Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today we're bringing you a weird House cinema rewind. This episode originally aired on May. Let's see May one. This was transfers to everybody meet your new husband Jack Death. Yeah, this one, this one is a lot of fun. Uh. Tim Thomason, Helen Hunt, Richard Lynch, con traveling um cops, Uh, psychic zombies, various wives, and the not so rigorous rules of time travel. We talk a little bit about time travel cinema in general in this episode, will Tim Thomason, Mary both women listening to find out. Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird how Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today it's all Time Cops. It's not the movie Time Cop, it's another Time Cop movie. Uh. This is one where you know there are different ways you get into a piece of b cinema. Sometimes you watch a trailer and it really grabs you. Sometimes you just hear the pitch and and it gets the hooks in. But for me, this movie Transfers to the Return of Jack Death. It lured me in with one of the best B movie posters I've ever seen. Uh this Uh, I can't remember how I first came across this. How did we get started on the transfer train? You were talking about transfers and then I found this poster. I think, yeah, a couple of things came together. I think I got a preview of a Full Moon Entertainment streaming channel in order to watch shock Waves, and then forgot to unsubscribe, and you know, so I had it for a month, and then we were talking about Full Moon Entertainment and and if in the question was raised I think by Seth, are all the films in the the Full Moon Entertainment catalog? Are they? Are they all essentially Evil Ball and Ginger dead Man? And I was like, no, no, no, no, there you know there's some early stuff. I think there's some good stuff in there, maybe the transfer movies. I haven't seen them yet. And then the next thing I knew I had about of insomnia, so I fired up Transfers one and started watching it. Okay, that's right. So you were talking about Transfers one and you were pitching me on the concept, which which sounded quite enticing. Uh, sort of similar. It sounded like a cross between time cop and Uh. There's a series of video games. I've never played one, but the games are called Assassin's Creed and the premise of them is that you don't physically, in your body go back in time, but you can like send your mind back in time to inhabit the body of one of your ancestors. Is that right? I think that's how it works. Yeah, I I I'm not really versed in those games either, okay, And so that's the that's one of the basic plot mechanics of transfers, right that it has a it has a drug based time travel mechanism where you can send your brain, or at least your your consciousness back into the body of one of your long dead relatives. Correct. Yeah, roughly speaking, if we're gonna lean into what's going on, uh there there are seemingly two methods of time travel in the film. There's the genetic ancestral drug technique to move consciousness and a physical time travel technique with severe limitation. So there is a continuation or survival of consciousness in these films, akin to reincarnation as well. As a consciousness based model of time, and it woul seem to indicate that time is largely an illusion created by consciousness and can be manipulated through pharmacology and manipulated to such a degree that then physical time travel is possible as well. That's right. Transfers too gets deep. This is um. I remember when I first signed up for Netflix many men of years ago. It was interesting because, like, you would tell it what movies you liked, and then it would start suggesting its own, Like Netflix curated thematic subgenres for you. And I remember one of the little uh categories that curated for me based on the movies that I had liked previously was mind bending thrillers. And so I think this is technically a mind bending thriller. Yes, um, it bends the mind, it's a little bit. It bends it in multiple directions. But but I gotta come back to this poster. So you were telling me about transfers, and then I looked up the poster but ended up seeing the poster for Transfers to the Return of Jack Death. This thing is beautiful. It belongs in the Ufizia. It's um. So it's got a painting of the main guy in the movie. But I was not familiar with this guy. I guess his name is Jack Death d e t right like megadeath, not like the actual word death. And then the painting he looks like Lane's boss from Seinfeld, you know, the guy with the like very smooth, like slick back white hair and the dark eyebrows. And he's looking kind of like Sam the Eagle, looking kind of stern and handsome with a strong jaw line. But he's got a long coat on. It's almost like, you know, he's like a flasher creep, but inside the coat it's not his body. It's like a galaxy full of stars. And then there are a couple of people standing with him, two women, each holding guns. One of them is Helen Hunt, kind of smiling in a mild way, holding a shotgun and wearing the mom jenes eist mom jeans that have ever been created. Oh, and they're also like standing on the surface of Mars, which doesn't correlate to anything that happens in the movie. Right. Do you know why in this poster Jack Death has a galaxy inside his coat? Well, I mean, there's nothing in the film to indicate why this would be. But I guess if we lean into it, he's you know, he's from the future, so he has a he has a sci fi nature to him. And if you can, I don't know, you're bending time in space. Uh that's about as much as I can come up with. Okay, So I guess one thing we should acknowledge is that this is yet another episode where we're covering a sequel without having covered the original film. And I think, Rob, you're going to sort of do recap duty for us to tell us about the first Transfers movie. But but we do not apologize for doing this. In fact, I think some of my favorite episodes of Weird House Cinema have been where we covered a sequel without covering the original. I don't know why that often works out so well. Something about it is kind of liberating. But I feel like it's something we're going to keep doing, and we maybe even need like a dedicated word for like the sequelocity episodes or yeah, because I think one of the reasons that it works is that when you're dealing with sequels, especially sequels of this caliber. You know, in sequels of genre films, um there are at least one of two things are likely to be happening here. So on one level, a sequel is a chance to move beyond the establishing setting and origin stories and get into the meat of a of a new, fresh story. Uh, provided however, that you don't have to then reset Heaven and Earth to make a sequel work. So I would say that a great example of this is Blade to where uh Gamma de Toro did not have to deal with any of like the origin story of Blade for the most part, and just got to get into just run right into a new adventure with only minor resetting. It's kind of like getting to start a movie in the second act. Yeah. Probably, I love this film obviously, But a bad example of this would be Highlander two, where everything was wrapped up in Highlander one, so in order to do a sequel they really had to reset Heaven and Earth and inject a whole bunch of new material there. Yeah. There are a lot of sequels that have to essentially undo the previous film in some way in order to exist, and on certain occasions that be a kind of like bold and gutsy and admirable move. Uh. This is a widely hated movie, but one one that does this in a way that I think could have been great? Is Alien three? Alien three? I mean, I guess I'm not gonna spoil anything for a movie that's been out this long. Alien three begins by killing most of the characters that survived Aliens and uh and beloved characters that all die right at the beginning actually off screen. It's just like it happens in between the films, and a lot of people like this, but something about me always kind of appreciated like this could be the setup to a real powerful gut punch of a of a third Alien movie. Unfortunately, Alien three is It's one of those movies that is it's hard to say it's bad because I think it's essentially an unfinished film. We we don't we didn't ever get to see what Alien three would have been. Um so many great aspects to it. I mean, it's a wonderful cast, Pete post Away, Charles S. Dutton. Yeah, it's got an amazing cast. A dance as a trust likable human being, which or at least a more relatable human being than he tends to play. I don't I don't remember all the wrinkles in his character, but he wasn't a complete bastard, as I recalled Charles Dance is just wonderful. Yeah, it's it has a great cast, has in a way a strong setup. Is just yeah, like I said, it's basically an unfinished film that was nevertheless released and kind of really suffers for that. It's sort of held together by duct tape and paper clips. But but but that was all a tangent to say. There are some cases where it feels like it can be really strong. Most of the time, when your sequel has to undo the previous film, it's just really irritating. How do you feel about Halloween one Halloween two? Because Halloween One ends with like Donald pleasants, is like, finally we have we have killed him, and then Halloween two begins with oh wait, my bad, I'm sorry I missed him, or it's not dead, you know. I mean, Halloween two is not the worst slasher movie and not the worst slasher sequel, Like it's a pretty competently executed, uh slasher horror movie. But yeah, it's it's totally unnecessary and it's quite clear that it was just just kind of a cash grab. It's like the first movie was really successful, we got to do another one. I mean, I don't think it doesn't feel it like Carpenter didn't even direct it. I think he co wrote the screenplay if I'm not mistaken, But um, I could be wrong about that. But whoever was all the creative forces behind it. It is a competently made horror movie, but their heart wasn't really in it. Yeah. So yeah. The next thing about sequels is definitely the rehash and redo area of sequel making. In it, in its worst case, you have a like direct to video cash in that is intentionally just completely um uh, lacking of the originality of the first film. But you also see this other, this, this reverse, and that's when you have, particularly a lower budget or indie picture that does really well, and then the sea will is a chance to essentially redo it, hopefully with improvements to the budget, cast, script, etcetera. I think prime examples of this would be Evil Dead Too and Phantasm To, both of which benefited from larger budgets and are both kinds of sequel slash remakes. I know fans are porn on some of the issues regarding these, and you know their their arguments about like what's better Phantasm Wonder Phantasm Too? But undeniably these are cases where the filmmakers got to go back and spend a lot more money, maybe with a lot more um um. You know, caveats attached to how