Trancers 6: Life After Deth (2002)

Of the various Full Moon movie series, the Trancers series is one that I'm not too huge of a fan of. The films aren't all completely bad, in fact some of them are very entertaining. As the series progressed there was one element to the films that I came to enjoy immensely, and that was Tim Thomerson as central character Jack Deth. Of the many actors who have worked for Full Moon, Thomerson ranks highly as one of my personal favorites. I thought that the Trancers series had ended with Trancers 5: Sudden Deth, but it seems like Charles Band wanted one last go with this series.

I'm not exactly sure what happened here, but this is the first film in the Trancers series that doesn't feature Tim Thomerson. Well, technically he is in the film. But he is reduced to poorly reused footage from the previous films; the other scenes showing him hooked up to the time travel machine a body double is used in place of him. And not one that looks anything like Tim Thomerson I must add. Look, who am I to say what films can and can't be made? But if a series like this is built on the charisma and on screen presence of an actor like Thomerson, why would you think you could make another film in the series without him?

The movie focuses on Jack's daughter Josephine (Zette Sullivan), who Jack travels back into time and inhabits the body of. Seems like there are still attempts being made by the evil Trancers to alter history. This time around they are using a meteor that has crashed on Earth to turn people into zombie-like monsters to wreak havoc. In previous films whenever Jack inhabited the body of someone we saw him, and not the person whose body he was using. Since Thomerson isn't in this film, we are forced to watch Zette Sullivan. Sullivan has almost no real screen presence, and never once mirrors the mannerisms of Jack Deth that Thomerson brought to the role.

While Full Moon movies have always been low budget flicks, most of their films in the past were able to utilize their limited budgets rather well. Trancers 6: Life After Deth looks like it had no budget at all. Poor locations, terrible costume designs and some really lousy special effects highlight the sort of unimaginative nature of the film. To top it off, Trancers 6 has some of the worst action sequences. The movie is an embarrassing, dull and insanely stiff experience with absolutely no fun to it at all.

I would like to imagine that this will be the final of the Trancers films, but you never know with Full Moon. If they were to make another film I hope that Thomerson would come back and take on the role he made so enjoyable in the past. I would hate to think that such a great character like Jack Deth would end on such a disappointing note like he does in Trancers 6: Life After Deth.