General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Trancers

Trancers (also released as Future Cop) is a 1984 American low-budget science fiction action film produced and directed by Charles Band, written by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, and starring Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, and Michael Stefani. It follows Jack Deth (Thomerson), a police trooper from the year 2247 in the post-earthquake settlement of Angel City, who travels back in time to 1985 Los Angeles to stop the warlord Martin Whistler (Stefani), who controls zombie-like victims called "trancers" and is murdering the ancestors of the future government so its members will never be born.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Production	Produced and directed by Charles Band for Empire Pictures; screenplay by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo; cinematography by Mac Ahlberg; editing by Ted Nicolaou¹
Cast	Tim Thomerson as Jack Deth, Helen Hunt as Leena, Michael Stefani as Martin Whistler, with Art La Fleur, Telma Hopkins, Richard Herd, and Anne Seymour¹
Release	Limited opening as Future Cop in 236 theaters on 31 May 1985; official release 20 September 1985; MPAA rating PG-13¹
Running time	85 minutes per the AFI Catalog; 76 minutes per BBFC classification¹^•³
Reception	Metascore 64 (generally favorable); 89% Tomatometer from 9 critics on Rotten Tomatoes⁴^•⁵
Sequels	Five direct-to-video sequels from 1991 to 2002, plus the short film Trancers: City of Lost Angels¹

Spoilers

Plot

Three centuries in the future, Los Angeles has been struck by a great earthquake and the ruins of downtown lie offshore; what remains is called Angel City, ruled by a three-person High Council. The city is plagued by "trancers," citizens described as "not quite alive and not dead enough," placed under the mind control of the villain Martin Whistler.⁶

Jack Deth, an Angel City trooper, has already killed Whistler but continues hunting his cult. The Council reveals that Whistler is alive: using a time serum, he escaped to 1985 and took over the body of his own ancestor, an LAPD police detective, and has already murdered the ancestors of council member Van Sant, erasing him from existence. Whistler vows to do the same to the remaining councilors, Margaret Ashe and Spencer. Deth is sent back to 1985 in the body of his own ancestor, Philip Deth, to protect their ancestors, Hap Ashby and Chris Lavery.¹

In 1985 Deth enlists Leena (Hunt), Philip's girlfriend, who works as a Santa's elf at a shopping mall. Trancers can take over only weak-minded people, whom Deth calls "squids," and a shot trancer disintegrates. Deth carries a ten-second time-delay device that lets him move at accelerated speed, an effect one later critic described as predating the bullet-time of The Matrix.¹^•⁵ In the ending, Whistler falls from a rooftop and breaks one of the two vials of serum that would allow a return to the future; Deth injects him with the remaining vial, forcing him out of the detective's body, which then ceases to exist in either era. Stuck in 1985, Deth tells Leena he "kinda likes it."

Sequels and later versions

The film spawned a series of sequels released direct to home video: Trancers II (1991), Trancers III (1992), Trancers 4: Jack of Swords (1994), Trancers 5: Sudden Deth (1994), and Trancers 6 (2002), plus the short film Trancers: City of Lost Angels, included as a DVD extra on the original release, which reunited Thomerson and Hunt in their original roles. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia dates Trancers 3: Deth Lives to 1993 and Trancers 5: Sudden Death to 1995, and notes that the fourth and fifth films, set in a medieval alternate world called Orpheus, were shot back to back in Romania.¹^•²

Band said in a 2024 interview that Trancers "was conceived as a black and white movie," but that in the direct-to-video era retailers would not stock black-and-white titles. A silver-toned black-and-white cut, Trancers Noir, was released in 2025 with an introduction by Band.⁸^•⁹ In 2025 the British label 101 Films issued a limited edition 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray set in the UK, its first 4K release outside North America, with new interviews and archival extras.¹⁰^•¹¹

Production and release

An advertisement in the 27 June 1984 Variety reported that special effects had been completed and that principal photography would begin in Summer 1984. In December 1984, Band's Empire Pictures procured a presale deal with Vestron Video for worldwide home video distribution, with theatrical release set for early 1985.¹

The theatrical run was troubled. Under the title Future Cop, the film opened in a limited release of 236 theaters in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles on 31 May 1985, but it was not officially released until 20 September 1985. The 1987 Seattle Film Festival program noted that the picture was "virtually unseen" theatrically in 1985 outside of Los Angeles despite positive critical reception, and cited its "poor distribution deal."¹

Reception and style

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film "a textbook example of efficient, effective exploitation film making," praising Band for making "imagination count for more than money" and noting the film's unified film noir look, shadowy lighting, and rapid pacing that distract from its modest special effects. He described Thomerson's Deth as "something of a cross between Philip Marlowe and the Bladerunner."

Later critics placed the film in its genre context. Time Out called it "a shameless amalgam of Blade Runner and The Terminator," while Empire's Kim Newman ranked it among "the liveliest, wittiest, cleverest cheapies ever made."⁴ The Science Fiction Encyclopedia judged it "confident, stylish sf" that showed Band had learned from his early films, noting "astonishing plot resemblances" to The Terminator, released the same year.² Reviewers have repeatedly noted its Christmas setting, with a mall Santa who turns out to be a trancer, leading some to treat it as a holiday film.⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Action, thriller, and crime series film entries › Entries released in the 1980s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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