they use that money, but still they got to explore the same dream with more cash. I don't know if the same is true Phantasm too, because I haven't seen it, but certainly with Evil Dead too, there's a big difference, not just in uh in budget and not just in the resources they had to work with, but in the tone of the movie. Whereas the first Evil Dead movie is like a is like a dark, straight, gross horror movie, the second one is a comedy essentially. Yeah, yeah, so you get tweak the tone even in cases, and then sometimes I can think it can it can have great results. But now, how does this apply to transfers, Because if I'm not mistaken, I think the first one actually got a theatrical release and this one I don't know, but it feels extremely straight to video. Yes, this one was straight to video, unlike the previous one. I couldn't find any information about the actual budget for transfers to um so this one maybe cost as much, maybe cost more, but I doubt it. I think it costs less. Um. It's certainly made at least one key upgrade, and that's in villain casting, which we'll get to in a bit. But they largely rehatch the plot of the first one, except with additional complications and additional characters. But I feel like they brought almost everybody back, so, uh, you know, it's kind of like a cast reunion to a certain extent. Okay, well, so if you're about to re recap the first movie for us, the first thing I've got to know is it's called Transfers to the Return of Jack Death. Where did he return from? Do you return from the future to the past or from the past to the future. No, he doesn't return from anywhere. He returns to your your your your TV screen. Basically. That's because there's talk of him returning to the future, but he does not return to the future. He doesn't return to the future until Transfers three. So it just literally could have been called transfers to Jack Death is in another movie. Yeah, alright, so previously on Transfers. Okay, So, Angel City of the twenty third century. It has a lot of problems. Most of Los Angeles is underwater and a psychic mastermind known as Whistler, who uses his psychic powers to turn other humans into transfers, zombie like thralls. Uh you know these are these are psychically controlled sleeper agents who can be triggered into a monstrous rampage. But luckily you have some transfer hunters on the case and there's none more um you know, excellent at at at singing transfers than old Jack Death. Jack Death is sort of the Harley Stone of transfers, so he's a pro had taken him out, pro it's sending those transfers. Uh. Meanwhile, the police actually have Whistler's body, They have the super bad guy's body, but they don't have his mind because Whistler, we find out, has used the time travel drug to send his consciousness back in time to five, where his consciousness now inhabits his ancestors body in his ancestor is a police detective. So complications. Oh. Now, while in the past, Whistler hasn't just been hiding, he's been hunting down and murdering the ancestors of his key enemies in the future, members of the ruling council of Angel City. So he's you know, he's basically running a terminator game on his enemies here. So Jack Death has been hired by the one remaining UH member of the ruling Council to follow Whistler Quote down on the Line down the timeline um by using the time travel drug, and Jack Death's consciousness emerges in his own nine five ancestors body a reporter in in Los Angeles. But before he goes, he shoots whistlers Um future body his commentos body dead before he goes. So he's kind of like, I'll go get him, but I'm not bringing him back alive. He's not coming back to this body. Too dangerous to live, Okay. So where does Helen hunt come in? She's kind of okay. Once in the past he meets up with this punk girl named Lena and that is Helen Hunt Um. And so she's she's she's in it. She's gonna help him. She you know, she gets her eyes are open to the time shenanigans going on, so she's she's right there with him to help him fight the battle. Uh, they fall in love, et cetera, you know, as as one would expect, and they hunt down the drunken, homeless former pro baseball player hap Ashby who is the ancestor of the future ruler who is in jeopardy. So in this quest, Death is aided by some high tech equipment that is also sent back through time and space to him, presumably via a different time travel methods. So once you've had your consciousness zipped back, they can send you a small box like the size of a cigar box that has a few uh um, you know, special tools that you can use. Does this include the watch that allows you to stop time for ten seconds? Yes, this includes the watch that gives you a long second if you push a button. The long second is just pausing time for a second, letting you do some bullet time stuff. Um, but it's incredibly useful. Yeah. But he also has um two doses of a serum that he can use. If the serum is injected into somebody who is um a consciousness from the future occupying a body, then it will kick that consciousness out and send it back to the future. So these two doses, one is to allow Jack Death to return to the future for his consciousness to leave his ancestors body. The other dose is to send um Whistler out of his ancestors body. But since Whistler is dead in the future his he'll just go into oblivion. Okay, all right. So he defeats Whistler, but he faces a problem. Only one of the two consciousness booting doses survived the battle. He can only inject one of them. He can kill Whistler in the past uh and and use the one dose to return himself, but that means killing the body that Whistler in habits, which is an innocent man with a family. So instead he ejects Whistler's consciousness into oblivion, thus sparing Whistler's ancestor, and remains behind in to marry Lena played by Helen Hunt and live in the twentieth century happily ever after with after in the nineteen eighties in southern California. Wow. Perfectly serviceable movie, but I think in in some in some ways a better movie. But ultimately I think Transfers two is more fun. I'm gonna guess that Transfers To is significant funnier than the first movie. Um yes, it definitely leans into the comedy a little bit more without getting into like full blown um you know, um yuck a minute mode that you kind of see in the later full uh, full Moon Pictures releases, and we'll get into some of that in a in a bit here. Um, But transfers one did have a few laughs, and I'll mention one or two of them as we go. Okay, so that's the previous movie. Well, what's the elevator pitch on the second movie? Jack Death is back, Baby, Jack Death all over again. Yeah, I was trying to think. Okay, I've got an old pitch on the second movie, which is that, due to unforeseen transfers, Jack Death realizes that, oh, he had another wife in the future that he forgot to tell Helen Hunt about, and now she's back in the past and and so now he's faced with the dilemma must he choose between them? Or can he marry both women? Let's hear that trader audio. My name is Jack Death. I'm a transfer hunted from the century. It's been so even years since I went down the line old California. Life's been good. I thought i'd send my last transfer, but nothing lasts forever. Jack transfers to the return of Jack Death. Jack must be getting to you. You have no idea. I actually haven't listened to this, but I imagine there's a really good in a world narrator in it. Uh yeah, the trailer. I actually don't advise watching the trailer in full because the one that the official one that's uploaded by full moon's like three minutes long and is basically a summary of the entire film. It shows you everything, and you know, it's like, not that spoiler is going to ruin your enjoyment of Transfers too, But you know, I think it's it's worth going into fresh Oh wait a minute, then, then should people not listen to this episode before they watch? Oh no, they can do that, that's right. I mean, I think everybody who's been into weird ol cinema you know the deal. We're gonna you know, we're gonna talk loosely about the movie. We're gonna talk about the people in it, and then we'll get more into the plot. So if you need to jump out halfway through, you know where to jump out at. Um, you know, if you need to go watch the movie and you want, you don't want any spoilers, otherwise we're gonna spoil pretty much everything. Well, I I greatly enjoyed Transfers too, but I would not say the lot was hanging on the outcome of the plot. For me, Yeah, it's pretty predictable, you know what's gonna happen. Alright, So who made this thing? Well, Charles Band, of course. Um, he's the director. He has an original story credit on this, uh born n one. We've discussed his bio before, but but briefly, he's the man behind Empire International Pictures and then Full Moon Features, and he directed some some really awesome eighties and nineties sci fi and horror films, you know, lower budget, fair for sure, before going increasingly in the Evil Balling, Ginger dead Man direction. Um, this is I believe our third Charles Band auction, but our first film that he actually directed. What were the other two was what he was a producer on, Robot Jocks, right, Robot Jocks and Arena, two absolutely glorious films, and I think there's a Robot Jocks tie in later on here. Yeah. Yeah, So he has sixty eight directorial credits, and I'd say most, if not all, of it from recent decades is certainly of the Evil ball Sword. But this movie is from the era in which Band was still making films that seemed to aim to be more genre action entertainment without just being you know, abject horror comedy and so forth. I'm talking stuff like two, Parasite, which starred Jimmy Moore, Um, metal Storm, The Destruction of Jared sin from three, which which I really enjoyed. That's a that's a fun sort of otherworldly post apocalyptic mash up thing. Doctor Mordred which is kind of a Doctor Strange picture before we had a Doctor Strange picture. And these films were not local hits by any means um. I I assume they made money of some sort um since things kept going, But you know, many of them developed a following, and as a producer, band played a role in bringing a lot of weird shlock to the screen, and I think like ultimately as a producer is where he has the most endearing value. Uh. You know, there's a there's a lot of fun stuff going on in the the Empire, uh Pictures, Days as Weth, the Early Full Moon Days and and even though the evil bolling stuff is not for me, I recognize that that too seems to have its following, So fair enough. Yeah, I think we're on the same page here. Like I love a good funny b horror movie, but ones that lean too hard on that intentionally that try to be too funny. Uh. At a certain point that kind of step over the line of intentionality and the silver loses its luster. Yeah, or or it certainly becomes harder to achieve, you know, perfection. Uh. You know, I can. I can think of some horror comedies that are really good. Uh, and