Full Moon's Repeat Offenders: Megan Ward

Megan Ward is not exactly a household name, even among Full Moon fans.  She has, however, been in a trio of them...

Her big break was playing the jail-bait, reincarnation of Jack Deth's wife in Trancers II.  You know, the only good entry in the series.

She returned for one more film in the series- Trancers III.  Her role is minor and mostly expository.  She was written out of Trancers IV in a lazy way and never returned for V or VI.

Finally, she appeared as the female lead in 1993's Arcade, a film that literally went out-of-print a week or so after I reviewed it.  Did I jinx it?

Year in Review: Trancers Quintology

As we approach the 20th, we near the 1 year anniversary of Mondo Bizarro.  A big change is coming down the pipe, but, until then, enjoy this look back at what my little hands and eyes have accomplished.

Back in July, I did the first Quintology review.  For those not 'in the know,' this is a review of a 5-Part movie series.  I started off with a little Full Moon film called Trancers.

Trancers: This sets up the tale of Jack Deth being sent to the past to stop the murders of the ancestors of the future's ruling council.  The whole thing is built around time travel via body possession of one's ancestors.  He meets up with a cute blonde (Helen Hunt), who would play a big role in his life in the future.  This movie is fun fluff that apes crime noir and sci-fi at the same time.  It's no Blade Runner, but it has its charm.

Trancers 2: This sequel hits a lot of the right notes, but definitely has some issues.  It is one of the rare sequels that actually addresses the gap of time between the films being made (this time, 6 years).  The plot gets screwy and has a couple of holes that you could drive a Prius through.  That said- it features genre actors Jeffrey Combs and Richard Lynch, which is always a plus.  It also started a bad trend in the series...

Trancers 3: Another good movie, but more bottom-heavy than the others.  There is one giant action scene that runs about ten minutes or so at the end, which is a lot for a movie that's about 65 minutes long.  The problem: the series was hemmoraging actors.  They lost Helen Hunt with this one, as well as a couple other supporting players.  The film has a good actor playing the villain, which helps the film out a lot.  Still a weak entry in a series that was not getting better.

Trancers 4: The series went a new direction with this film, but not really a good one.  Basically, the film dumps more characters (including Jack's new sidekick who was supposed to be a recurring character) and changes the setting early on to that of a fantasy world called Orpheus.  As I said at the time, your like or dislike of the film will be based a lot on how many sword-and-sorcery films you have seen vs. how many bad sci-fi films you have seen.  By the way, this movie is written by longtime comic scribe and novelist Peter David...not that you can tell.

Trancers 5: This is the big finish now, so let's enjoy it.  Basically, Full Moon made two films back-to-back: Part 4 and 5.  The movie picks up where the last one ended- with Jack stranded in the dimension.  He goes off seeking some magical McGuffin and runs into the villain from before, who is back to life via a painting.  Don't expect this to make much sense.  They try to force a message of acceptance in here, which is out of place since every Trancer save for one has been evil.  Maybe he should distrust them, guys!  The film is padded to the brim too, stuffing about fifteen minutes of re-used footage in via flashbacks and recaps.

In fairness, there is a Trancers 6, but it was made about seven years after the last one and is an in-name-only sequel.  Basically, they re-used old footage of Tim Thomerson in 'the future' and have him jump into a female body.  For those who are really curious, I will cover it in the next installment of 'Great Moments in Stock Footage.'

I hope that this proves helpful for all of those who have not been following this page since the beginning.

Next on the agenda, a look back at a British/Canadian alien series that has almost nothing in common.  Want to know the 'how' and the 'why?'  Stay tuned...

Quintology: Trancers III

Who would have thought the movie could go this long? No, really. People had to wonder where the demand for these films was coming from. The budgets did not get any better and the scripts did not exactly get any better. Is Tim Thomerson just that good at playing an Alpha Male jerk? Regardless, they made more and I am going to review them...dammit. Let us jump right into the muck that is...

Trancers 3: Deth Lives

You know how much I love pun titles/subtitles by now. This one is just...well, silly.

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In the present of 1992, the action has died down and Jack Deth has become a private eye. Unfortunately, during the break between movies, his marriage to Helen Hunt (I'm not going to say her character's name EVER) is on the rocks. As we will learn later, Jack has bad luck in the gap between films. Why must his love life be the biggest victim of lazy screenwriting? After stopping a liquor store robbery a la Cobra/Black Cobra/Best of the Best 4, he is knocked out and taken to the future by a big, ugly robot. In this future, the Trancers have risen back to power...somehow. With both former leaders dead (Whistler and his brother in 1 and 2) and no new leader shown, how did this happen again? Oh yeah, McNulty died at some point before Jack showed up too. At least his dead-now-living-wife-in-another-body is there still.

*

The Council has big plans for Jack: send him back to 2005 (but forward from where he was and, aw screw it!) to stop the new uprising. How did this uprising happen before and they not know it? Good question. Anyhow, they send him there and he has to find out what the source of the new trancers are. His question is answered pretty quickly in a scene set in, you guessed it, a strip club. A bunch of military men are in on an experiment that enhances strength and power. One of them goes a bit overboard and an American Ninja II-style bar fight breaks out. To put an end to the fight, the man has to be killed, but not before he 'trances.' This scares off the newest recruit, who runs to the nearest press she can find. Guess who that is.

