Dreamscape: A 40 Year Retrospective

 

Dreamscape: A 40 Year Retrospective

1984

Director- Joseph Ruben

Cast- Dennis Quaid, Max Von Sydow, Kate Capshaw, Christopher Plummer, David Patrick Kelley, George Wendt, Eddie Albert, Peter Jason

            Alex (Dennis Quaid) is a psychic who squanders his gifts leading an irresponsible lifestyle, supporting himself by gambling on horse races. He gets recruited into a secret, government funded project to enter people’s dreams. The project is ran by Max Von Sydow (Flash Gordon, Needful Things, The Seventh Seal), a pure scientist only interested in the exploratory possibilities. Behind him is a shadowy government figure (Christopher Plummer) who wants to use the program for spying and assassination.

The President of the United States is plagued by dreams of nuclear annihilation and is brought to the dream program for help with his nightmares. Alex is aided by a scientist (Kate Capshaw) and opposed by another psychic, Tommy Ray (David Patrick Kelly), a sociopath who is training to be a dream assassin.

Dreamscape was a highly original movie for its time with an all-star cast. But four decades later, how well has it aged? Does it still hold up and what is its place in film history?

Dreamscape was one of the first movies to be released with the PG-13 rating (right after Red Dawn, which was the first). Actually, it feels very much like the dark fantasy films that Disney was making in the late 70s and early 80s, films that would scare the crap out of you but didn’t have sex or too much violence. There's no nudity and minimal violence, so I think the PG-13 rating must have come from the disturbing imagery, which one might expect from a movie that takes place in dreams.

The special effects are all practical and still look pretty good, especially the Snakeman, a cobra headed monster that haunts a child’s nightmares. The dream world is a combination of post-apocalyptic landscapes and German Expressionism architecture.

The thing that really holds up are the performances. Max Von Sydow  was charismatic in any part and Christopher Plummer always played great Bond level villains. David Patrick Kelley, though, steals the show as the sociopathic Tommy Ray. David made a career of playing memorable villains. He’s probably best known as the gang member Luther, from The Warriors. Slightly younger fans might remember him as T-Bird in The Crow. Both of those villains, however, were chaotic. Tommy Ray is calculating and ice cold.

Given the fertile material that the dreamworld offers, its surprising that more films haven’t dipped into the premise of Dreamscape. Probably the best-known examples of similar movies are the supremely disturbing The Cell (2000), the Japanese anime Paprika (2006) and the Christopher Nolan thriller Inception (2010). Compared to those, Dreamscape blends some of the disturbing imagery of a horror film with science fiction concepts but also introduces elements of a political thriller via a plot to kill the President.

Something that sticks out to me after a recent viewing is how unlike an 80s movie it seems. The 80s fashions are toned down and there is no 80s music. This prevents the movie from feeling quaint and dated like a lot of other movies from the era.

Dreamscape won’t leave you scratching your head like Inception and it certainly won’t leave you needing therapy like The Cell. It walks a a middle ground, a little bit scary, a little bit thrilling, but still entertaining, even after 40 years. And though it was PG-13 by mid 80s standards, it has no nudity and minimal profanity or gore, so it’s a good film if you’re trying to put together a Halloween playlist suitable for younger viewers.