Dreamscape

Rating:
Summary: It was fairly good.
Review: I caught this movie on SciFi, and it wasn't as good as it looked from the advertisements, but it was better than what I thought it would be. I have a hard time understanding why some people say Kate Capshaw is a bad actress. She seemed good to me! I saw the TV version, and so the bed scen in some guy's dream seemed cut off, but still... it *was* funny.Or at least I could tell it had the potential to be funny. Unfortuantely, the resident geezer made me turn the TV off because there was a six year old, a five year old, a four year old, and a two year old in my TV room. I am currently searching for it so I can see the entire thing and not miss the gory and "suggestive" parts.

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: I like this movie. It's a little contrived, but the premise based on the myth of if you die in your sleep, you die in real life, is a good one. I actually was going to University of the Pacific in Stockton when they filmed scenes from this movie there. And the 1980's El Nino was hitting California, so Eddie Albert and the guys playing his body guards were unable to fly up to Stockton because of the weather. And a friend and I were hanging around the set, and they told us to come back in suits and ties to maybe be the body guards in the background! Pretty cool for college students! So we showed up, and, typical show biz, they had asked a bunch of other students to show up in coats and ties, too, and they never used any of us. But there is a scene where I can see a girl I used to date in the background as an extra!! (Dennis Quaid was arrogant and full of himself, incidentally. But this is a cool movie).

Rating:
Summary: The DVD censors at it again. On a special edition, no less!
Review: I love this movie. It was one of the first PG-13 flicks to come out, so when I was a kid this was quite exciting. It had some action, some nudity and a snake-monster all rolled into a fun pseudo sci-fi package.

Imagine my disgust and horror upon discovering that the DVD of the film had been edited for content! Don't believe me? Compare it to the video or laser version. The comical sex dream scene at the beginning has been altered so that there are no breasts. There are also no children watching. This may not seem all that important to you, but I think that this silent trimming is quite insidious. The film is rated PG-13 after all, which means that parents should be cautious about showing it to younger kids. Why then must it be cut without telling us so on the package?

To sum it up, I love the movie, but I hate this version. Hooray for Hollywood.

Rating:
Summary: original movie!
Review: I saw the film now for the first time and were very surprised with the argument. A lot of parts are very similar to the "Elm Street" movies, which began one year later, even the knife-fingernails of the murderer, but especially that all victims were killed in their dreams.
I agree with the other reviews, the film has great performanes.
On the other hand there're a lot of mistakes and contradictions in the argument. For example, the last victim (the bad guy from the government) is killed although the protagonist is far away and can't influence his dream. But all in all I think you'll not loose your time seeing this movie, especially if you're a great science fiction/horror fan.

Rating:
Summary: original movie!
Review: I saw the film now for the first time and were very surprised with the argument. A lot of parts are very similar to the "Elm Street" movies, which began one year later, even the knife-fingernails of the murderer, but especially that all victims were killed in their dreams.
I agree with the other reviews, the film has great performanes.
On the other hand there're a lot of mistakes and contradictions in the argument. For example, the last victim (the bad guy from the government) is killed although the protagonist is far away and can't influence his dream. But all in all I think you'll not loose your time seeing this movie, especially if you're a great science fiction/horror fan.

