What’s scarier than a guy who can enter your dreams with mad ninja skills?
Oh yeah…
A guy that can enter your dreams and become a snake.
Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…
For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…
For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…
But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…
So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…
A Throwback Thursday Classic.
Dreamscape (1984) – In the 80’s, I went through a serious Dennis Quaid phase…He was an everyman, a regular guy, and identifying with his characters was a breeze…It was what I refer to as The Harrison Ford Factor…Ford’s characters were so easily accessible, that an audience member could slide right into their loafers and take a stroll…Quaid’s roles, in the 80’s for sure, had The Harrison Ford Factor…
I loved Breaking Away…
And Caveman…
I think I saw Tough Enough twenty times…
Enemy Mine was awesome, too…
Innerspace, dude, that one still makes me laugh…
But this one…
Oh, man…This one was the pinnacle…
The pièce de résistance.
Can’t tell you how many times I saw it…Lost count at like a hundred.
The film was directed by Joseph Ruben (The Stepfather, The Good Son) and it tells the story of Alex Gardner, played by Quaid, a psychic whose abilities have been squandered on gambling and womanizing…He reunites with his former mentor Dr. Novotny played by Max von Sydow, who needs Alex to help him with his latest project.The goal is to link psychics with the minds of sleeping patients who suffer from night terrors, or nightmares that plague them in the waking world…
Sounds all nice and altruistic, right?
Novotny is a nice cat who wants to do good deeds with this technology…But for every nice scientist who wants to do good things, somewhere lurking in the shadows behind them, is a dark and evil presence who wants to do the polar opposite of good deeds…Especially with technology like this…In this case it’s Bob Blair, played by the believably evil Christopher Plummer…
Now just like Novotny enlisted the help of his “good” psychic Alex Gardner, Blair has recruited his own psychic…This one…Oh man…This one is of the evil variety.
Enter Tommy Ray Glatman…
Shit, he even makes eating a tuna sandwich look evil.
Tommy Ray is played by the legendary character actor, David Patrick Kelly, most well known for uttering the phrase…”Warriors…Come out and Play-y-ay!” with bottles on his fingertips…But in this one he plays a rival psychic whose dream assassin abilities would get a nod, a bow, and a tip of the fedora from Freddy Krueger…While Alex is still learning the ropes, just trying to navigate around other people’s noggins, Tommy Ray can do…Well…He can do just about anything.
Like for instance, turn his fingertips into scalpels, and surgically remove someone’s heart from their chest.
This film is a classic good vs. evil tale with science fiction sensibilities to delight our inner nerd and enough scares and creepy imagery to please the fan of horror within us…It is not a film that I think is easily categorized…
It is a film that captures the essence of fear that encompasses the world of nightmares…
It is a film that demonstrates the dark side of politics, and what power does with powers…
It is a film that much like Nightmare on Elm Street, shows us that we are our most vulnerable when we are asleep…
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