The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2018: Dreamscape (1984), directed by Joseph Ruben

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Saw You in a Dream", by The Japanese House

     Much like sex, death and poop, dreams are a major part of the human experience. From the olden days when they were treated as portents and divine visions, to the days of Freud and Jung when they were symbol laden allegories to our subconscious wants and desires, to our modern day where they’re just kinda meaningless and sometimes you share them on social media. Still, meaningless though they may be, dreams have had a substantial impact in almost every aspect of human expression. From Shakespeare to Breton, Lovecraft to Varese, there is a seemingly endless amount of artistic inspiration to be found within dreams. Of course this is a film blog, so we’re going to be focusing on that.

     As a visual, progressive artistic medium, film has been better than most at capturing the ephemeral qualities of dreams and dream imagery. The German Expressionists used painted backgrounds and off-kilter geometry to induce a feeling of surreality in their audience. Filmmakers like Jodorowsky and Lynch steeped their films in symbols and dissociative narratives, who grander meaning would only be revealed after rigorous analysis (or maybe not). Wes Craven was able to build a famous horror franchise based on dreams with A Nightmare on Elm Street, Christopher Nolan was able to make a popular meme movie based on dreams with Inception, and so on. The movie we’re talking about today is also about dreams funnily enough, it even has the word ‘dream’ in the title, and as we all know the titles of movies are 100% accurate descriptors of the film’s subject matter. So let’s escape with Dreamscape.

     It’s the swingin’ 80s and Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) is a young, semi-attractive stud who just so happens to have psychic powers. Typically Alex only uses his gift for simple things, like cheating at the horse races and manipulating women into having sex with him, but that all changes when he is ‘kidnapped’ and taken to Thornhill College. Seems his old friend/guy who experimented on him Doctor Paul has devised a method for allowing people like Alex to enter people’s dreams, see what they see and so on. The psychiatric benefits could be enormous, but their government sponsor Blair isn’t really interested in medicine. He’s more of a ‘if you die in the dream you die in real life’ kind of guy, especially when other people are doing the dying. When Blair’s ambitions turn towards the political, can Alex become a bad enough dude to save the President. Yeah, in his dreams.

     If that wasn’t the tagline, it should have been.

     Dreamscape is a film that’s trying to be a lot of things at once but doesn’t know how to properly budget time, so it never hits as strong as it could. It’s got a little bit of action, but Dennis Quaid is definitely not a traditional action star. It’s got a bit of political thriller, but Blair is kind of a tool who’s way into this ‘dream killing’ idea despite not being able to kill people in real fucking life. As for sci-fi, well that deserves its own little section, but the problems of time apply to that as well. There’s just no opportunity to really settle in and let things grow naturally, Alex joining the program, the Charlie subplot, the romance angle, it ends up feeling like Ruben has his eyes on the stopwatch more than he does the scene It’s especially apparent in the character of Jane Devries, who goes from friendly acquaintance to feeling violated over Alex violating her privacy to falling in love with him in what feels like seconds, and all the while feeling kind of shaky acting-wise. Give us time to breathe, let us live around the characters a little before you start throwing plot points around.

     With a name like Dreamscape, you figure that they’re gonna be doubling down when it comes to the dream sequences. For the most part it works, in particular Buddy’s nightmare and the President’s nightmare at the climax, but with the others...I dunno. I’m probably expecting too much from a 80s B-movie, but I just wish that the dreams were more dreamlike, you know what I mean? The Buddy scenes have the right idea, with the German Expressionist architecture and the staircase in the void, but some of the earlier dreams seem to be missing a certain level of dream logic, and I can’t help but feel disappointed. I mean one of the dreams is supposed to set up the romance between Jane and Alex, and it’s literally just her sitting in a train. Yes, they call back to it later in the movie, but they could have made it at least a little bit surrealistic. Whether it’s an issue of time or money, it’s still an issue.

     I’m also not a fan of Alex himself as a character. It seems like he was supposed to be something of a Harrison Ford lovable rogue, but Quaid plays as an immature tool, which is not the kind of person I want poking around in my brain. There’s a couple more recognizable names here, like Max Von Sydow, George Wendt, David Patrick Kelly and that one guy who played Hank in Twin Peaks, and they pull off the material well enough, but you’re not really picking up Dreamscape to see Norm Peterson. If it was Carla maybe, but not Norm.

     Dreamscape is a prime example of how cult films work. There are obvious flaws but also enough points of interest and entertainment that they balance out, never quite in the position to break into the mainstream but an enjoyable experience if you can accept that fact. I can, so that’s why Dreamscape is getting that coveted recommendation for this Halloween. Check it out for yourself and see what you think, but whatever you do don’t fall asleep while you’re watching. You don’t want to be trying to dream of Dennis Quaid and end up with Randy instead. Poor Randy.

     Poor, poor Randy.