By Matt Harries
It’s 1984. During that year of Orwellian portent Hollywood warns us of the great danger that lurks in our sleeping minds. Our cosy dream-reality can in fact be usurped by others. Others who are seemingly omnipotent in their murderous intent. Others who may attack with razor sharp claws that spring from their hands. This can happen despite the close attendance of experts in the field of dream research, monitoring your vital signs while your eyelids flicker and you toss and turn. Shockingly, the actions of these dream killers do not merely leave us screaming, sweat-soaked but awake, terrified in our beds. Dream death means real-life death, the murderer free to return to their own body in the waking world.
Sound familiar? What if I told you this movie acted as an early springboard to the career of a popular leading man? Or that one of the stars was a big-screen veteran who produced arguably his most famous role in 1973? Well I suppose you’d be forgiven for thinking I was referring to Wes Craven’s seminal and hugely successful A Nightmare On Elm Street, which saw a young Johnny Depp begin his rise to prominence, and John Saxon (star of Bruce Lee classic Enter The Dragon) play a supporting role. Swap Depp for Dennis Quaid and Saxon for Max Von Sydow of Exorcist fame and everything else is as stated above. An uncanny number of similarities I’d say…
The most obvious similarities though are plot based. Apparently Craven’s script for A Nightmare On Elm Street had been rattling around Hollywood for a few years prior to its release in November 1984, a few months after Dreamscape. What chance that someone heard of this dream manipulation plot, and decided to try and trump the makers of Elm Street? Who knows, but one area where the films differ considerably is with the budget – Dreamscape’s $6 million considerably dwarfing Elm Street’s $1.8 million. Sadly for Dreamscape’s makers the film went on to make roughly half of what Elm Street did in the box office. Perhaps that goes some way to explaining why I, 30 years later, had never heard of the film until the opportunity to review it came along?
For all the similarities between the two films, and the relative disparity in future success, Dreamscape remains an entertaining, if rather uneven affair. It all begins with venerable Von Sydow lending a much needed air of gravitas as Dr.Paul Novotny, tracking down former test subject Alex (Quaid), a one-time psychic prodigy who grew tired of life as a lab rat and who now subsists by using his powers to cheat at the races. Novotny wishes to rekindle his relationship with the wayward Alex in order to further his government-funded research into dream manipulation, or ‘dream-linking’. He hopes that by placing a psychic within the dreams of a willing patient there may be an opportunity to heal the patient of sleep disorders – or as in the case of one young boy, recurring nightmares. His scientific zeal is carefully monitored by the hawk-like Bob Blair (Christopher Plummer), who represents the gub-ment and its altogether more unseemly interests.
Alex soon develops a romantic interest in Dr.Novotny’s smouldering assistant Jane (Kate Capshaw), and through her begins to show an interest in helping troubled Buddy (he of the recurring nightmares). Egged on by Jane and threatened with the IRS by Dr. Novotny, Alex enters Buddy’s dreams despite the last psychic to do so being literally wheeled off by the men in white coats. It is here, in the sleeping mind of this young boy, that Alex meets the terrifying ‘Snake-Man’, a fairly ludicrous looking specimen who in essence comprises the body of a man with a long neck and cobra head. Can Alex help Buddy overcome his dream nemesis, and therefore prove the potential of dream-linking as a force for good – or evil?
One of the problems with Dreamscape is the way it tries to shoehorn different plots together into a cohesive whole. Other than the dream-linking, we have a political/cold-war thriller angle; some fairly dismal light romance between Quaid and Capshaw; as well as a haphazard blend of comedy and action, science and fantasy that leaves us with a veritable treasure trove of cinematic tropes, including monsters, martial arts, chases, fights and quasi-magical goings on. While this melting pot approach does make for a confusing journey it is also a part of the film’s charms. There is a childlike abandon to the way so many elements are thrown together. I can imagine that if I watched this as a youngster I would probably have loved it.
Alas, the days of my youth are long gone. So, watching Dreamscape for the first time as a veritable ancient, weighed down with the cynicism of adulthood and with years of great cinema behind me, it is hard not to notice a few faults. The romantic moments are a little cringe-worthy. The special effects are a bit of a mixed bag, and there is a little too much going on plot-wise for it to make a great deal of sense. But if you can step back into a more innocent time (I find alcohol helps), and you fancy a few laughs (intentional or otherwise), you could do far worse than watch Dreamscape.