Nick Miller (Matthew Bruch) is a physics teacher at the local college, an amateur pilot and wanna be inventor. Using a Commodore computer and some floppy disks, Nick has managed to create a time machine using a prop plane. He calls it a transport. Realizing that people will think he is crazy, Nick contacts the new technology department of a company called Gen-Corp Aviation and makes arrangements to meet Matthew Paul (Peter Harrington). He tells Gen-Corp that he has a new fuel intake system for small engine planes that he wants to show them. He also contacts the local newspaper, the Banner, who sends reporter Lisa Henson (Bonnie Pritchard). He tells the paper that he has a news story for them about a skydiving grandmother. Lisa happens to be an old friend that Nick used to go to school with.
Nick takes Matthew and Lisa up in his plane and transports them all to the year 2041. When they return, Matthew contacts the CEO of Gen-Corp, J.K. Robertson (George Woodard). Robertson is interested in the project and agrees to provide funding. As Gen-Corp starts to take over the project, Nick and Lisa begin dating. They take a trip to the 50’s to have lunch at the Blue Line Diner. They then take a trip back to 2041. In 2041 they find it different than the first time they traveled there. The world has been laid waste in an apocalypse resulting in micro factions that kill for water, guns and anything they can get. Nick and Lisa get captured by one faction and are helped to escape by another.
Nick now realizes that Robertson used the time travel technology to enhance his own power and wealth resulting in a dystopian future. Nick decides that he must try to fix the future by going back into the past to stop Robertson from bringing about Armageddon.
“Time Chasers” AKA “Tangents” was released in 1994 and was written and directed by David Giancola. It is an American science fiction fantasy film and is a sort of home grown “B” movie. The film didn’t do all that well until it was lampooned by the guys at MST3K. It has since reached cult status. The movie was the first full length film created by director Giancola and was shot in his backyard, so to speak. In 1994 it won the first-place Gold Award at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival in the independent category.
David Giancola was born in Rutland, Vermont. His studio, “Edgewood Studios” is still at the Howe Center in Rutland. The movie was filmed in Vermont in 1990, some of it in Burlington and Bennington. The film cost approximately $150,000 to make. Giancola was somewhere around 20 when the movie was made. The T-shirt that character Nick Miller wears represents Castleton University. I believe you can buy them on Amazon, TeePublic, and various other places. Most of the actors were from Rutland and surrounding areas. The actor who plays the newspaper editor was Ilene Blackman. She was from Ira, Vermont and lived a couple miles from me.
The film is a product of its time. There is some camp and silliness here, but the story is good, and it is a lot of fun to watch. It has the usual problems that home grown independent filmmakers are plagued with. It has plenty of bad acting, limited special effects and 80’s style plot devises, but it also has a strange compulsion to want to watch it, and enjoy it. Hence the cult status.
The battle scenes depicting the Revolutionary War were reenactments of the Battle of Hubbardton. The actual battle took place in Hubbardton, Vermont on July 7, 1777. It was the only battle of the American Revolution that was fought in Vermont.