Trancers 6: Life After Deth (2002)

Fresh and Exciting

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Blistering performances.

Jack Deth this time (played by archive footage of Tim Thomerson) takes the form of his daughter to take on those pesky Trancers who have regrouped since part III (4 and 5 we're about alternate universes) The Trancers series we're necessarily great movies, but they we're great for the time, by that I mean the first 3 movies we're a lot of fun. Sure only the first one really holds up still, but nostalgia goes along way with 2 and 3. Trancers 4 was mediocre, Trancers 5 was pushing it, and Trancers 6 is very bad. There's literally nothing to see here. Trancers 6 is far too low budget to make any ambitious ideas work, the movie is horrendously made and without Thomerson to hold it together the film merely plumbs to asinine depths. Zette Sullivan tries hard, but this sequel is utterly hopeless. All in all, it's a shame the series went out with such a whimper and whimper is something you will do if you sit through this dud. * Out Of 4 (Bad)

Lacking even the mediocre production values of its predecessors, including Tim Thomerson as the arrogant Dirty Harry inspired hero of the franchise, Trancers 6 adds a gender-swap twist to the overextended franchise.In an early trick that sets the low-budget tone of the film, series star Thomerson appears to hold a conversation with another character through use of clips from the previous films. Thomerson, who is thanked in the closing credits, is a spectral presence in the film; appearing in flesh only courtesy of a body double.In typical "Quantum Leap" style, this latest adventure puts hero Jack Deth into the body of his own daughter as he tries to preserve the integrity of the timeline and stop an alien invasion. The paradoxical novelty of this idea enables the filmmakers to essentially remake the first film to lead the series in a new direction. In fact the closing scenes make it quite apparent that this is the intent.B-movie sci-fi flicks from the 1960s and 1980s were characterised by representations of the future which were essentially cheap display of props and flashing lights and Trancers 6 continues this tradition.The majority of the film is set in Los Angeles in 2022 but there is nothing despite a title card to suggest this fact. Everything looks the same as now! Shot mainly in fairly ordinary looking rooms and old industrial locations, this form of production design is present throughout the film. In true Ed Wood tradition, offices are identified by maps pinned to walls and laboratories are endearingly characterised by fluorescent liquids in smoking test tubes. As if this wasn't enough to evoke those late night movies of old, the main prop is a ray gun.The great thing is that it isn't laughable. You actually find these aspects comfortably familiar and they help draw you into the B-movie world. Trancer 6 doesn't take itself too seriously, but it isn't unintentionally funny either. The direction and the performances of the largely inexperienced cast make this fun for all the right reasons.What is interesting is the treatment of the theme of male/female relations. There are a lot of dated, chauvinistic clichés which seem vaguely offensive. Jack's sexist words coming out of a young woman's mouth is an attempt to undermine his macho persona.The idea of a female hero is a popular one, but even now all are essentially male fantasies. In this case the integrity of its female heroine is undermined by giving her the mind of the male hero of the franchise. But there is no effort to concentrate on the complex differences between the sexes, which are laughably reduced to a single scene in which Jack/Jo attempts to put on tights.If one were to give the film a look over from a "Newsnight Review" perspective, one could say that Trancers 6 comments on the very manner in which female protagonists remain essentially controlled by male ideals. This would certainly give a greater significance to the other dated aspects of the film which I have already mentioned.This film is filled with female stereotypes, each worthy of consideration. The heroine is, prior to transformation, a shy scientist, while Deth's supervisor appears to him in the body of a prostitute. There is an instant contrast. Jo Deth is petite and fragile looking, which obviously adds to the novelty value of her suddenly acting macho, but this is the very form which audiences seem to appreciate most. It's a valid point to consider that if the roles were reversed, that the buxom actress was in the lead, it would undermine the integrity of the film.Highlighting female sexuality degrades a film. Trancers 6 parodies the Hollywood casting of such sexless, nonthreatening heroines. As is usually the case in films like this there is a similarly sexed antagonist. Again her sexuality is seen as negative. She's a man-eater, a manipulator using her body to control weaker men. A Lady Macbeth figure, she is very definitely representative of the 'woman-behind-the-man' mode of thinking. In many ways she may be superior to her employer, but she embraces the mainstream acceptance of a male-dominated society.Reviving the franchise 8 years after Trancers 5: Sudden Deth (1994) was always going to be an interesting proposition. The sex change novelty has breathed new life into the series. The opportunities for intelligent discussion are merely a bonus.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* I bought this video for three bucks. Although I haven't seen a single Trancers movie, I decided to skip ahead and jump right into "Trancers 6". I saw a babe with a big gun on the video box cover. That's all I needed to know about "Trancers 6". Now I realize that I was rash and foolish. I can only assume that the appeal of these movies is the wisecracking Jack Deth, Trancer killer. Well, in "Trancers 6" they do away with him by having him "possess" his daughter and have her do all of the killing. So we get this babe walking around acting tough, telling horrible jokes and killing Trancers as cheaply as possible.Bashing "Trancers 6" for being a cut-rate sci-fi B-movie is only stating the obvious. But I'll do it anyway. "Trancers 6" is cheap, brain-dead and pointless. Somehow I've got to get my standards above my current "Hot Chick with big gun is good enough". It's going to take awhile.

Full Moon's budget just keep getting lower, so it's kind of sad to see one of their best series being continued on a budget lower than what Nicole Kidman spends a year on sun block. The TRANCERS films involve Jack Deth, a Bogart-ish cop from the future who keeps getting sent back in time to deal with Trancers, zombie-like former humans, whose actions virtually destroyed the time-line Deth originates from. To time travel, Deth must inhabit the body of one of his ancestors all of whom, at least until this entry, look just like actor Tim Thomerson.This time around, Full Moon couldn't afford Thomerson, so they open with some stock footage of him, from previous films in the series, and then send him back in time to inhabit the body of the daughter he never knew he had fathered during one of his visits to the 80s. If you're a follower of the TRANCERS series, this all makes pretty good sense, as the third film did introduce just such a child.Anyway, entry #6 takes place in a low rent version of the present and Deth's daughter is played by diminuitive (5 ft tall) Zette Sullivan, a serious little cutie who does a nice job of playing a tough "guy" in a girl's body. Sullivan is much of the show here as she effectively mimics Thomerson's style and earns a few smiles by playing the uncomfortable macho male in a woman's body role.There's a couple of nice action sequences and some OK, bargain basement special effects and makeup. Most of the cast is fine and it all flies by enjoyably, if forgettably, enough. If Full Moon ever gets a decent budget again, they could do a lot worse than to continue this series with spunky Sullivan, maybe even team her up with Thomerson, and let this film's director, Jay Woelfel, take a shot at it. If he can do this well with next-to-no-money, I'm guessing he could make a pretty good film with a budget featuring more numbers than a zip code. DVD owners can see this on a double-feature disc with the first TRANCERS film, which features a young Helen Hunt (who was in entries 1-3) as the woman who will eventually be the mother of Deth's daughter in this entry. Jeez, this is getting confusing.