Dr. Carrington (Jeffrey Combs) is working on a secret project called the Kronos Project for the extremely wealthy and entitled Mr. Rudd (James Michael Taylor). Carrington is trying to create a sort of time machine. Carrington needs help so Rudd has a couple of his minions pretend to kidnap Dr. Irina Cho (Veronica Culver). She is saved by two of Rudd’s other employees, Van (Rocky Patterson) and Casey (Dorenda Moore). Unaware that Rudd is behind the attempt, the kidnapping convinces Irina to work for Rudd. Van is a little suspicious of the kidnapping, so Ginger suggests that they ask her friend, Tom Donlevy (Tyler Mason), an investigative reporter, if he knows anything.
Tom, who works for Rudd’s television company, is out in the desert making a documentary with scientist Julia Duffy (Barri Murphy). Julia finds what she believes is a human-like dinosaur fossil and a T-Rex tooth together in the same stratum. Julia believes that the dino-man was eaten by the T-Rex. The find, however, is on land owned by Rudd. Rudd, with his head minion Biff (Mark Nutter), has been manipulating everyone. He arranges the death of Professor Krakov, the owner of an item known as the Krakov crystal, a radio beam splitting prism that is needed for the time machine. With the crystal and Dr. Cho’s help, Carrington is now able to complete his work on the time machine.
Rudd assembles a large expedition to go back in time, with him as the team leader. Included in the party are Van, Julia, Tom, Casey, Biff and a few others. Using a letter written during the civil war as an icon, Tom goes back in time to when the letter was written and winds up in the middle of the war. Once they confirm that everything is working correctly, the team is then sent to the Jurassic period to find the dino-man. Soon the expedition is attacked by a large T-Rex. Many of the people in the expedition are killed. Biff, who did most or Rudd’s wet work, realizes that he was manipulated by Rudd as well, so he tells the others that Rudd was responsible for all the events that happened to them and of the murder of Professor Kralov.
While they are in the past, something happens that causes a ripple in space time and alters the future.
“Time Tracers” AKA “Time Trap” was released in 1997 and was directed by Bret McCormick. It is an American low-budget science fiction movie.
The movie incorporates the monster head from “Repligator” 1996, which McCormick also directed, the train crash footage from “Horror Express” 1972 and the dinosaur encounters from “Planet of Dinosaurs” 1978. The costumes in the movie were modeled after the ones from “Planet of Dinosaurs”, right down to the guy with no shirt on. That way they can blend in the movie’s dinosaur activity with the ones from the stock footage. I’ve seen the same footage in other dinosaur films. It seems that “Planet of Dinosaurs” is turning into the dino stock footage of the color age. It still has a way to go to beat “One Million B.C.” 1940. It wouldn’t surprise me if footage from other movies was used in the film as well.
The whole first part of the movie is confusing with lots of characters being introduced as well as a lot of cloak and dagger stuff and some car chases tossed in. There are a lot of quick cuts that add some confusion as well. Once you finally figure out what is going on you are sent back in time, which is where all the dinosaur stock footage is inserted.