Trancers

Trancers (also released as Future Cop) is a 1984 American science fiction action film directed by Charles Band and starring Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, and Art LaFleur. It is the first film in the Trancers series. Thomerson plays Jack Deth, a Philip Marlowe-esque police detective from the 23rd century who travels to the 1980s to bring his old nemesis to justice. The film portrays a unique method of time travel: people can travel back in time by injecting themselves with a drug that allows them to take over the body of an ancestor. Plot Jack Deth is a retired police trooper in the 23rd century who has been called back into service to assist in hunting down Martin Whistler, a criminal mastermind who uses psychic powers to turn people into mindless "Trancers" and carry out his orders. Deth can identify a tranced individual by scanning them with a special bracelet. All trancers appear as normal humans at first, but once triggered, they become savage killers with twisted features. Before he can be caught, Whistler escapes back in time using a drug-induced time-traveling technique. Whistler's consciousness travels down his ancestral bloodline, arrives in 1985, and takes over the body of a Los Angeles police detective named Weisling. Once Deth discovers what Whistler has done, he destroys Whistler's body—effectively leaving him trapped in the past with no vessel to return to—and chases after him through time the same way. Deth ends up in the body of one of his ancestors: a journalist named Phil Dethton. With the help of Phil's date from the night before—a punk rock girl named Lena—Deth goes after Whistler, who has begun to "trance" other victims. Whistler plots to eliminate the future governing council members of Angel City (the future name of Los Angeles), who are being systematically wiped out of existence by Whistler's murder spree of their ancestors. Deth arrives too late to prevent most of the murders and can only safeguard Hap Ashby, a washed-up former pro baseball player, who is the ancestor of the last surviving council member, Chairman Ashe.