we'll probably mention one in a bit that I'm rather fond but uh, yeah, I feel like it's just harder and harder to do, whereas the sweet Spot is trying to It's trying and maybe not fully succeeding in making a serious horror sci fi film. So one of the most hilarious things of our entire Transfers journey. Last night, Rachel and I watched Transfers to the Return of Jack Death, but also ended up researching other Transfers movies throughout the evening. So, of course, you had Transfers in nineteen eighty four, and then you had Transfers to the Return of Jack Death. This was nineteen nine one, which, as we've talked about on the show before, nine is maybe the most eighties year that ever happened. Um, But it doesn't stop there. You've got Transfers three Death Lives in nineteen ninety two, Transfers four, Jack of Swords in ninety four, Transfers five Sudden Death d E T H again in ninety four, and then Transfer six and Transfer six does not have a subtitle. It really should have. I think they should have kept going with the play on the word death, so it could have been Transfer six Death by Misadventure. I don't know, there's a lot of stuff you could do. Yeah, I haven't seen Transfers three yet, but I want to actually have a queued up because I think I'm I'm on board for that one. Um. I'm less thrilled about the idea of Transfers four and five because I understand those are a kind of notoriously bad ones. One was I think filmed in East European castle and some of the people involved in that one we're paid in money that couldn't leave the country if it's read correctly. And the other is a Western, so we have like medieval transfers, Old West transfers, and then Transfer six is um is it doesn't even have Jack Death in it. Well, it's got an old Western So this is like going in the same arc as the Tremors sequels, Trimmers and transfers are kind of running parallel. Yeah, I mean, they couldn't really do transfers in space because it's already sort of lot. I don't know. Maybe they could do transfers in space and that would explain the galaxy inside his coat. That would maybe they go into space in three. I don't know, Like I say, I haven't seen three yet. One thing, I was really surprised by transfers four and five, of which you're the ones you're saying are notoriously awful. We're both apparently directed by David Nutter, who does tons of high profile TV work, including directing many Game of Thrones episodes that are some of the most memorable ones. I think he did the Red Wedding episode, and he did a bunch of X Files episodes that are like really well remembered. I think he directed Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose. Yeah, he's a trusted hand in um in in TV and presumably film direction as well. But I mean, yeah, these these productions like Game of Thrones are essentially film productions. Charles band or whoever owns this now, if you're looking for some amateur filmmakers to make transfers seven Death by Misadventure. I think, hey, we're your people. Get in touch now. The writers on this one. I should point out that Danny Bilson and Paul Demo wrote the first one. These are also the guys who wrote Arena. We mentioned them briefly in that episode of Weird howse Cinema. Uh. Danny Bilson went on to write screenplays for The Rocketeer and to Five Bloods, which came out in what just last year I think uh and uh, and I think was was pretty acclaimed. That's a Spike Lee film. Um. And then the writers on this picture. The screenwriter is accredited as Jackson Burr. Uh. Not a lot of information on him, but he was active from Nino, did a number of screenplays for Full Moon and some other B movies. Most notably he did the screenplay for the Full Moon feature Subspecies. All Right, I think we got to get into the cast because we've said the phrase Jack Death probably thirty five times already. Who plays Jack Death? Well, this is a glorious chuck roast of a man named Tim Thomerson. Yes, Tim Thomerson, who I think it's safe to say is a B movie icon of sorts. Um, he's he's he's still very much around, still active, born ninety six. Uh. I was looking him up because I hadn't really researched him before this. I just knew that he was in some Full Moon pictures and you know, that was kind of that as far as I knew, that was where he emerged from. But he actually started out as a stand up comic and was quite successful at it in the late seventies and very early eighties. I mean, he was showing up on late night talk shows and so forth. Yeah, you you shared a bit that you found on YouTube. I mean, a lot of seventies and eighties stand up comedy, I feel like it's like there's the really good stuff, and that's really good, and then almost everything else is just drek. Uh. And I mean, I can't say that the video you shared was amazing, but maybe it was a little bit better than Drek. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm just ready for the worst when I look at pretty much any stand up comedy, but especially stand up comedy from from from years past, and for the most part, it seems like he had kind of a zany seventies guy, kind of vibe. He had a big bushy mustache and did some sort of like um, something like post stoner kind of humor, kind of a water down Robin Williams vibe as well. Like imagine a toned down Robin Williams who lifts Yeah, I would say, uh, surfer guy Robin Williams who does a lot of mouth sound effects and occasionally uses props. Yeah, so ends up. He has kind of a zany entertainment origin, especially when you compare it to stuff like his role as Jack Death, who certainly has some comedic corners to it, and you see some of that comedic energy bleed through in his performance here. But for the most part, it's kind of a noir esque, hardened detective kind of a role, you know, and he has the he has the face for it. He's, you know, ruggedly handsome kind of guy. Oh exactly. I chose my Chuck Roast phrase very carefully because I think that's sort of community. He's very ruggedly handsome, classically meaty noir guy, but with an extra little twist of absurdity. I was kind of surprised, though, like he has this very um, you know, I don't know, like he he has like blondish whitish hair in this and he has his very like, very rugged features. And I looked it up. Did you see how old he was when they filmed this Transfers to And he's four five, so he's he's just three years older in this film than I am right now. So uh, And he was, but he was thirty eight and the first Transfers and in that I would have assumed that he was like in his late forties. So yeah, I think he was had a very cured look about him. Yeah. He he has a face that speaks of much tobacco and beach. Yes, they're very very sun dried. Uh So his career trarectory again stand up comedy. But then he was doing a lot of TV work, popping up on stuff like Lavernon Shirley Um. And then he did a little film in three called metal Storm that directed the Destruction of Jaredson, that was directed by Charles Band And so the following year he did the first Transfers film. Okay, well you've mentioned this a couple of times now, and I hear the elation in your voice, So maybe maybe I gotta watch metal Storm. Uh yeah, I need to watch it again. But I remember it being fun. But yeah, but the thing is once you're once you go to band camp. Uh you're in band camp. Uh. So yeah. So he did Transfers and then the other Transfer films, with the exception of the sixth one. He also started as Dollman. In the Dollman films, he played this character brick Bardo, who's like, it's like a miniaturized human gimmick. I haven't actually seen any of those, but they were apparently successful enough in the Full Moon universe to do stuff like doll Man versus Demonic Toys. Um don't they have. They've had different franchises that are all about killer toys. They've got puppet Master, Demonic Toys, Dollman. Am I missing some others? Killer g I Joe's I think technically when you get into like the Ginger dead Man stuff, like Ginger dead Man is like a small gingerbread cookie that it kills people consistency. But he was. He was also in some other stuff. He was in Zone Trooper's Nemesis, Iron Eagle Cherry two thousand, which is a good one. He's also in Near Dark, the excellent vampire film from Katherine Bigelow with Lance Henrickson in it, and uh and Bill Paxton among others. Yeah, that's one of the best vampire movies ever. I think he plays a dad in that. I don't really remember Tim Thomerson in it. Yeah, the main character's dad maybe. Yeah. So Rachel and I were discussing a theory last night that Tim Thomerson edits Wikipedia because we were drilling into the wikies for like to see what was going on with the Deep Transfer sequels after we finished the movie and I we came across some hilarious unsourced claims, like on the wiki for Transfer six, which, by the way, it doesn't have a subtitle, but the tagline on the poster is same attitude, different sex. So I think it's that Jack death this time comes back and inhabits the body of an ancestor who was female. Yes, in fact, I could be wrong, but it might be his own daughter. I'm not sure what would that makes sense? It would still be his future of Okay, would still be his I did. Don't Yeah, don't try and make in these movies work. It'll just it'll just hurt your brain. Stop. Okay, But anyway, you get to the reception section of the wiki, for Transfer six. It has one sentence and the reception section reads. Reception for the film has been overall negative, mainly due to the lack of Tim Thomerson. And I thought about that scene in The Simpsons where we're Homer's reading the list of suggestions to Roger Meyer, and he's like, whenever Pucci is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking where's Pucci. Where's Thomason? Yeah, he is the center of this these pictures, it's hard to imagine one with that. Oh, but we gotta get to the real star power here. We've got a couple of stars in the sky of transfers To. One is Richard Lynch, the other is Helen Hunt. This is this Academy Award winning actress. That's right, the Helen Hunt born three, very much active today, plays Lena Death in this because she's married to Jack Death. Point um. Now, now, don't worry Helen Hunt Hunt fans. This was several years before her award winning role in His Good as It Gets. Her career hadn't quite taken off yet. Uh for at the time of transfers To, she had just done additional voices on Captain Planet Um and afterwards, she was in a really weird supernatural western with Bruce Dern called Into the bad Lands, which I remember being good. I saw it when I was a kid, but I remember liking that. But uh, yeah, she hadn't hadn't quite taken off yet, she'd even she'd come back for Transfers three. But shortly after that, I think she had moved beyond the orbit of full moon and uh was onto bigger and brighter things. So Helen Hunt in this movie plays Jack Death's wife in the past, who is going to come into conflict when his wife from the future comes back to the past. Uh. And Helen Hunt is an