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Exclusive: Trancers (1984) location Then & Now

Added 2024-06-07 01:40:18 +0000 UTC

Things are still going a little slowly here as arrangements after Grannyfractic's passing persist, not least house clearance 😩 Unfortunately on top of it all Babyfractic was under the weather plus going through quite severe teething. I never realised just how bad that could be on the baby (and the parents lol)!

I have a really fun project to share with you next week but in the meantime, I made "a video that's not a video"...

Trancers

One of my favourite 80s movies is Trancers. It stars a young Helen Hunt, some very questionable acting, and one of the best synth opening titles I've heard; quintessential 80s sci-fi stuff. In fact the theme tune is 10 times better than the movie, but still it's a lot of fun in that cheesy B-movie way. The sequel was actually good too! (The other 4½ sequels not so much).

Jack Deth is a Trancer (a sort of zombie) hunter in the distant future, sent back to Los Angeles of 1984 to protect some ancestors of the Council of the future, so they don't vanish in their time Marty McFly style.

In the movie Jack has a "long second watch" that can slow down time for... you guessed it, one second.

There's a scene where this is used, and I've always been fascinated by the classic 80s tanning shop location here in LA. I set about hunting it down:

In the movie it's set on Cahuenga Blvd (which Jack can't pronounce) but it isn't actually there, and in reality nobody seemed to know where it was. However, it was identifiable mainly by this church spire:

There's a lot of these in LA. Here it is again as Jack makes his getaway after slowing down time, as you do:

Even the street is fairly nondescript when briefly shown. Wait is that even Helen Hunt?:

I ended up asking around on a number of general Los Angeles forums, and after months, finally someone gave a credible lead:

"It looks like The Kabbalah Center at 1062 S Robertson Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035"

And sure enough, there it was!

I was in the area so decided to swing by. Sadly the tanning shop has long since been replaced by office buildings. It would've been on the far left of this photo I took, but you can see the church spire:

As I like to do, here's a Then & Now comparison:

But I wanted to get round the back of the offices, as it's the car park behind the tanning shop where time was slowed down (note Jack Deth carrying Helen Hunt past the baddies shooting at them):

Unfortunately access to the lot was locked, but I did find a mysterious door:

Luckily as I wasn't with family I had my smartphone on me, so ChatGPT to the rescue!:
I punched in 5312 and...

I was in! It was cool to think this was the exact location of the tanning shop and the escapades that went down inside it (I won't spoil it for you). And so I snuck through the door at the back, and...

"Bullet" Time before The Matrix (the pictured bullet is travelling very slowly): Wheeee!So there it is! Often I like to say a location is "largely unchanged" but on this occasion it was "largely changed", and yet even though I'd time traveled here from 1984 to 2024 just like Jack Deth, I was still thrown into a bit of a Trance by the feeling of tracking down a favourite 80s B-movie location.