Karen Braden just got out of a mental hospital. Now, her father and sister, Isa, have taken her to a secret government facility in Idaho where they're working on matter transference. However, they've learned how to travel through time instead, which has taught them a sad fact: an ecological event will soon wipe out civilization.Only those twenty and younger can handle time travel, due to the damage it does to the kidneys. The scientists start sending teenagers fifty-six years ahead to rebuild the human race. It turns out that the project was secret and once discovered, the government turns off the machines, trapping everyone in the future, where they are killed when one of them, Leslie, goes nuts. Oh yeah — and everyone is now sterile, despite Karen's assertions that she is pregnant.No one even cares that they are about to die. One of the teens, Ronald says: "I don't think you have to leave anything behind. Just have a beautiful time like all the other junk litter in the universe, then say goodbye. I don't know what else to tell you. Perpetuation and all the crap that goes with it is a big hoax anyway."The last survivor, Karen, tries to change the settings on the machine and go back to prevent everything. But she screws up and goes too far forward. A futuristic car pulls up and a man takes her, placing her in the trunk to be used as fuel. A future girl asks her family what will happen when they run out of fuel and will they have to stop driving cars? The film ends with the words "Esto Perpetua," meaning "It is forever."Other than Keith Carradine, the cast is filled with unknowns. Peter Fonda produced and directed it, but eventually, he let the film disappear into the public domain. I discovered it on a Mill Creek Entertainment 50 pack and it's…weird.It's the only movie I've ever seen where an 8 track player is a time machine and you need to get into your underwear (or nude) and have someone sit behind you to activate it. That seems like some kind of weird pick-up trick, but somehow it works. Except the future is incredibly shitty and you'll be turned to gasoline. So there's that.This seems like the coming down of 60's hope, the understanding that the world would soon end. But then, the 80's would arrive and everyone would start caring about only one thing: themselves. Perhaps the dead world of Idaho Transfer is preferable to selling out and becoming a lie.Read more at http://bit.ly/2Ar9Cyz

The words are Karen's (Kelly Bohanon), but the sentiment is completely mine. Seriously, I'm at a loss as to what this picture was all about. I mean, I know it was a time travel story using that rather ordinary looking launch pad with a compartment for your boots and heavy outer garments, but come on. What really intrigues me are the reviewers for this film that have injected some meaning into the story that I couldn't possibly have come up with in a hundred years. Having Peter Fonda's name attached to this probably explains a lot, as does the British title this flick was released under - "Deranged". My thought exactly.

You can discuss cerebral this and creative that until the cows come home, but in the end, "Idaho Transfer" must be regarded as pure crap. I hate to seem like "Captain Obvious", but this is nothing more than hippies wandering around in the desert, talking nonsense. The word tedious immediately comes to mind. There is zero character development, and there is never a hint of explanation for the time travel device. Beyond that there are extended scenes, like improving your rock skipping technique, that are criminally boring. Sure it's low budget, but so are lots of other films, so that is no excuse for this terminally comatose minimalist nonsense. Recommended, for sleep inducement. - MERK

Peter Fonda's second directorial effort following the excellent feminist Western "The Hired Hand" makes for an extremely atypical and hence compelling post-holocaust sci-fi survivalist message movie related in the form of a subtle, very serious and pertinent ecological parable concerning mankind's selfish, self-destructive nature and careless depletion of natural resources at the expense of our planet's well being. Twelve young scientists (a gawky, scrawny, long stringy-haired then unknown Keith Carradine among 'em) travel to the future to the year 2044 in order to avoid an impending apocalypse and start civilization afresh. The group hike across the dry, arid, desolate rocky terrain, bicker amongst themselves, discover a tribe of retarded third generation post-nuke survivors, and gradually go crazy, eventually degenerating into total murderous barbarism.Although marred by an awkward opening third, wildly erratic acting from a largely amateur no-name cast, occasionally tiresome and over-deliberate draggy pacing, and a few pretentious moments, this still oddly haunting, engrossing and quietly unsettling low-budget curio intelligently makes an important statement about the possible grim destiny of our increasingly callous and environmentally wasteful society. Peter Fonda's spare, low-key, suitably grave and understated direction ably creates a chilling mood of stark despair and horror, while Bruce Logan's pretty, picturesque cinematography offers a dazzling array of lovely, sun-blasted visuals, Thomas Matthiesen's terse, thoughtful, quite novel and idiosyncratic script presents a cogent dire warning future shock scenario with stunning clarity and concision, and Bruce Langhorne's eerie score mines a fine line in spooky'n'shuddery atonal rhythms. Not a complete success, but a nice, admirable, appealingly sincere and well-meaning addition to post-holocaust science fiction cinema just the same.