Dreamscape (1984)

Psychic Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) is recruited for a government-funded institute. In it psychics are able to get into peoples' dreams and interact with them. However one subject dies while in this state and Alex realizes something is wrong. And the President (Eddie Albert) is going to visit the institute for some nightmares he is having...

I enjoyed watching this but realized, after it was over, that it didn't make a whole lot of sense and there were plot holes left and right. Still, it moves quickly and the dream sequences themselves were lots of fun. This was also the second PG-13 rating ever released. It was cut to get that (a sex scene between Quaid and Kate Capshaw was almost completely dropped) but there were some complaints about the amount of violence (none of which was cut) that was allowed in. By today's standards though it's not that bad.

Quaid is good--he's young, handsome and not taking any of this seriously. Max von Sydow is very good as the head doctor of the research. Kate Capshaw is pretty terrible as his assistant. Christopher Plummer seems to be proving he can say his lines without moving a muscle in his face. Albert is lots of fun as the President and David Patrick Kelly almost runs away with the movie as Tommy Ray Glatin.

So a quick, fun little movie. Just don't think about it too much.

Fmovies: I saw this during the eighties when it originally came out and thought it was terrific and scary. However, this movie does not hold up at all. It's not just the technological advancements in special effects that makes this movie so dated, after all movies like "The Thing" and "The Exorcist" came out before this. A scary movie is scary no matter when it came out.

This movie is just silly. The president's fear of nuclear war is treated so brazenly that it doesn't hold up now that the Day After decade is over. The story is so brisk in the extreme nothing is giving time to develop. Only the ideas are presented and not explored. Quaid and Sydow are good but even they can't save this movie. The dialog is very stilted at parts. Christopher Plummer is just silly, not menacing. Tommy Ray isn't scary any more. The snake man looks so rubbery and stupid that I can't believe I was ever scared of it in the first place. They did a terrible job with it. The transformation effects are now laughable. They didn't have to be. Kate Capshaw is awful (she always was; maybe that's one of the reasons you don't see her in much anymore now that she is married to Spielberg).

This is just not that strong a movie and time has not been kind to it. I thought it was great when I was 10 but it just isn't scary or fun. Awful music by Maurice Jarre. Not because it is an electronic eighties keyboard soundtrack like Jerry Goldsmith's Runaway. No this is just bad and it sounds bad on this DVD. No themes develop and even the chase music is boring. Very weak. Similar genre movies from the eighties that hold up and you might want to check out instead: Twilight Zone the Movie, Gremlins, Poltergeist, Brainstorm, Fright Night.

DVD-This DVD is also not very good either. The picture quality is very crisp most of the time. There is some wavering in some scenes. The special effects unfortunately don't benefit from all that detail in picture quality. The worst part is the sound. It comes in DTS and Dolby Digital. It is hardly 5.1 like the box advertises. Occasionally you get some weak directional effects. But for I would say 80% of the movie everything is in the center speaker.

The best thing about this DVD is the menus. They were a pleasant surprise. The movie and this DVD were not.

The idea is fantastic. Can you imagine being able to get into other people's dreams, watch them, interact with them. The problem is, the plot is inconclusive and becomes kind of a TV movie along the way. It would make a fantastic remake with a stronger cast and director. However, movies about dreaming are always scary because they touch on something so close and yet inexplicable to all of us. I saw recently a short movie from Italy entitled "Xchange" which is the closest to this one in terms of innovation insofar as the subject is concerned. Not an easy area to tell a long story about. Dreams are often used as omens or hints of psychological discomfort in movies. Instead, it would be great if they could be regarded as something different: a world of their own, a parallel state of mind no less real than real life itself. Someone should redo Dreamscape!

Dreamscape fmovies. There's a fair amount of 80s style imagination and panache to be found in this nifty combination of sci-fi, thriller, and political intrigue. It's got a hell of a good cast and a more than capable director, Joseph Ruben, who'd started out in exploitation films and later turned out the solid sleeper "The Stepfather" as well as mainstream fare such as "Sleeping with the Enemy". Its premise may be too close to "A Nightmare on Elm Street" in some ways, but at least the political element helps it to stand apart.

Dennis Quaid, at the peak of his charisma, plays Alex Gardner, a psychically gifted young man who would rather use his gifts for self- gain but reluctantly agrees to help old pal Paul Novotny (ever delightful Max von Sydow) who's developed a revolutionary dream therapy program. It seems that now people like Alex can be inserted into the nightmares of others, and help them to deal with them. However, there's a smooth but cold government man (a chilling Christopher Plummer) who has sinister motives for supporting this program.

Wonderful visual design is just one of the hooks of this story; the nightmares each get their own "dream tunnel", for one thing, and for another, the bleak post-apocalyptic landscape of which the President (Eddie Albert) dreams and the skewed images experienced by young Buddy (Cory "Bumper" Yothers) are very well realized. The special effects are eye popping, and things do get pretty grim and gory (a heart is ripped out of a chest). One of the highlights of the movie is the nefarious Snakeman, a monster brought to life through a combination of stop motion and an actor (Larry Cedar) in a costume. The music is cheesy electronic stuff, which is kind of surprising considering that the composer is the great Maurice Jarre. There's some witty dialogue, and a steamy subplot involving Alex and the young Dr. Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw, who's lovely but sporting some real 80s hair here).

The cast couldn't be better; also appearing are the eternally amusing David Patrick Kelly as weaselly little psychopath Tommy Ray, George Wendt as a horror novelist who snoops around, and character actors such as Redmond Gleeson, Peter Jason, Chris Mulkey, Madison Mason, and Brian Libby. Also, Ruben keeps the pacing consistent and the big showdown between Alex and Tommy Ray is a set piece worth waiting for.

With all of this going for it, "Dreamscape" is a totally engrossing diversion that may be very much of its time but still does a good job of entertaining the viewer.

Eight out of 10.

"Dreamscape" does require a little more suspension of disbelief that most entries in the sci-fi genre, but adds up to well-paced, generally enjoyable, occasionally exciting film. Effects are somewhat dated today, but Quaid's charming, confident performance makes up for that. Definitely a minor picture, but still unjustly neglected.

For 1984, this is a good sci-fi movie. I remember watching its as a kid. I was scared for days of the Snake Man in the movie. Having watched it recently, I noticed that it had naturally lost the terror that it instilled when I was a child. Despite this, it brought back foggy memories and allowed me to analyze and enjoy the film on an adult level.

The story concerns a project that allows telepaths to enter into the dreams of others. Inside these dreams they are able to help/harm the individuals from/with their nightmares. Dennis Quaid plays a young Alex Gardner who possesses the gift of telepathy. Under the study of Max Von Sydow and Kate Capshaw (forgot how attractive she was), Alex enter patient's dreams and tries to help them. But with this ability, there are others that would use it as a weapon. When the President (Eddie Albert) begins having haunting nightmares, can someone help him escape his dreams before its too late?

Dreamscape delivers some of the eighties creativity and originality that we can only hope for in today's movies. Take out the gore and grotesqueness of "The Cell" and you could say this movie was its inspiration.