*

Jack meets up with Helen Hunt again, only to find that she is re-married and has a kid. All of this because he never came back. Of course, given how time-travel works, he could easily jump back and undo all of this. Anyhow, she is hiding the young woman, who agrees to lead Jack to the compound. Incidentally, said compound is located in the same building as the strip club. Way to be inconspicuous. The leader of the experiment is a strange general who is also a Southerner and a scientist. Man, that guy is a triple-threat. He is played by Andrew Robinson, who you will either know as a guy from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or the Scorpio Killer from Dirty Harry. He was also the lieutenant in Cobra, so this film is clearly the high-point for him. He tries to be both quirky and menacing, but tends to only pull off one of them. Feel free to guess which one I mean.

*

Jack and the lady break into the base, only to be captured. The villains dare to try and convert Jack into a trancer, which is a big no-no. He escapes and the pair proceed to walk down the hallway shooting...and shooting some more. This goes on for about five minutes before the young woman begins to transform. Jack kills her without question, although the movie tries to spin this positively. Just in time, the lizard robot shows up again and helps out Jack. Unfortunately, his batteries die...for some reason before the final fight. Don't worry, they come back on the second the fight ends. In the interim, our hero manages to get cornered by the villain and saved by another soldier. Um...my hero? He goes back to the future/present and begins a new leg of his journey: a time-jumping defender. Of course, that barely mattered by the time Trancers IV comes out. The End.

*

Well, we're halfway there. Are we living on a prayer? Only time- and David Nutter- will tell. Stay tuned...

Quintology: Trancers II

This one stands out a bit as the odd child of the series, which is saying a lot. Why? Well, this one came six years after the original. What are you- the Rush Hour series? The following films were all released in the following three years, showing that, if nothing else, the series was reliable. Of course, pushing movies out that quickly has a price. Just ask Jesus Franco, or whatever one of his 500 pseudonyms you prefer. So how does the one movie with a long release delay turn out? Find out in my review of...

Trancers II: The Return of Jack Death

The film starts out by wisely acknowledging the time gap. We don't get the 3 year plane ride from Rush Hour II or the five year flight from Rocky V. Jack and his lady have been living the good life as the former-bum's bodyguards. Through some random bit of luck, he became rich and bought a mansion for the three of them. In addition, the pair is married and happy. In the future (which is actually the present of Trancers), the remaining council wants Jack back. The only problem is that his body has calcified (don't ask) and only his descendant's body can be sent to the present. Fuck you, causality! They send Jack's friend McNulty back in his descendant's body again- only this time the girl is actually legal. Also, say good-bye to Art Fleur, since he is written out in Trancers 3.

*

The plot gets a bit more complicated before it gets silly. The Council also sends back an agent with a time machine (try not to laugh at it) to take Jack's body back to the present/future. The only problem: she got lost and the machine got mixed up in the transport. Only the door ends up on the lawn, while the rest of the machine is with our amnesiac agent. Don't ask how the door got separated in travel, BTW- it just did! Our heroine is dumped in an asylum because of the mental problems caused by her trip. Of course, the same asylum proves to be a bigger part of the plot. Basically, it is run by Whistler's brother and is another way to make trancers. As an aside, this film series wasted the opportunity to have the villain in Trancers 3 be Whistler's mother. For shame!

*

The plot gets screwy when Jack rescues the patient and realizes that it is his dead wife in a new body. The Council, you see, rescued her right before her death in battle and sent her back via the time-travel toxin (I still can't get past that). Are his feelings for her stronger than his ones for his wife? Will she get mad when she finds them making out? Will it seem creepy when Tim Thomerson makes out with a 19-year old? Fortunately, any creepiness here is outweighed by Richard Lynch as the villain (looking about 100), Jeffrey Combs as his assistant (complete with 'Mirror Mirror'-style goatee) and Barbara Crampton as the asylum's head mistress. Oh and a bunch of trancers attack Jack, giving him another excuse to use the long-second watch and kill them.

*

Now that we have all the plot out of the way, let's start shooting! Most of the latter quarter of the movie is a series of shoot-outs, fist fights and the like. Helen Hunt gets captured, only to be freed later with no ill-effects. We also get a random scene with hobos that is mostly a pretense for Charles Band (the director's father) and Gordon Hunt (Helen's father) to show-up, not to mention Lynch's son as a cameraman. The choreography is done pretty well, but it never feels like a big-budget action movie. To cut a long story short, Whistler's brother is killed with a flying pitchfork and Jack has to make a decision. He decides to give his wife another shot at life by sending her descendant to the future. You guys are so flippant with time-travel rules, huh? Jack decides to live happily ever after with his wife...at least until Trancers III.

*

This film is good, but it is a bit top-heavy with plot. They try to compensate by filling about 15 minutes straight with action, making the movie feel very strange. The lone trancers scene early on appears to be a way to appease an action-hungry audience. Let's be honest here: we should not judge this like any other movie. It has Lynch, Combs and Crampton as villainous doctors battling a former stand-up comic as a time-stranded cop who acts like a dime novel detective. No real logic is all that applicable. If you are an open-minded person who can accept that this movie cost less than 1 million dollars (if it's more, I would be surprised), you can have some fun. If nothing else, you can see what Oscar nominees do before the fact.

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Do you like all of the characters and settings? Prepare to be a little disappointed. Stay tuned...