“A woman died, Tommy.” – Dennis Quaid scolds David Patrick Kelly midway through Dreamscape (1984) who replies with dry wit, “Everybody dies…” Dude, that’s cold. The Grue-Crew dive into one of three films in just over a year to explore the horrors surrounding entering peoples dreams…and nightmares. Let the fun begin! Thomas Mariani, Doc Rotten and Christopher G. Moore tackle another gruesome horror film from the 1980s.
Decades of Horror 1980s
Episode 100 — Dreamscape (1984)
The cast alone is worth giving Dreamscape a chance. Dennis Quaid (as Alex Gardner) stars opposite Kate Capshaw as his love interest, Jane DeVries, and David Patrick Kelly as his adversary in exploring the dreamscape, Tommy Ray Glatman. The supporting cast is even more nuts. Max von Sydow may be on Alex’s side as Dr. Paul Novotny. Christopher Plummer is duplious as ever as the villainous government official Bob Blair. Eddie Albert suffers from nightmares that only Alex can save him from as The President. And, George Wendt warns Alex of the conspiracies abound as Charlie Prince, a horror author who has stumbled onto the truth behind Dreamscape. Charlie Prince, Stephen King, uh…see what they did there?
Doc and Christopher revisit Dreamscape, not having seen the film in a few decades while Thomas catches the film for the first time. Does the film hold up after three plus decades? How about the special effects and the make-up? The film is directed by Joseph Ruben and the effects are provided by Greg Cannom and David B. Miller among others. The film features a number of green screen effects that hinder the overall tone of the film while the make-up effects for the Nightmare Snake remain thrilling and creepy, especially when in mid-transformation. Look closely and you may catch some stop motion effects too. Regardless of all the debate, one thing stands out and that is fan-favorite David Patrick Kelly between his role in The Warriors and those in Twin Peaks and The Crow – always a winner.
We want to hear from you – the coolest, most gruesome fans: leave us a message or leave a comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at thomasmariani@decadesofhorror.com or docrotten@decadesofhorror.com. We also want to be sure to thank Neon Devils for their killer track “Bone Chillin'” which we use for the intro and outro of this show.
Doc a lifelong fan of horror films, sci-fi flicks and monster movies first discovering Universal Monsters and Planet of the Apes as a young child in the 1970's searching out every issue of Famous Monster of Filmland (and, later, Fangoria). Favorite films include Jaws, The Car, The Birds, The Tingler, Vampire Circus and The Exorcist. Still a huge fan of horror films from the 70s, Doc continues consuming horror films to this day for the site, for the podcasts and for the fun of it all.
Hey Doc. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of all four of the Decades podcasts, but… how do I listen to the older podcasts for the eighties? I can’t find anywhere on the web or through my podcast app that shows anything older than podcast number 85 or so. How do I get ahold of podcasts 1-80?
Salty,
Decades of Horror 80s has had an interesting history.
It was previously called “Monster Movie Podcast” which went from doing retrospectives and review to covering 80s films – so we renamed it “Decades of Horror 80s” to give it focus and keep the subscribers.
Before that, it was originally called “Doc Rotten’s House of Horrors” – sigh, that was a terrible name. But it did begin the format that would later become Horror News Radio.
Here’s a link to 59 – 89. You should be able to navigate to more.
http://www.docrotten.com/category/doc-rotten-podcast/monstermovie/page/2/
You can also download the Horror News Radio app and get them all as well.
http://horrornewsradio.com/app
Hope this answers your question.
Thank you for listening!
Doc
Perfect, Doc, thanks.
And, c’mon, “Doc Rotten’s House of Horrors” isn’t THAT terrible…. 😉