''Trancers 4: Jack of Swords'' is a 1994 American sci-fi fantasy adventure film starring

Tim Thomerson Joseph Timothy Thomerson (born April 8, 1946) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Jack Deth in the '' Trancers'' film series, his work in numerous low-budget features, and his comedic television roles. He appear ...

as Jack Deth. The film also features

Stephen Macht Stephen Robert Macht (born May 1, 1942) is an American actor, rabbi, and professor. Early life and education Macht was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Jewish parents Janette and Jerome Irving Macht. He is of Russian Jewish descent. He w ...

and

Stacie Randall Stacie Randall (born January 5, 1962) is an American actress, best known for her roles in ''Puppet Master 4 ''Puppet Master 4'' (also known as ''Puppet Master 4: The Demon'') is a 1993 direct-to-video horror film written by Charles Band among o ...

. It was filmed back-to-back with '' Trancers 5: Sudden Deth'' in and around a castle in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

that was also used in another

Full Moon Entertainment Full Moon Features is an American independent motion picture production and distribution company headed by B-movie veteran Charles Band. It is known for the direct-to-video series '' Puppet Master'', '' Trancers'', and ''Subspecies'', as well as ...

produced film series called ''

Subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

''. The film has been released on DVD through the ''Trancers'' boxset.

Synopsis

Following his adventures in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

of the 1980s, Jack Deth (

) has returned to his own time, the

23rd century In contemporary history, the third millennium is the current millennium in the ''Anno Domini'' or Common Era, under the Gregorian calendar. It began on 1 January 2001 ( MMI) and will end on 31 December 3000 ( MMM), spanning the 21st to 30 ...

. Having lost his first wife Lena, and finding out that he's lost his other wife Alice to none other than Harris, Deth agrees to another assignment in the past. While heading out for another assignment, something (a Solonoid from a previous assignment) hiding in the time portal causes the TCL chamber to go awry. Jack finds himself in a whole new

dimension In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coo ...

, a kingdom of the technological level of

medieval Europe In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

. The physics of this world render most of Deth's technological devices nonfunctional. Here, he meets a parallel to Trancers called Nobles, who subsist on the life force of the mortals indigenous to this world. Jack assists a rebel group known as the Tunnel Rats, who desire to overthrow the villainous Lord Caliban (Clabe Hartley). The leaders of the Nobles' son, Prospero ( Ty Miller) rebels against the other aristocrats. To stop the Trancers of this world, and return himself to his own dimension, Jack must quest to find the

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight ...

Diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

in the

Castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

of Unrelenting Terror, an item which Lord Caliban is also hunting. The movie ends on a

cliffhanger A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious situation, facing a difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction or bef ...

Cast

Reception

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

'' found the film a bore and stated that fans of the first three ''Trancers'' movies would be disappointed. However, ''Creature Feature'' gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, rating it higher than the first three movies. ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' gave the movie two stars, saying the sequel does as well as can be imagined and praised Thomerson's acting, calling him an "underappreciated physical comedian".

Peter David Peter Allen David (September 23, 1956 – May 24, 2025), often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games.Buxton, Marc (March 29, 2014)"From 'Future Imperfect' to '2099': Peter David's Grea ...

's Silver gave the movie 2.5 out of 5 stars when judged on the B-Movie scale and 2 out of 5 stars when judged on a general scale. They noted that the movie was funnier than its predecessors, but that the acting outside of Thomerson's left much to be desired. It was recommended for fans of the series.

Production

moved its studios to Romania as post-

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

film tax incentives were too great to resist. This benefit accounted for the change of setting. It was filmed at the same time as ''Trancers V''. The stunt work was noted as impressive, and obtained much cheaper by local talent than would cost in America. Also offered cheaper were sound stages, waivers of location fees and extras working very cheaply.

Home Media

''Trancers 4: Jack of Swords'' was released on VHS and LaserDisc in 1994, DVD in 2012, and Blu-ray in 2022.

References

External links

* {{David Nutter 1994 films 1994 action films 1994 horror films 1994 science fiction films 1990s English-language films 1994 science fiction action films 1994 science fiction horror films American science fiction action films American science fiction horror films American sequel films Films directed by David Nutter Films shot in Romania Trancers (film series) 1990s American films English-language science fiction horror films English-language science fiction action films Films about parallel universes