exceptionally good actress, and this is in many ways an exceptionally poorly written role, which is always a really enjoyable collision of forces when you have like a great actor saying ridiculous lines. And some of my favorite parts of this movie where the scenes where Helen Hunt is just rattling off paragraph long lines about the mechanics of time travel and complaining about the fact that he has another wife that she didn't know about. So that's one of the real chef kiss things in this movie. And and it's also different because she's a very down to earth good actor, unlike there are other actors like who could be really great. But also we're in lots of B movies delivering ridiculous lines like you know, I think Donald pleasants, but somehow Donald Pleasants I think fits more into the B movie world when he's in it. Uh. Here, it's just somebody who's clearly got like more screen presence than than this movie demands doing these lines that are absolutely absurd, but but doing them, you know, doing the job. But also, oh my god, her costuming in this movie. I guess it was part of the fashion in n to have these like really high waisted loose jeans. But her mom jeans in this movie are just extraordinary. They they explore previously unknown reaches of mom jeans z nous. They're almost kind of like the mc hammer pants but jeans. Yeah. And uh, Like, like you said, she has some she has some real acting challenges in this this film that she's you know, totally totally has the chops for, but she's put in. It's put in particularly, she's put in some really challenging scenes with the very green actor Megan Ward. Uh in this it's in some Uh, some some Bechdel flunking dialogue where it's just all about Jack Death. It's just two female characters talking exclusively about the male character. And you know, Helen Hunt clearly has the screen presence in this talent and Megan Ward is just not there yet. That is funny almost any time, Well, it is like Pucci and everybody should be saying where's Pucci? Because in this movie, if Jack Death is not on screen, basically the other characters on screen are talking about where's Jack Death? Who's going to get to marry Jack Death? Now? Now, speaking of Megan Ward, uh, she she plays Alice still Well, who is Jack Death's first wife from the future um Born nine. She she was in in Sceno Man. She's done a lot of TV work, including some work on General Hospital UM. So she's not in the first Transfers And I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she grew as a performer after this, But yeah, she's green as grass in Transfers to and has no help from the dialogue either. So it's I can't place all the blame on on her by any means, but the result is she kind of ends up dragging down every scene she's in, except except her scene with a character named Rabbit, which we'll get to in a bit. Yeah, she she gets through her lines, but she's pretty consistently kind of low energy, like not uh not really amped up to the absurdity level that the that the rest of like the older actors were going for. She would have worked great in the humanoid like she has. She has humanoid level energy. But the thing is in this everybody else has has has much higher levels of energy or intensity. And speaking of intensity, the legend in fact we're this this actor has real legends about him that I wasn't even aware of before we started researching for this. It's time to talk about Richard Lynch, our villain for the film. Yes, Richard Lynch plays Dr wardo Um who the nature of this character is kind of confusing. We'll get into that in a bit. But but Lynch was born in nineteen he died in a true B movie legend with that and was a huge upgrade for the Transfors franchise here because the chief villain, Whistler in the first film was played by this guy, Michael Stefani, who was was fine. I mean, I'm not saying Stefani was bad, but he he didn't have the smoldering intensity of of Richard Lynch. Uh. Now, Lynch had a really signature look. You know, he had to look up a picture of him if you don't remember him. Bright blonde hair, sharp nose, the scarred face. And uh, I never knew the like the history on his on the scars that he had. In fact, I'd say a lot of the films I've seen him in, the picture quality is not really good enough to pick up on it all that much. You know, when you're watching like a like a YouTube rip of a check dub of Scanner Cop three, you you don't really pick out the fine detail of his face as well. Right. But but something that's mentioned in the o bits included for him, including the New York Times, oh bit for Richard Lynch, is that, um, according to Lynch, he suffered scarring in nineteen sixty seven after he set himself on fire while under the influence of L. S. D in New York Central Park. This is one of those stories that I didn't know until yesterday, and I was like, how have I never read this before? Yeah? Yeah, it seems like the kind of thing I would have picked up on it is sure enough if you if you look it up on YouTube, you can find a scene from the documentary UM l s D Trip to Nowhere, and I think it's a no, it's tripped to where LSD trip to where question mark UM a documentary from and it's just some rough interview footage of a young Richard Lynch who's um, you know, injuries are far more apparent in this early footage. I don't know if he's you know, he still hasn't healed up from reconstructive surgery or what the exact details are, but he's talking about this experience and it's a it's a rough rough watch. So he was appearing in basically an anti LSD scare film, yes, But but anyway, it's it goes beyond Lynch's looks though, because he was a solid actor who brought just real menace to his many many villainous roles over the decades. There you know, there are a lot of character actors who had you know, odd looks to them, you know, and have particular features of their appearance that lend well to uh uh, you know, horror and sci fi. But but in some of them don't clearly don't have like the acting chops to back it up. I think Lynch is one of those guys that clearly did have the acting chops. Yeah, I agree. You know. One thing that's interesting is that I noticed later touches of this in his in his adult roles, but it's less there, it's more there in that early interview from the sixties when he's young, is that he has that kind of classic Transatlantic accent. He sounds a little bit like William F. Buckley when he talks. Yeah. So his credits include such films as God Told Me To the the excellent weird Larry Cohen film, in which he plays an alien him aphroditic, uh, christ like being that has come to New York City. He's in The Seven Ups, which is, you know, not a genre pieces, just like a crime movie. He was in The Ninth Configuration. Uh. He was in The Sword and the Sorcerer and the Barbarians. So he he definitely got into the into the you know, the medieval fantasy type epics, you know, generally playing some sort of evil sorcerer. He was in Scanner cop he was in Necronomicon, Book of the Dead, and he's one of many B movie and genre icons who Rob Zombie brought into some of his films. So you'll find him especially in the Lords of Salem. I would say he also is in the B movie Hall of Fame for his participation in War Wilf. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right, he's he's in that. Yeah, now you know, Actually, now that I mentioned it, I can't recall if he actually got to complete his scenes for Lords of Salem. He might have. He might have been, uh, that might have been towards the end of his life. It's possible that that he's not in that at all. He may have just been originally part of the cast now that I think about it, But I think he was in Rob Zombie's Halloween movie. That sounds right. Yeah. He also showed up on Star Trek, The Next Generation Murder she wrote, and six Ft Under, So yeah, Richard Lynch was in a lot of things. He was in a lot of B movies, played a lot of of of of bad guys and it was just really good at it. Does he ever play a good guy? I can't recall that ever happening. I've never seen a movie where he wasn't a villain. I don't know. I mean he had to have at some point, but I mean, and I think he could have done it. I mean, especially as he got older, you know, he could. I could see him leaning in into you know, because you see out of character photographs of him and he's just you know, he's just this older dude with you know, with white hair at that point. But then again, if you're hiring Richard Lynch, you want the intensity, right, Like, try to imagine this movie with Richard Lynch as as Jack Death and Tim Thomason as the as the villain. That doesn't quite work, does it now? And then also the films of this caliber, they're often painting in um in very you know, strict colors. You know, you want your villain streak, you want your hero streak. Uh, you're not necessarily looking for a really complex palette. So a lot of Richard Lynch's screen time in Transfers To is actually on screen. On screen, he'll be on a TV screen like indoctrinating people, indoctrinating his transfer army with weird mantras or there's a great part later in the movie. It was one of my favorite parts actually, where he's on a TV show being given a softball interview by Barbara Crampton. Yeah, yeah, another B movie name of of note, noted for animator from Beyond Your Next, Beyond the Gates and The Lords of Salem as well. But but that's something that's something. There's some some great scenes. Yeah, in this movie, he plays a psychic madman cult leader, so there's plenty of of of Lynchian depth there for him to get into. Oh, don't forget environmental terrorists. They had to throw that in as well. He's many things, too many people in this movie. Uh, and it's also funny how it made me think about how I'm not quite sure whether I wonder if there was like some event in the news that really put this in people's brains. But I really think in the early nineteen nineties there were a lot of movies about where the villains were eco terrorists. Yeah. I think it was, yeah, kind of maybe a safe place to go in some ways, but but also perhaps revealed some anxieties about uh, you know, environmental movements and the you know, the ramifications of or perceived ramifications of environmental movements. So you do see it a lot weird, all right. There are other human in this movie, though we should get to them. Yeah, we have Biff Maynard or Pert Biff Mannered. He's sometimes his name is apparently misspelled as Maynard, but anyway, he plays hap Ashby. This actor was born nineteen. He's reprising his role from the first film, as as the the one remaining ancestor of the future leader, who is a washed up professional baseball player. Okay, yes, and he has to be kept alive or else the future Politician will not exist. Yeah, he's um. I wouldn't say he's a great actor, but he's a he's a decent enough actor. And he has given some walky lines and reactions in this movie that are fabulous. So he's he's a treat. Oh yeah, he's great. And you know his his name sort of reads like a sentence somehow, it's like Biff Menard. I don't know it, it works. Uh. And he he spends most of the movie getting back on the sauce gradually. Yes. Uh. We also, oh, you know we were talking about in the Humanoid how oh we have a bond girl in this one, Well, move over Humanoid, because we don't just have a bond girl in this one. We have a double bond girl. Oh that's right, Martin Beswick. Right, that's right. She plays Nurse Trotter. It's just a you know, sort of a secondary villain role. But she was borne still still around as of this recording. She was in From Russia with Love in nineteen sixty three and Thunderball in nineteen I was actually so She and Jeffrey Combs another B movie icon. Man. This this cast list is gigantic. Uh. They are sort of a team in this movie that they don't do much like physical attacking. I mean, I guess they do a little bit, but mostly what they do is sit side by side and kind of give the main characters the side I like, look at them almost as if to give them withering looks an issue, like a self esteem annihilating, deprecating comment about them. