corran-horn-1 Reviews

Revamped (2007 Video)

Revamped Review

[6/10 · 1 June 2009]

"Revamped" is a curio in the comedy-vampire subgenre, and like many of its brethren it has its faults and its highlights.

The biggest flaw for "Revamped" could have been its biggest highlight - the comedy element (or dissolving of). Much of the best comedy of the film is derived in the intro, which is a condensed version of Rector's "Fatal Kiss" (you could say that "Revamped" is a pun in title as a re-make or extended version of the motiffs and themes in "Fatal Kiss"). The original material is just that: really original and completely hilarious. After the intro, the movie takes a turn, which is doesn't quite recover from. Rector holds the best comedic lines, but he is gradually phased out of the movie to allow its many subplots and characters to take over. This is a bad move as Rector carried the original "Fatal Kiss" quite well, and I think he could have done the some in this one as well.

The best comedic dynamics belong to the cop duo of Reeger and Peters, who definitely carry the movie in the second half, which unfortunately becomes quite convoluted. A vampire SWAT task force, a legion of evil vampires that want to block out the sun, reference to vampire wars that just occurred, an asylum that is a haven for half-breed vampires, etc. The movie takes on the weight of too much, and cannot carry the load - it instead dumps the comedy for action/adventure: kung fu vampires, police shoot outs, fisticuffs, etc.

I think to truly have been successful would to have dropped a few of these subplots, focused on the themes in "Fatal Kiss" (vengeful husband who wants to become a vampire-?), and really maintained the parodies and humour that "Fatal Kiss" did so well.

The movie does look higher quality than its budget would suggest, and I would say this is impart from the hard work Rector put into it - it really shows. Taking on the many roles and behind the camera hats (producer, caster, writer, etc.) definitely shows his dedication to his project, recalling perhaps the dedication showed by Don Coscarelli. of "Phantasm".

The biggest highlight of "Revamped" would be its endless stream of genre faces. Reggie Bannister, Billy Drago, Fred Williamson, Tane McClure - the movie is an endless parade of great stars that have all paid their dues to the genre in the years prior. Such implied homages by these stars' presence is quite welcome - if this was combined with a tighter emphases on comedy, I believe "Revamped" would've been a quintessential vampire movie.

Trancers 6 (2002 Video)

Trancers 6 - worthy entry into the Trancers canon

[8/10 · 4 July 2008]

Note: I do not really feel my review contains any real spoilers, but it is a review none the less, and reviews must reference the movie that's being reviewed.

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To save his daughter from being on the losing end of a knife fight, Jack Deth is once again sent down the line, and in the process has to cope with the usual temporal, (as well as gender) shock while synging trancers.

General consensus is that Trancers 6 is pretty bad, usually cited for a slew of reasons. While I'll admit the film does have its shortcomings, I'll also point out that as a Trancer movie, let alone a Full Moon product, this should have been expected.

Firstly, I think deep down, everyone realizes that the Trancers series was pretty much in decline in the first place. Tim Thomerson says in the Videozone for Trancers 4 a statement along the lines of Helen Hunt off doing movies for millions while he is stuck there doing Trancers. The comment may have been said in jest, but it does illustrate that there is definitely a visible decline in the series. The fact that Trancers 4 and 5 should've been one movie in the first place (how Kill Bill-esquire) shows that series was starting to be stretched thin.

However, Trancers 6 is remarkably refreshing. The time travel this time is a throw back to the original Trancers – no TCL chamber here. The plot is a throwback to Trancers 2: Trancer farming but with less Richard Lynch and more… uhm.. meteor? (Side note: a meteor that has the power to bend the will of people? Do I detect Maniac Mansion here? I doubt it, but that was a sweet game. Anywho, bad digression there). The aliens and the meteor tie back to Jack's implied adventures through time-space-dimensions-etc. that are post Trancers 3 and possibly post Trancers 5. All these incorporations solidify Trancers 6 within the canon of the Trancers series.

Trancers 6 even expands upon previous elements of Trancers. In Trancers 6 we see deformed Trancers, an alternate method to trance the squids (via meteor gun), and even a more powerful trancer (the tranced Mark who can stop bullets, unfazed).

The movie shows technical competency itself. No boom mikes visible, a claim that Trancers 1 cannot even make! Actually, it is quite surprising what movie was spun with what little resources and budget the director had. You can scoff at the lifted footage of Tim Thomerson from previous Trancers movies edited together in the beginning, but working with what the director has, it's actually pulled off quite well! The only real shortcomings in the technical department are the special effects. Yes, the trancer's plunge to his death was pretty bad. Any sort of explosion or laser looked pretty cut and pasted in. However, lack of any resources for a proper post-production would explain this (see the director's website on this detail), but also at the same time, I must harkin back to the quality of Trancers movies as a whole – the special effects have never really been that good! The image of the movie is nice and crisp; it looks like an actual movie! This is actually a quite surprising quality of Full Moon in the early 2000s – during the same year (2002), Death Bed came out from Full Moon, a monstrosity that looks like home video porn. I am grateful that Trancers 6 looks the way it does!

This is all fine and dandy, but lets boil to the root of what Trancers is about, and why there may be reasons for reservations for #6. Tim Thomerson is so synonymous with Trancers that not having him in #6 is a risky venture. However, the powers that be said no, so we do not get Tim Thomerson back as Jack Deth. This hindrance is dealt with rather brilliantly I think – have him sent down the line into his daughter. For starters, it's a nice fresh face, a clean slate. In Trancers 5, the evil doppelganger of Jack Deth comments that Jack Deth was getting pretty old. That was 1994; this being 2002, Tim Thomerson himself would be older. Sure, it could work – some people like 80-billion year old Harrison Ford donning the fedora of Indiana Jones again, so why not Tim Thomerson. Face it – for whatever reasons, Tim cannot be Jack Deth forever. Jo is a nice fresh face, and she actually pulls off the witticisms and one liners that Jack normally does quite well. In fact, while being in a female body, many of the comments take on an extra weight of humour. Examples of Jo complimenting the arse of Shauna, or the line of "not into guys" said to Mark. While this type of humour has been done before in such movies as Switch, but it takes on an extra sense of comedy since now it's playing with the already established conventions solidified by Tim Thomerson. I feel the biggest flaw of the movie is that not enough time is spent with Jo, spatting Jack Deth remarks. In the middle of the movie she more or less disappears – tied up or locked in a cell or sorts as we cut to exposition elsewhere. I feel that more time should've been spent on Jo acting like Jack, which would allow for more acceptance of the new character. I am hoping that Zette Sullivan starts to appear in more movies (no movies since Trancers 6-?), because I think she filled some pretty big shoes quite nicely.

So overall, I feel Trancers 6 is quite the worthy entry to the Trancers canon. I don't believe it deserves the dismissal it is currently receiving. It's pretty good!