its premise and concept to never feel like a copy or a knock off. While it never tries to go past its PG-13 rating, it never really needs to. What's here works, and works very well at that.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Trancers debuts on Blu-ray from Full Moon in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.78.1 widescreen and looking surprisingly good. There are times where the grainy, gritty image looks a little noisy but not much in the way of actual print damage to note at all. Colors are reproduced very nicely and quite accurately, never oversaturated or faded, while skin tones look lifelike and natural. Detail is massively improved over the previous DVD release not just in the close up shots where you'd expect it but in medium and long distance shots as well. There are times where black shadows swallow up some of the detail in the darker scenes but it's tough to say if this is how the movie was originally shot and lit or if there's some murkiness and crush going on. These complaints are pretty minor though - this is a low budget production and as such, it should look like one and it does, but the high definition upgrade here is, if maybe not a revelation, a remarkably solid visual presentation of the source material.

As is typical with Full Moon's Blu-ray offerings so far, there is no lossless audio track but the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 Surround Sound mixes sound fine for what they are even if they're both a bit thin in spots. There aren't a whole lot of obvious differences between the stereo mix and the surround mix to be honest, but the levels are well balanced and there aren't any hiss or distortion issues. It would probably have been preferable to most fans to have axed the surround mix in favor of a lossless stereo option to take advantage of the added depth and clarity it can provide, but the audio here is fine if unremarkable. No alternate language options or subtitles of any kind are offered.

The first extra on the disc is a brand new audio commentary with leading man Tim Thomerson and producer/director Charles Band. It's a good track, quite involved and very nicely paced meaning we don't run into any issues where the participants clam up. Band gives us some welcome behind the scenes information, discussing making the picture on a low budget, the locations used, why various performers were cast and at one point he even goes into talking about what went into putting the Blu-ray together. Thomerson shares his thoughts on the effectiveness of the film, what it was like working with Hunt, his character and more. If you've seen the movie before this is a good way to re-experience it and learn some more about its history at the same time.

The disc also includes a new Trancers featurette created by Daniel Griffith that runs just under fifteen minutes and which features new interviews not only with Band and Thomerson but with writers Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo as well. This covers some of the same ground as the commentary but the added insight from the writers is of value because they talk about some of the original concepts for the film that changed as well as other evolutionary steps the movie took along the way. It's quite well put together and genuinely interesting.

Another extra that will certainly be of interest to fans of the Trances series is the complete Trancers: City of Lost Angels segment that was originally made for the famous "lost" Pulsepounders movie. This standard definition short runs just under twenty-five minutes in length and in the film, Thomerson reprises the Jack Deth role. In the short he's after an assassin named Edlin Shock who has escaped from prison and is out for revenge. Back in 1988 Los Angeles, however, Deth is trying to make a go of it as a private investigator with some help from Lena (Hunt again) but their relationship is more than a little bit stressed. When Edlin shows up in L.A., things go from bad to worse for Deth…

This is a decent enough story and it makes sense to include it here on this disc. It takes place between the events in the first two movies and isn't long enough to really work as a stand alone release. Outside of that we get two minutes of rare archival interviews Thomerson, Helen Hunt, and Megan Ward, a decent sized still gallery and trailers for Trophy Heads, Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong, Unlucky Charms, Ooga Booga, Reel Evil,, Puppet Master, Puppet Master 2, and Puppet Master 3. Oddly enough, there's no trailer here for the feature itself. Menus and chapter stops are also included.

The Final Word:

Full Moon have, aside from the lossy audio mix, really rolled out the red carpet for this Blu-ray release of Trancers. The movie holds up well, an entertaining mix of science fiction and action, and seeing it in a proper high definition presentation really helps you appreciate how well it works. The extras are plentiful and interesting and the inclusion of the short film is a really solid bonus too. All in all, a strong release of a really fun film.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!