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't say either. I mean she she she definitely gets to bust out some side. I Jeffrey Combs, who again another B B movie icon, the reanimator himself. Um, he doesn't have a lot to do in this. He just basically sits around with a goatee. Um kind of asks um Lynch's character what he should do? You know, follows orders and also confers with the nurse here. Yeah, his his goatee and his shady glare do most of the acting. All Right, I'm gonna I'm gonna largely skip over the McNulty's here, but basically you have an old McNulty and a girl McNulty. Old McNulty is played by this actor, Art lafleur Borne. You may have seen him. He played the babe in the sand Lot. He was in the Blob, he was in Cobra, he was in Field of Dreams. He was even in a Key and Peel sketch. Uh. He's got slight notes of Buddy Hackett, right, Yeah. And then Alison Croft plays Girl McNulty. We'll get into the distinction here. She's born in five went on to appear on Madman and Shameless. I feel like this is the biggest cast list we have ever plowed through in a movie. I mean, it's like there's something interesting about all of them, or in the case of the next guy, he's just such a delight on screen. Uh. Talking about Sonny Carl Davis playing Rabbit. Tell me about Rabbit. All right, I couldn't find anything about when he was born, but I think he's still around. Uh. Davis has been in a bunch of films, including a bit part in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But the first place I saw him was in the excellent nine horror comedy Terror Vision, in which he plays kind of creepy satellite TV repair guy I'm trying. Oh, I think I know who he was. And Fast Times at Ridgemont High he's the guy who gets Judge Reinhold fired from his job by complaining about his he didn't like his food at the restaurant. Remember this, I don't. He's like, um, I think I just want my money back. Yeah, it's it's him. It's a memorable performance because sunny Carl Davis has he sticks in you. He was also in Film and Louise and I Can get a part in the Burbs. But in this he plays Rabbit, deranged orderly at the sort of mental institution. We'll get into that in a bit, but he has some cheesy comedic lines that he manages to bring to life delightfully, and the character Rabbit would apparently go on to be a staple of the Evil Bong franchise and related Full Moon pictures. I'm not sure how they brought him back or you know, if it's just basically little cameos, but essentially he's played Rabbit nine times. I get the feeling that what Dick Miller is to the Roger Corman universe, sunny Carl Davis is to the Full Moon universe. Yeah, but he's great in this. I ended up really loving Rabbit. Yeah, I love Rabbit to One of the many surprises of the film, this this fiscile balding man with eyelids that opened like eight meters wide is also apparently the heart throb of the hospital staff, like all the ladies are Gaga or Rabbit. Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but okay, alright, let's see real quick. Um we should mention Tellma Hopkins. She plays Commander Reins in the future and she's reprising a role from Transfers one. Uh. She was part of Tony or and O and don uh that that musical act. But she also did a fair amount of TV and film work. She was on Family Matters and I realized I was trying to think, where did I recognize her from? But she plays Aunt Rachel on Family Matters. But she Yeah, so she's like the Commander of the future. Cops in the future. In there are a couple of scenes in this I guess the bookends of the film that are in the future, and she's sort of like recapping what's going on, explaining the plot and and giving people orders. And there's there's a very funny scene at the very beginning where she's telling a dyspeptic art La Fleur that he must go back into the past and he complains mightily. Yeah. Also, remember her character is one of Jack Death's exes, so everything everything revolves around Jack Death, right, yes, when when Jack Death is not on screen, everyone's asking where is Jack Death? All right, real quick? I'll mention the music. Phil Davies and Mark Ryder did it. Um. They also did the scores for Society and a few other films, and I think Right ended up working a bit more on his own for Transfers. I'll say it. You know, it's a decent score. It's invisible most of the time, you don't really think about it. But there were other parts of it that I kind of dug. You know, it's electronic, a bit sappy at times, but effective. I think Wardo's theme So when when there's sort of like sinister stuff going on in the asylum, and that's where I would notice the music and be like, all right, this is all right, I can dig this. Uh. Yeah, I don't think I really noticed the music, except I noticed it a little bit right at the beginning. Because so maybe we should get into the plot breakdown. Are you ready? Let's do it. We open on Jack Death and Helen Hunt accidentally just called her Helen Haunt cruising in his classic Yeah, exactly, cruising in his classic corvette. And by the way that Jack Death loves his Corvett. This is very much a point to note in the film. Yes, and uh, and we get some some moody, kind of sad music playing, and this was one of the only points where I really noticed the score. Like I said, Uh, there's the dreamy electronic music. The Death's hair is blowing in the wind. And then we get narration and Jack Death tells us in voice over, during the last six years, I spent a lot of time wandering this part of the California coast. It's tough knowing it's all going to be under the ocean after the killer quakes of My name is Jack Death. I'm a cop from the future. Transfer detail and I didn't know it yet, but back up the line, my old supervisor McNulty was on his way to see me. McNulty is a professional pain in the ass, but the council is stuck with him because, like me, he had an ancestor in Old California. That's the only way to send someone's consciousness back in time over the genetic bridge. I hadn't learned about the TCL chamber yet, and then I guess it's really just starting to get very detailed for for voiceover narration. But I stopped because I was thinking this must present a very bizarre pattern of sort of discrimination and hiring of time cops in the future, right, Like you have to submit your family tree and details to see if they can find a relative of yours and Old cal Inlifornia. Yeah, it's um. They don't go into it a lot, but like, like clearly the transfer I mean, I guess the transfers thing is it was isolated in time at one point, but then the trans the then the transfers are moving around in time. Whistler and Whistler's brother are moving around in time, so that means the time. That means that your transfer cops have to become time cops and yeah, there you go. So anyway, we get this opening scene I was talking about where Commander reins Telma Hopkins is is explaining to McNulty how all the time travel stuff works, and this scene, Um, I gotta be honest and say, I had to watch this twice. I did not follow the scene at all. The first time. I was like, what is going on? I guess you had a leg up because you've seen the first movie. Um, but if you haven't, this one just kind of rolls over you. It's like it's like a wave. But basically it's it's the stuff we've already talked about your consciousness. If you take a drug, your consciousness can go back in time to an ancestor. It seems mostly you can't travel back in time physically, at least not your whole body. But now there is a machine called the TCL Chamber that looks like a crappy version of the Apollo Command Module, and you can send that back in time empty that nobody. Nobody can go in it, and then people can get in it in the past physically in their bodies and go forward in time to the future. Got it. Yeah, And if you don't get it. I just advise you to watch the movie speak if they do a little better job explaining it, I guess, or at least presenting it visually. So tell my Hopkins is explaining that they need to send McNulty's consciousness back in time to possess the body of his ancestor, who at this point is a fifteen year old girl in California. In two, I think tell Jack Death about the TCL chamber that will allow him to get into it and travel back to the future. Is that right, that's right. Yeah. In the last film, McNulty had to go back in time to do the same thing, and in that one it is like, you know, an eight to ten year old girl that he had to inhabit, which was one of the funnier part the legitimately funnier parts of Transfers one where this a little girl showing up and she's talking like a like you know, I got like a like a tough rough and tumble, you know, um, police commander from the future. Is she smoking a cigar? Uh No, she's not smoking a cigar, but she's almost almost smoking a cigar. Well, in this movie, McNulty's ancestor smokes a cigar, which I think is is played for comedy. I think partially on the basis of some of some gendered assumptions, but also I mean, I guess it is funny to see any like fifteen year old chomping on the cigar. Alright, So then Commander Rains explains more of the plot. Again, I did not understand any of this the first time I had to go back. But so they've sent someone else back in time to the body of an ancestor. And this other person is Jack Death's wife in the future, Alice, who we learn is dead in the future. I can't I don't know if this was established in the first movie, but she has been murdered in the future. It's weird when we when we actually discuss it like this, this sounds like the most complicated movie plot of all. Yeah, I know, I was trying to think, like it actually is super complicated. It just doesn't really feel like that in the movie because all this stuff you just like, you kind of don't catch it and it doesn't matter, and then you just keep watching. But so she's dead in the future, but she