Trancers 5: Sudden Deth – review

Director: David Nutter

Release date: 1994

Contains spoilers

So, whilst Trancers 4 did come to an ending, what it didn’t do was return Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson, Near Dark, Live Evil & Wicked Lake) to his own world and so he is stuck on Orpheus.

An opening recap is narrated by trancer Lucius (Mark Arnold) and ends with him suggesting that the tunnel rats spent a month expertly picking off the nobles and that he managed to retrieve a canvas on which a picture of killed trancer leader Caliban (Clabe Hartley) is painted. He is then attacked and wakes and he is clearly having a nightmare – but the nightmare is true and the nobles are in hiding.

Stacie Randall as Lyra

Jack is being, well Jack… he seems bored with ex-slave Lyra (Stacie Randall, From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money) and her need to please him as she doesn’t have the feistiness of the Lyra of his own dimension. Rebel trancer Prospero (Ty Miller, Slaughterhouse Rock) and human resistance leader Shaleen (Terri Ivens) are fighting their attraction to each other and Jack does not trust Prospero as he is a trancer (and Jack’s worldview is very black and white).

Jack and Prospero

They then, almost accidentally, discover that there may be a way for Jack to get home. All he has to do is face the Castle of Unrelenting Terror and retrieve the tiamond (yes, they did just merge the words time and diamond), a mystical gem that will be able to transport Jack back to his own dimension and time. A guide is found (who is soon revealed to be Prospero) turning this into a bit of a mismatched buddy film but Caliban has also emerged from the painting, restored to life, and knows where they will be going (as it is exactly what he would do).

Prospero trancing

There isn’t much in the way of vampire tracer action in this one, concentrating more on the (anti?) hero quest aspect. The acting is pretty much the same except it primarily has Deth and Prospero; with the nobles (hamming it up) and the tunnel rats (imitating wood) pretty much sidelined. In truth this and the earlier film, which were filmed back to back, are both a little on the short side for a feature and with some judicious trimming the two could have been merged into a single film. That said, we are where we are and this deserves much the same score as the first film – again, the edition I watched for review was in a set of the first five films. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.