Dreamscape (1984)
Few days back luckily discovered this movie while randomly browsing through some torrent sites and still wondering why I haven't seen or heard about it before?! Besides the great cast including Max Von Sydow, Christopher Plummer and a young Dennis Quaid (who eerily resembles to young Harrison Ford back at that time around!), the thing that instantly grabbed my interest was its IMDB plot synopsis..."A young psychic on the run from himself is recruited by a government agency experimenting with the use of the dream-sharing technology and is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of the U.S. president!" Yeah...it also freaked me out like..."What...80s got an INCEPTION too!? I need to check this out asap!!" And finally gave it a watch lately.
In compare to Inception, DREAMSCAPE is clearly a far cry from what Nolan did in 2010. Although it did mention few similar ideas i.e. jumping into the subconscious mind and stealing the little secrets but at the end it all comes down to prevent an assassination in the dream world rather than planting an idea. The effects were dated but still fun and I think Joseph Ruben (who also directed 80s cult slasher THE STEPFATHER and early 90s thrillers - SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY, THE GOOD SON & MONEY TRAIN) did a decent job with Dreamscape within the limited resources & technological advancement available back at that time. Overall, like many other 80s action-adventure-thrillers, this is also a solid entertainer!
>>: B