wasn't dead a few years ago in the future. So they sent somebody back in time but still to the future, just a few years before, in the future before she died, to tell her that she has to go farther back in time to nine so she can I believe hunt transfers they're right, And oh my god, there's so many funny exchanges in the scene where it just gets amazingly complicated. McNulty is like, I thought we killed Whistler and all the transfers in the past, and then Rains is like, but there's a new Whistler in the past and now he's made new transfers in the past. Yeah, And I like, I didn't even realize Whistler was what I thought. There was just the one Whistler. So I've never figured out if if Richard Lynch's character in this is truly like Whistler's brother, is it Whistler himself, his consciousness some kind of escaped. They're kind of all over the place briefly explaining who he is supposed to be. Okay, I think I know the answer. Okay, I think the answer is that Richard Lynch is playing Whistler's brother, playing a guy named ed WARDO. Whistler, who is the brother. I think the guy in the first movie is named James Whistler. Is that right? Um? Possibly? Um? I feel like I looked that up and I was. I also was confused when I started looking up his name in the first film. But I think I think, yes, I think you're correct. This is supposed to be Whistler's brother. This is um, you know, I guess they all both both siblings had the psychic gift of creating transfers. Uh. Because there's a scene later on where Helen Hunt and Jack Death are figuring it out in a very Doctor Acula type meant They're like, oh, this Richard Lynch is is his name is E d Wardo? Wait a minute. You know Whistler had a brother named ed WARDO Whistler. It's him, you know, E d Wardo. Get it all right? Good enough for me? Okay, but I was thinking about Dr Wardo throughout this movie as Doctor Warrio. Okay, now we get a bunch more plot. Mccannics. There's so much explaining at the beginning of this. So they say, okay, Jack Death, he can't come back to the future of the normal serum way because his old body in the future is now. They call it calcified, which I guess would mean it's like all made of bone. Now I guess like he just can't come back. His body's bad. Yeah, it looks bad. They show it on a slab and it's just all gross looking. Yeah. So he can only come back to the future in the TCL chamber and that lunar module thing or not learned to the command module thing. Uh, they're sending that back for him, otherwise he'll be stuck in the past forever. And then we get introduce us to this James Bond gadget we mentioned earlier, the long second watch, which slows time for like ten seconds. You can go into bullet time basically. Oh. And then there's a funny part where McNulty is like, hey, Rains, aren't you and Jack Death. You know you were formerly in love but you split up. Why would you want him back? And the implication there is that like, if if you discovered your ex was stuck in the past, you just leave them stuck in the past. But she's like, look, I can't leave him stuck in the past just because we have a history. We have to think about the future of the future. And uh oh, And they find out that Jack Death is going to get a seat on the council, which is very important somehow, but it's not really explained. I don't think the later someone says it's like becoming a king of the universe, so I guess it's really important. I don't know. Jack Death doesn't come off as like a really terrible person, but I don't know. If he comes he seems like the best choice for a king of the universe. I mean, he's anti establishment for the most part. You know, he's kind of a rogue cop. He doesn't need to be mayor the city right exactly. But one thing I noted when we were first watching this is that the exposition scene here at the beginning just sounds like a transcript of the pitch meeting. It's just somebody describing the like basically the concept of the movie. But then there was also a really funny part here I took a screen grab for you to look at, where while she's explaining everything to him, a technician and a lab coat comes up and just starts trying to undress McNulty, like reaches over to his coat and McNulty is very irritated. But anyway, Okay, so the action starts when we go back to the past where Jack Death and Helen Hunter driving around and they drive up to Happs house. Remember, Halp is the guy who he originally had to go back in time to protect because he's the ancestor of a future politician. And here I started noticing one of my one of my favorite type of awkward cinematography, which is regular dialogue scenes where there's nothing particularly intense going on, where the camera is way too close to the actors. Uh So, like, you know, a standard way of shooting dialogue between two characters, today's alternating cuts between what are usually called over the shoulder shots, so you shoot from roughly, you know, over the shoulder of where the other person in the conversation would be. You know, there are other choices you can make it. You know, it's an open art form. But a lot of times this movie will be cutting back and forth between people talking, and it's cutting between what is basically just extreme close ups of people's faces while they're talking, and the effect is very funny. I could screen cap many examples, but I just included one here for just Helen Hunt talking. I think she's talking about wanting to go house hunting. And it's like right up in her pores. Yeah, it's one thing if it's Richard Lynch, because Richard Lynch is generally saying intent villain stuff and stare harng into your soul when they're doing these close ups. But this is a scene where they're just talking about sort of side character stuff about how she really wants to settle down and get a house and he doesn't feel ready. Yeah, and then it cuts back to him and he's he's being kind of being a jerk about it. I don't want to spend a day with some pencil neck real estate agent going house hunting. But we're right up in his pores too, and they're just a mile wide, and it's wow, It's it's amazing. Another thing. So they get to Hap's house. Halp lives in this mansion which is hideous property where he's restoring an antique fire truck and I was wondering, is this something from the first movie? Was Happy in Transfers One a fire truck enthusiast happened the first movie was a former pro baseball player that is now um homeless, you know, in his you know, suffering from from alcoholism. And so in this they've sobered and sobered him up, and I don't remember it being explained why. But he's set up in this ugly mansion that's decorated like like like something a stereo typical divorced, middle aged dad would dream up where you know, you're storing a fire truck and there and everything. All the decoration inside the house is like fire trucks and baseball reabelia, and there's a big old bar in the center of everything, maximum Baseball. It's it's like the you know the concept of a man cave, but it's this entire mansion A better description, Yeah, it's it's full man cave mansion, and it's just ridiculous. He's got thirty six dart boards. Yeah. So I don't know where Happ got this money. But they're living with Hap, uh like kind of like looking after him as parents, I think, so. Yeah, yeah, which is especially funny. We'll get back to that in just a second. But uh, there there was also a funny exchange. So they're like, why did why did Jack Death come back to Happ's house? What are they doing here? I thought they were supposed to be on vacation or a honeymoon or something um, but he's like, Hap, I had to come back because I had a funny feeling. And then half goes no, no, not trancers again, Jack, and then it cuts to not dialogue in the scene, but voiceover of Jack death saying I've been having a strange feeling, the feeling I get when there are transfers around, just to make it clear. But then anyway, Lena Helen Hunt's character announces that she has to get Hap to bed. Why does Lena have to make Happy go to bed? It's like he's a child and their babysitting him just permanently. I mean, he looks like he's um in his late fifties or early sixties here. And yet they refer to this a couple of times in the movie that they are still kind of grooming this guy to eventually procreate, to produce the offspring that the world depends on, like the ancestor that ends up being the ruler of the future apparently has not been produced yet by this um, by this uh this specimen of a man here. Uh So I'm not really sure how that's gonna work out. Yeah, but I think they could have done an interesting sitcom with them essentially raising Hap. You know, I don't know Meet the deaths Um Death Family matters, I don't know very good. Yes, I would watch that sitcom, but this is the life they've created for them, but that life is about to be turned upside down by transfers. Oh wait, if it was the sitcom, Richard Lynch would become the arkle of it. He'd be like the nerdy next door neighbor who keeps showing up and he's like, look, I've figured out how to create transfers. Oh man, it would be the most intense Did I do that ever? Richard Lynch staring like straight into your bones? Did I do that? But then we cut to the next morning, and there's several things going on at the same time. One of them, I guess, is a conversation between Helen Hunt and Jack Death about house hunting. We sort of mentioned that already. But also there's just an immediate transfer attack. Landscaping company shows up. The camera lingers ominously on a guy with a shovel who's working in the yards. It's like, Wow, I wonder what's gonna happen. You think he's gonna be a transfer And then Hap goes out to be like Hey, you know, good job digging on the lawn, and and the guy immediately like his face works out and against these gross forked lightning veins coming down his cheeks. And also there's just random dirt on his forehead and some kind of dark liquid dripping out of his eyes. Yeah. They at this point a transfer has been triggered out of their like sleeper cell mode, and they're just full on maniacal attack mode. And then one of the interesting things is if the transfer is then killed with like a laser gun or in the first film or in this you know, just shot with normal ammunitions. Once they hit the ground, they will disintegrate and leave like a smoking outline of their body on the ground. Yeah. They turn into red lasers and disintegrate. Yeah. Yeah, And it's totally it's totally unexplained. Why why would this happen? I guess it has to do maybe I don't know, the psychic powers are somehow linked they create the transfers are linked to this idea of consciousness and time and I don't know. But anyway, so this is going on. The transfer attack happens while Jack Death and Lena are talking about wanting well Helen Hunt wants to buy a house, and Jack Death is being a jerk about it because he does not want to spend time touring homes. He's just, yeah, no, I don't want to. A lot of man child