For years, the town of Leffert’s Corners has lived in fear of the criminal Martense family. The family’s youngest son, John (Blake Bailey), has just been released from prison and now he’s returning home. He knows that, before he died, his father arranged for a thousand dollars to be buried in the cemetery. After the town mortician (Vincent Schiavelli, in a too brief cameo) tells him where it is, John heads to the cemetery. Unfortunately, he’s followed by crime boss Bennett (Jon Finch) and his thugs.
Cathryn (Ashley Laurence) and Dr. Haggis (Jeffrey Combs) are already at the cemetery, though not for the money. It turns out that subterranean monsters (all of whom are descended from one John’s relatives) are living underneath the cemetery grounds and terrorizing the town. Cathryn and Haggis are planning on blowing up the graveyard but that plan is put on hold when John and Bennett arrive. Underground monsters or not, Bennett is planning on getting that money and if that means holding everyone hostage in a church while the monsters prepare to attack, that is exactly what he is going to do.
As is evident by the welcome presence of Jeffrey Combs, The Lurking Fear is another Full Moon production that was loosely adapted from a H.P. Lovecraft short story. The premise has promise and the cast is full of talent but the film’s direction is flat, the script is shallow, and the monsters themselves look good but there’s nothing that set them apart from a dozen other monsters that have appeared in Full Moon productions. (The monsters resemble the dungeon dweller from Castle Freak but they are never as scary.) It’s too bad because The Lurking Fear is one of Lovecraft’s best short stories and it seems like one that would make a great movie. But, as a movie, The Lurking Fear, like so many other Full Moon productions, doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself whenever the monsters aren’t around. Hopefully, someday, Lovecraft’s The Lurking Fear will get the film adaptation that it deserves.
This was a little sad to watch. At least it didn’t make me feel even more depressed than I did after the scene in the transploitation “documentary” Let Me Die A Woman (1977) where a trans woman cuts off her own penis. Thanks, Ms. 45 (1981)! It probably didn’t help that I also watched Crackdown Mission (1988) where Godfrey Ho spliced a Pierre Kirby buddy cop movie into a Taiwanese remake of Ms. 45 either.
The last time we left Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson), he and Lena (Helen Hunt) had dealt with Trancers in early 1990’s Los Angeles. This movie picks up in 1992. And yes, Helen Hunt is in this. If memory serves, she did this as a favor to the filmmakers considering she was on Mad About You at this point. It opens with the usual voiceover from Jack and then we see a really sad commercial for the Jack Deth detective agency.
Yep, just like the first film, this one also has a part of it that takes place during the Christmas season. Then we see what happens when a guy who seems to barely speak English tries to rob a convenience store run by another guy who also seems to barely speak English.
It causes this guy to show up in a time machine. He’s there for Jack. Cut to Jack talking on the phone to Lena. Turns out they’re getting a divorce! Can’t really blame her. It’s either a guy who has futuristic zombies coming after him like this.
Or a guy who wants to hang a giant poster of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman in their apartment.
As Helen puts it.
I think she made the right choice.
After finding Jack, him and the reject from the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise travel into the future of 2352. There he finds that they were also able to get back Telma Hopkins as Cmdr. Rains…
and Megan Ward as Alice Stillwell.
This was three years before she would get her own show on NBC as well called Dark Skies. Unfortunately, that show didn’t succeed like the two other shows I remember them packaging with it: The Pretender and Profiler.
The gist here is that something happened in the past that led to a huge Trancer army overrunning the humans. You know what that means? Jack has to go back to the future to stop it. That means he has to go back to 2005. And by 2005, I mean we cut to a strip club.
Hey, I know that name! Thanks, Mötley Crüe!
I’ve got the screenshots, but there’s no menage a trois here, nor breaking any of Frenchies laws. However, this guy seems to like what he sees.
This scene introduces us to R.J. played by Melanie Smith.
She’s joined a special corps of people who are being enhanced to be able to Trance at will through the use of drugs. The guy I posted before decides to beat some people up before being shot to death. This scene only exists to introduce us to her and the whole drug thing. Well, that and since it has…
Travis McKenna as the bartender, it gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite scenes from Road House (1989).
I guess you could say that other guy was “too stupid to have a good time.” Now we are introduced to the villain of this movie and…
I guess this movie was an audition for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Melanie Smith would have a recurring role on the show, and that’s Andrew Robinson who would play Garak, the Cardassian tailor who was also a semi-retired dangerous spy and assassin. He really is the only good thing about this movie. Even through this stupid half assed sequel, he manages to show us exactly why he got hired to play that role. Funny that the previous Trancers movie had Jeffrey Combs in it who would also go on to play one of the most memorable characters from that show: Weyoun.
Anyways, after Jack goes back in time and shows us what being asked to make Trancers III was like…
by falling into a pile of trash, we get some pointless scenes till Jack shows up at Lena’s 2005 apartment.
And by 2005, I mean as seen from 1993. Making that girl wear that hat is cruel and unusual punishment. Turns out R.J. went to Lena because Lena has been writing about this Trancer core. It’s actually just an excuse to get her with Jack and let Tim and Helen say their goodbyes.
From this point till the final scenes of the movie can be summed as stalling for time by having pointless scenes with the villain, pointless fighting between his soldiers, and pointless conversations between Jack and R.J. The only thing worth mentioning here is that it’s not a good idea to pit a piete girl and against decent sized guy in a fight when they certainly don’t come across as martial artists. I say that because one of the scenes is like watching an ant try to beat up a beetle.
Well, eventually Jack and R.J. are captured. R.J. breaks Jack out, but starts to Trance because of the drugs, so she asks Jack to kill her, which he does. Then what must have been a joke happens. The fish head guy from earlier shows up out of nowhere to help Jack, but the second they turn to go through the door to fight the bad guys, this happens.
The guy freezes up leaving Jack to deal with them. And deal with them he does by gun, fist, and sword. I bet that was supposed to be a hint or inspiration for the next Trancers movie. Afterwards, it turns out fish head’s circuit board had malfunctioned, but came back to life as soon as the battle was done. Jack returns to the future future and goes before the council.
They give Jack a fancy new title, which Jack correctly knows is just an excuse so they can send him anywhere in time they please along with his new buddy. And that’s it! There’s no reason to see this. I remember stumbling across this at a video store when I was young. No wonder I basically forgot about it’s existence. Since it worked so well at the end of the Trancers II review. Here’s another shot of Thomerson giving a help me I’m stuck making Trancers movies face.
For years, the town of Leffert’s Corners has lived in fear of the criminal Martense family. The family’s youngest son, John (Blake Bailey), has just been released from prison and now he’s returning home. He knows that, before he died, his father arranged for a thousand dollars to be buried in the cemetery. After the town mortician (Vincent Schiavelli, in a too brief cameo) tells him where it is, John heads to the cemetery. Unfortunately, he’s followed by crime boss Bennett (Jon Finch) and his thugs.
Through the Shattered Lens 