Rating:
Summary: Eighties sci-fi/Thriller doesn't hold up...at all!
Review: I saw this during the eighties when it originally came out and thought it was terrific and scary. However, this movie does not hold up at all. It's not just the technological advancements in special effects that makes this movie so dated, afterall movies like "The Thing" and "The Exorcist" came out before this. A scary movie is scary no matter when it came out. This movie is just silly. The president's fear of nuclear war is treated so brazenly that it doesn't hold up now that the Day After decade is over. The story is so brisk in the extreme nothing is giving time to develop. Only the ideas are presented and not explored. Quaid and Sydow are good but even they can't save this movie. The dialog is very stilted at parts. Christopher Plummer is just silly, not menacing. Tommy Ray isn't scary any more. The snake man looks so rubbery and stupid that I can't believe I was ever scared of it in the first place. They did a terrible job with it. The transformation effects are now laughable. They didn't have to be. Kate Capshaw is awful (she always was; maybe that's one of the reasons you don't see her in much anymore now that she is married to Spielberg). This is just not that strong a movie and time has not been kind to it. I thought it was great when I was 10 but it just isn't scary or fun. Awful music by Maurice Jarre. Not because it is an electronic eighties keyboard soundtrack like Jerry Goldsmith's Runaway. No this is just bad and it sounds bad on this DVD. No themes develop and even the chase music is boring. Very weak. Similar genre movies from the eighties that hold up and you might want to check out instead: Twilight Zone the Movie, Gremlins, Poltergeist, Brainstorm, Fright Night.

DVD-This dvd is also not very good either. The picture quality is very crisp most of the time. There is some wavering in some scenes. The special effects unfortuneately don't benefit from all that detail in picture quality. The worst part is the sound. It comes in DTS and Dolby Digital. It is hardly 5.1 like the box advertises. Occasionally you get some weak directional effects. But for I would say 80% of the movie everything is in the center speaker.

The best thing about this DVD is the menus. They were a pleasant surprise. The movie and this DVD were not.

Rating:
Summary: Great film - shame about the cuts
Review: I saw this film years ago on TV and loved it. In fact I've still got an ancient video version that I taped over 10 years ago.

It was great to see it again in widescreen and with DVD quality and it was as good as I remember - except for the cuts.

In the UK we get films cut all the time, a little at the cinemas and often more on VHS. So imagine my shock to discover a Region 1 DVD with more cuts than the UK television version of over 10 years OK. In the version I originally saw the nudity in some scenes was limited, mild and "in context" in my opinion. So I am amazed it was cut from this DVD release.

However - I'd still say this DVD is still well worth owning if you like this film. The picture is great and the sound is even better.

Rating:
Summary: Classic B-Movie edited
Review: I still can't believe they edited this DVD. I remember this movie well - I saw it 5 times in the theater. It is a good oldfashioned B movie. Decent plot you can follow with poor special effects trying to be 'top notch'. I was suprised at the quality of the acting at the time, and not shocked when I saw Quaid break through soon after.

The plot is basic horror stuff. A man (Van Sydow at his 'nerdy proffesor' best) studys dreams, to determine if one person can actually enter another's dream. Then comes in the Government agent (Christopher Plummer at his most evil) representing the true source of the study's funding. They want to use this information to attempt to determine if they kill someone in their sleep will the person die. If so the plan is to use this information to assassinate those not 'helpful' to America. Dennis Quaid plays the young college dropout who is recruited for the study, and Kate Capshaw his love interest. The battles are fought in dreams.

If you've never seen it in theaters, rent this one tonight.

Rating:
Summary: Classic B-Movie edited
Review: I still can't believe they edited this DVD. I remember this movie well - I saw it 5 times in the theater. It is a good oldfashioned B movie. Decent plot you can follow with poor special effects trying to be 'top notch'. I was suprised at the quality of the acting at the time, and not shocked when I saw Quaid break through soon after.

The plot is basic horror stuff. A man (Van Sydow at his 'nerdy proffesor' best) studys dreams, to determine if one person can actually enter another's dream. Then comes in the Government agent (Christopher Plummer at his most evil) representing the true source of the study's funding. They want to use this information to attempt to determine if they kill someone in their sleep will the person die. If so the plan is to use this information to assassinate those not 'helpful' to America. Dennis Quaid plays the young college dropout who is recruited for the study, and Kate Capshaw his love interest. The battles are fought in dreams.

If you've never seen it in theaters, rent this one tonight.

Rating:
Summary: what is possable............ at it's best
Review: If you love scince fiction with a good helping of what could be really possable in life, you will love this film. It's well filmed, well acted, and most of all a brilliant all round sci-fi adventure film into the unknow world of dreams, and nightmares... definatly a 10/10 score, more like this please!