DREAMSCAPE (1984)

DREAMSCAPE (1984)

Tagline: Enter a world beyond your wildest imagination where anything can happen.

(Action, Adventure, Psychological Thriller) [PG-13]

Note – This was only the 2nd movie ever to have the distinction of a PG-13 rating. The first was RED DAWN which came out just weeks earlier. 

Look, I’m going to level with you I am doing this because no one has ever done this before. No one has even conceived of doing this…

In this one, a government agent wants to use a man named Alex Gardner (who has psychic abilities that haven't all been tapped into) to go into the President’s dreams to cure him of reoccurring nightmares. Over time Alex discovers he isn’t the only one with this sort of power and they are using it to kill people in real life. Can Alex stop the madness, and face the terrors and adventure of the dreamscape?

First off if you read that description and think that Christopher Nolan probably got his idea for INCEPTION from this movie. Then you are not the only one, that was my first thought as well. This flick also does a great job with character development while still offering glimpses into some people’s dream lives. I think the variety of things going on in the dreams in this movie make some people mischaracterize the movie as disjointed, but in real dreams, we all sometimes get a smorgasbord of hodgepodge nonsense, and this film does a great job of displaying that. 

Acting-wise, I think I have said this before but Dennis Quaid in the ’80s was kind of like a “Rent A Harrison”, as in Harrison Ford. I honestly think he could have pulled off any of the INDIANA JONES films. Unfortunately in most of his movies in the 80’s he ended up kind of just being the guy you got because Harrison Ford was doing something else. It doesn’t mean he isn’t really a great actor in his own right, he is. For me, this one was by far Dennis Quaid’s best role. He ends up having a bit of a crush on Jane DeVries played by Kate Capshaw best known for INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. So that also kind of plays into the whole “Rent A Harrison” thing I was just mentioning. Capshaw is great in this and gets a pretty serious role that plays to her strengths as an actress. She was what I call "lightning in a bottle talent" in regards to acting. Over half of her 29 films were in the ’80s. Compare that with someone like Michael Douglas who is best known for his movies in the ’80s and 90’s, but that only made up for 17 of his 67 acting credits and counting. On top of those performances in this, we also get a great effort from Max von Sydow, who is best known for FLASH GORDON. 

The effects in this film are hit and miss. In some scenes, I can see what they were going for with the lighting, but it does look amateurish as a result. It comes across like someone was messing around with filters but didn’t quite know what they were doing. In other scenes, the effects are at least serviceable given the era. The soundtrack is pretty rough but I think the score works. 

For me, this thing is mostly a psychological thriller and adventure rather than a straight-up horror movie. It does have horror elements especially towards the end, but I think the adventure and thriller genres fit this movie better as a whole. In many regards, this is a pretty good film, but not a great one. Over time the novelty of the concept kind of wears off and the final act is over almost too quickly. 

Overall I did like the originality so this one lands at a 5 out of 7. A few tweaks here and there could have made this one for the ages, instead, we got a cult classic in very few circles at best, which in and of itself isn’t terrible.
 

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