Trancers is one of my favorite Full Moon franchises, and I’ve been hoping for another sequel for more than twenty years now. There doesn’t seem to be one of those on the horizon, but there might be a TV series in the works – and while we wait to see how things go with that project, Full Moon has recently been tinkering with the Trancers movies we do have. Earlier this year, they re-released the original film in black & white, giving it the noir treatment and now they’ve released a new version of the sequels Trancers 4: Jack of Swords and Trancers 5: Sudden Deth, which were shot back-to-back and given VHS releases nine months apart in 1994. Drawing inspiration from Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, which combines Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 into one epic movie, Full Moon has cut Trancers 4 and 5 together to create Trancers: The Whole Dethly Affair! It’s available to watch on their streaming service, FullMoonFeatures.
Trancers Refresher
The Trancers franchise dates back to the pre-Full Moon days, but all of the sequels were Full Moon releases. It began with the first Trancers in 1984, which happens to be one of my favorite Christmas movies. Tim Thomerson took on the role of Jack Deth, a police trooper from the 23rd century who specialized in hunting down trancers, people who were turned into violent, mindless “zombies” by a psychic villain. Deth had to travel back in time to ’84 to bring that villain to justice… but even though that bad guy was defeated, different variations of trancers kept popping up, giving Deth reason to come back for Trancers II: The Return of Jack Deth (1991), Trancers III: Deth Lives (1992), Trancers 4: Jack of Swords (1994), Trancers 5: Sudden Deth (1995), and Trancers 6 (2002). Thomerson played Jack Deth in all of the sequels except Trancers 6, where Zette Sullivan stepped in as his daughter Jo Deth. There’s also a 20 minute short film called Trancers: City of Lost Angels, which was shot in the ’80s but not released until 2013.
Trancers 4 and 5
Trancers 4: Jack of Swords has the following synopsis: Jack is back to the future. While heading out for another assignment, something goes wrong with the TCL chamber. Jack finds himself in a whole new, more dangerous dimension. He also runs across a different version of trancers. These creeps have total control of this new planet and Jack agrees to assist a rebel group known as the “Tunnel Rats” to crush the rule of the evil Lord Calaban. The dimension-hopping story continues in Trancers 5: Sudden Deth, where the iconic Jack Deth finds himself once more lost in – and running out of – time and desperately trying to find his way home from the evil interdimensional world of Orpheus, where magic works and the trancers are the ruthless ruling class. Thomerson was joined in the cast of these films by Stacie Randall, Ty Miller, Terri Ivens, Mark Arnold, Clabe Hartley, Alan Oppenheimer, Lochlyn Munro, and Stephen Macht.
David Nutter directed the films from screenplays by Peter David – and now, with Trancers: The Whole Dethly Affair, “Get ready for the ULTIMATE Trancers experience with this newly re-edited “master cut” of director David Nutter’s TRANCERS 4 and TRANCERS 5, remixed into one mega movie!“
Discounting opening titles and end credits, the original version of Trancers 4 ran for 69 minutes, while Trancers 5 only managed to fit 62 minutes between its opening titles, a recap of what happened in 4, and end the credits, so I have always felt like these movies would have been better off being combined into one movie. Now, Full Moon has given an official version of that combo. Trancers: The Whole Dethly Affair has a running time of 135 minutes.
Will you be watching Trancers: The Whole Dethly Affair? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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