elements in this movie, yes, And then they're talking about it. I guess they sort of make up and they're talking about their future and they're kissing, and then Jack Death suddenly perks up is spidy, senses are going and he's like transfers, and so the landscaper Transer and his crew are trying to kill Halp, but Jack Death hilariously, it's like he riding in on a horse to save the day, but instead he drives up on them in a golf cart, steering with one hand and shooting with the other. And this was maybe my biggest laugh out loud moment of the movie. Very very strong, it's very very great and played like a lot of stuff in this film. Most of the things in this film played seriously, yes, which makes it work much better. So Jack Death defeats the Transcers and it's like, oh, I thought we dealt with all the transfers. I wonder if there's a new Whistler in the past. But immediately McNulty arrives in in his ancestors body on a bicycle and uh he there's a bunch more exposition explains all this stuff about time travel, basically rehashes a lot of what we learned earlier, explains about the TCL chamber. Uh. They end up setting up a tent in the yard to hide the time machine when it arrives from the future. I love it. Very very cheap move on the production. I like it. I'm not sure exactly what the quality was. It's something about her line delivery. But Rachel and I kept noticing that the actress who plays McNulty's ancestor, who who is good like, she's funny in this she has very all Garfield energy. I'm referring to an actress from sketching. I think you should leave. It's the sketch with the intervention for for Tim Robinson that's in the Garfield house, you know where she's saying like, yeah, but it's a total party house. Yeah. I had to look this back up that that's a it's a fun sketch. The actor I think you're referring to as Kate Berlant, who she's born, She's born eight seven, so she's actually younger than Transfers. One. Wow, she's very funny. And that sketch. By the way, we we quoted all the time, you kind of quote we were for the rest of the movie. We're kind of like pointing all around and you know, like she says, all Garfield as she points it out to her friends, it's like all Transfers. But anyway, so we get a transition to this whole other plot. And this whole other plot is unknown to Jack Death and Lena. Jack Death's wife from the future, Alice Stillwell, is also still in the past in the body of her ancestor, but she's trapped in this place run by Richard Lynch's people. It's this evil cult pseudo psychiatric hospital that is operated by new Whistlers goons. Yeah, and actually the plot element here is kind of fun. I thought, I thought, this is pretty creative. Is that since you you just kind of you know, quantum lead back in time to your ancestor in that the time period you're going to. Well, she was sent back to eight five, but as it turns out, her ancestor was in an in a mental institution at the time, so she instantly was was trapped in the institution, and uh, and I imagine it was I guess exasperated by her claiming they're acting like she was in herself. And then she wasn't able to get to her special watch with a long second. So she's just been lost this whole time. Yeah, so it's a it's a major bummer. And then we meet we meet several characters here, so she's trapped in there. We meet Rabbit. Anything else we need to say about Rabbit, No, I mean, you know Rabbit. At this point, also we meet the villains Martin Beswick and and uh, what's his name, Jeffrey Combs. They're just sitting around sort of uh, looking judgmentally at everyone. Now, obviously this is not a real psychiatric hospital providing care to its patients. That is basically a transfer factory that is being run by Richard Lynch, and they're playing TVs of him, creepy talking at the patients all night long. You know. Yeah, we we we come to learn that basically his scheme here in the first film, we learned you can't make a transfer out of like a strong wheelled person. In order for Whistler or Whistler's brother to use their psychic power to turn you into this this zombie like thrall. You have to you have to be kind of, uh, you know, of a weakened state mentally. And so this whole operation, this transfer factory, transfer farm, is about weakening people, uh like, mentally with pharmaceuticals, we find out later, so that then he can easily control them and easily manipulate them and create like a transfer army. Yeah exactly. So Alice stages an escape from this facility while the orderly rabbit is busy having a midnight rendezvous with another orderly who I guess is his girlfriend. They're like hanging out to uh, to drink vodka mixed with orange soda just looks pretty gross. I don't know. Maybe that's a drink some people have. I don't know it was. I mean, I guess it depends on the orange soda. Maybe you've got a nice orange soda. Oh yeah, I guess. I don't think it looked like one of those, like really neon, you know, the traffic cone orange soda the perfect cocktail for drinking on the job in a broom closet at an unlicensed mental institution run by a cold leader, Right, so they're planning I guess, to drink on the job and and do no good, but they get interrupted by Alice's breakout, and then everybody gives chase uh and then Alice eventually she escapes I think actually multiple times, but at some point she discovers the time machine the TCL chamber. It's in a barn somewhere, but then she has captured and taken back to Whistler House, and then we cut back to our Our main character is Jack Death McNulty or McNulty in his ancestors body, Helen Hunt. They're all hanging around in this tent they've put up on the yard where they're supposed to receive the time machine, but there's a problem because it doesn't actually show up. They just get the door of it. So they obviously need to connect with Alice because she knows where the rest of the time machine is, and so they're standing around and then there's also just tons of This movie has a lot of scenes of characters explaining to each other things that the audience already knows from previous explaining scenes. But one of the funny things is in the scene you get to see the characters react, so McNulty explains to Jack Death and Helen Hunt that his wife is back here in the present, and the an incredulous Helen Hunt is like, you have a wife. I thought she was dead and he's like, no, honey, I can explain she's dead in the future, but now she's alive in the past, which again was very funny. Um. But they yeah, they need her help to figure out where the time machine is, so they're trying to look into that. Meanwhile, Jack Death goes to investigate the landscaping company who sent trancers to HAPs house, and at first they deny knowing anything. They're like, no, I don't know. I think somebody stole our truck. That must have been them, not us. So we meet this red haired, burly guy with a beard, and then a forklift operator named Ramon who has an awesome outfit. He has like this striped sort of like what do you call the two third length sleeve T shirt with stripes, and it's tucked into his pants with a belt and he's got cool boots. Um. And so I love Ramon and his outfit and I really wanted him to stick around. But alas like most other characters you meet, turns out to be a transfer. Yeah. I'd say. One of the big flaws in these films, uh, and that didn't really take away from me enjoyment is that transfers are not really scary. They look kind of kind of dumb, agreed. But so the transfers attack him. There's a great forklift fight scene where they like pin him to a bunch of two by fours with a forklift, but he uses his long second watch to sort of get around behind them and defeat the transfers. Yeah, gotta work in the use of the gadget. But eventually, after all this, they find out that the transfer, the Evil Transfer Factory, hospital, and the landscaping company I think are actually all run by the same organization, which is Richard Lynch's organization, which is Green World, a sadistic environment, a list transfer cult. And Helen Hunt does online research on her computer. Again this is so I don't know about this, but she's on her computer reading articles to discover that the director of the bad organization, the Green World, is one e d Wardo. And this is where they do the doctor aculum moment where they put everything together. Um. But also she's describing the organization Green World and she's like, they sell organic cookies that kind of thing. Yeah, and yeah. The more we learn about Wardo's operation, it's it's, it's it's. I ended up enjoying this this quite a bit, having a nice cult leader madman situation and that VHS tape that they keep playing where he's like using this to mind warp the thralls, it's it's actually, it's really good. It has this uh this loop to it where he's saying things like you belong in a green world. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and he when he gets interviewed by Barbara Crampton on TV later, it's hilarious because he's saying these things that are just viously evil, but she's like, oh that's nice. He's like, you know, we bring people to our facility and we cleanse them. Yeah. Those those via those scenes with the there are two of them from that interview. Those are some of my think my favorite parts of the film. And I think there's if there any DJs out there and you want some cool cryptic samples to put into your mix, look to this film and look to those scenes where um Wardo is talking of UH to the TV host, because there's there's some fun stuff in there. There's also a getting ready to fight montage not montage, I don't know what you call it. Like the scene in the movie where like the hero suits up. Often they'll like put on their gun belt or something, but in this movie, it's not putting on the gun belt. It's it's Jack Death slicking his hair back. Yeah, that's one of his signature moves. They they they have that in the first film to where the first one of the first things he does when he inhabits his ancestors body is to find a nice uh like tin a palm aide and start greasing back. He's a dapper dan man, he is, so Jack Death. Eventually, a bunch of stuff happens. Jack Teath eventually ends up rescuing his other wife from the future from the Green World facility. Uh. It's kind of funny. He like rescues her while she's on like a gurney and he like just loads the whole thing into his corvette while she's still attached to it um and then he unstraps her later after like they escape from the bad guys. But then there's this hilarious dialogue when they talk things through. It's like, are you who I think you are? Are you who? I think you are? Still well, Alice b And then he goes, welcome to old California, Alice, I'm your husband, Jack Death. Yeah, yeah, ah, it's so stupid as kind of sweet it is. It's again, it's it's such a man boy movie in so many ways, but but it's too dumb and good hearted to really offend. Yeah. Well, A bunch of the middle section of the movie is concerned with basically two subplots. One is the time wives subplot, which is this marriage conflict because Helen Hunt, it seems, is not a fan of the fact that Jack Death now has two wives at the same time. And Jack Death's reaction to the situation, it's just this kind of I don't know, he's kind of furrowing his eyebrows, inexpressibly frustrated and but at the same time kind of passive with this, like what am I supposed to do? Kind of attitude. Um, and his future wife keeps kissing him and he's clearly into it, and Helen Hunt doesn't like this. I think it seems clear that Jack Death would like if he could to marry both women. Yeah, I don't know. I was I was trying to think deep and hard about this, and like maybe it's you know, it's kind of like Jack Death is unstuck in time, you know, like he's you know, it's not so much as like she was my wife and you are my wife now, it's like you were both my wives and different. I don't know, once you start traveling around in time. There's a really great scene. This is one of the funny ones where Helen Hunt is like forced to deliver absolutely absurd dialogue. There's a long one here where she has a scene with Jack Death and she's saying, I've had to handle a lot being married to someone from the future Jack but two wives. And eventually there's also a confrontation between them where Alice from the future is telling Helen Hunt that, you know, basically she needs to step aside. Uh, and she's like, he needs me to defeat Wardo. I'm a transfer Hunter. All you bring to the party is stuff for Jack to worry about. And so eventually Helen Hunt leaves, she's had enough of this time wive's confusion, and as she's about to leave, Alice says to her, I'm sorry, Lena, but you should have known better than to get involved with a man from the future again. No, Helen Hunt is great in these scenes. Yeah, she's believable in these scenes with all this ridiculous dialogue. She I mean she she is a really good actress, and she she sells it in a great way. She does not do a great job I think of convincingly portraying being in love with Jack death, well yeah, maybe not maybe not that, but about everything else, don't know. It's a tall order there. But then okay, So then there's another thing, which is that hap uh. They keep talking about how he's getting back on quote the sauce, and so he he begins drinking again and as a result of drinking, he gets he gets baseball itis. Like he he becomes obsessed with playing baseball, and so he starts like he buys a bunch of liquor for a bunch of homeless guys and starts playing baseball with them, and they have to go find him and retrieve him. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's ridiculous but kind of funny at times. I don't know, hard to decide where I stand on it, but they go for it. So one of the best parts of the movie, as we mentioned, is when when e d Wardo goes on the Sadie Brady Show with Barbara Crampton and it's like this talk show where she's giving these I don't know, well, I so many funny things about it. Number one, they're sitting in rolling office chairs with like you know, the casters on the bottom. Another thing is that Richard, So she asks questions like what do you say to allegations that, you know, Green World is kidnapping people and turning them into mindless zombies. And he's like, many people have had their lives destroyed by pollution. In our detox centers, we cleanse and purify these individuals. We give them a new mission in life so they can help us cleanse and purify the planet. It sounds legit, right, But so that's on TV and at some point Jack Death is watching that at the house and then it cuts away from The Sadie Brady Show to show a trailer for Robot Jocks, except it's a movie called Crash and Burn. Yeah, I believe this is This is a follow up to Robot Jocks that was directed by Charles band Um came out in n so he he It's not just a subtle trailer it's like a straight up here's the trailer. I think we we mentioned this one in passing when we talked about Robot Jocks, because this is the sequel that has Bill Moseley in it. Oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I think from here on out, I think maybe our our summary should become a little more cursory, because so as not to spoil everything. But they they realize, of course, that Richard Lynch is growing drugs from the future in his greenhouse, and these drugs are called scrub sight. I don't know how you spell scurb. I tried s K E R B. What do you think sounds good to me? These are the drugs he uses to make his transfer army. And eventually Helen Hunt, of course, is kidnapped by Richard Lynch and taken to green World for let's say, in the parlance of Halloween three final processing, and they have to stay to rescue mission. Everybody gets there to bust out Helen Hunt. Oh, and they also end up escaping with Rabbit, who takes their side, but who is tragically killed in the getaway. And when Rabbit died, I think I cried out. I was like, no, you can't do that to Rabbit. I mean, at one level, we know he's going to be back in the Full Moon universe. But I also like to think that that in the future they will realize that Rabbit made the ultimate sacrifice to save them, and so Rabbit will There'll be just massive statues of Rabbit smiling maniacally. Yeah, but this is all leading to the final battle of course, the final showdown. Right. They end up in the barn that is housing the time machine that can send the physical body back to the future because because Alice from the Future knew where that was. There's a big shootout final scene there. There's in a kind of fun way. I don't think this final battle is all that great, except that low Tech saves the day. Like they end up sort of defeating the transfers with like a tractor and a pitchfork and things like that. Yeah, for for a final battle between time cops and a zombie thrall creating psychic Mastermind and his guns. It's it's pretty straightforward. But then there's sort of time travel to the rescue at the end. They use the Da s X Machina of time travel. Actually, you know what, to be fair, it's not a day six Marchina, because it's set up by the rest of the film. It's not like out of nowhere. They use the mechanics of time travel to resolve the character tension, because what's it going to be? You know, Jack Death has has two wives, and he kind of wants to be married to both wives. But ultimately he decides, no, I'm only going to stay married to Helen Hunt, to my wife from the from the past, and I'm going to stay here in the past and Alice his wife in the future. She's going to instead of serum ng back into her original body in the future and then getting murdered, she's going to travel into the future in the TCL chamber in her body so that she can't be murdered, uh, in the way that she originally would have been. Though that would seem to create a paradox because if she something in this film creates a paradox because if she travels back to the future in that body, how can that body become her ancestor? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yes, yes, this is the Transferors franchise. I think is very much a paradox free time travel system where again you have it's gonna be fine and it's all going to work out. I don't think too hard about In fact, I think I think he even says something to that effect. At one point. He's like, it'll work out fine. Somebody has a question about time traveling, is like, it's fine, it works. It works. If you're wondering how they eat and breathe and other science facts, you know, it's it's transfers. Just relax, all right, Well that's transfers to. I myself look forward to watching Transfers three. Who knows what'll it'll it'll consist of. I think we're gonna go deep into the transfer sequels and you know what, if they're worthy of discussion, we will discuss them. Yeah. Otherwise maybe I'll mention it in passing. I don't know. We'll see um. Now, you might be wondering where can I see transfers and transfers to? For myself, well, I will say that the full Moon Features channel is a great hook up in this department. You can subscribe to this on iPhone, Apple, TV, Android, Roku, Xbox One, all the things. Plus it's also a channel on Prime. That's how I ended up watching it. Uh, full Moon is not a sponsor. I want to be clear on that, just telling you how you can potentially watch the movie. Um. Transfers too is also highly available for digital renter purchase as well as on Blu ray and Joe, Where did you watch this? Uh? This gym of the film? Oh? I watched this on to be all right, so you can go to be and watch it as well. At one point, Full Moon put out Transfers the Ultimate Death Collection, which was a five disc set that did not include Transfer six because I guess it wasn't out yet. But one thing, say what you will about Full Moon. They get the product out there, they make it available. Uh, they're even like remastering stuff. I noticed. So um, Full Moon fans are in luck. Okay, if they want me on the hook for Transfer seven, I'm gonna need some of the cast of Transfers to return. I think Helen Hunt should come back, you know why not? I mean, yeah, she didn't need to come back at this point, But what if they if they got a good enough screenplay together, which could happen you know, yeah, it could work. She could even be the main transfer. We don't I mean, I don't know what happens to her character. Again, I haven't seen three yet or the subsequent films. But with time travel, anything is possible. You know, whatever you need in the Transfers Universe verse can be provided by the multiple paradox free time travel systems in place. What if one of her descendants becomes a villain in the future and then has to has to see them back into her body to be a villain in the past. Sure, let's do it. Think that's that's my pitch. If that wasn't already Transfers for death and taxes? Yes, all right, obviously, we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Did uh? You know? Have you seen the Transfers films? Did you watch the first any? I would love to hear from someone who saw Transfers one in the theater? What was that like? Do you remember seeing these these films in your your video rental store? What? What are some death related titles you can imagine for sequels and TV sitcom spinoffs? Uh, we'd love for you to share all of that with us. Uh. In the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes of Weird House Cinema, you will find it every Friday in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed Friday is the day when we we you know, we enjoy weird movies and we we we geek out on them excessively. The rest of the time we're science podcasts, our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind on Tuesday and Thursday. We have a short form artifact episode on Wednesdays and Monday. That's a listener mail where we talk about things you've written in to us about regarding all the shows, huge things as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 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