Apologies for the header, but like most people, and whether he likes it or not, every time I see David Patrick Kelly playing his usual psychotic role in a film, I just can't help myself from blurting out the expected. The guy is a legendary typecast toolbox for the delivery of that one line alone, but I bet he's the salt of the earth in person, as most on-screen psychotics are.Anyhoo, as for this flick, I was in my early teens when I first saw it, and thought it was a cracker of a film, right up until the mid '90's, at least when I felt I'd moved on, but as time continued forthrightwardness, I still think it's a bloody cracker of a film, despite what any fickle folks say about any ageing or crappy effects. You just can't deny it's a fundamental premise for the likes of "Inception", and even when it comes to measuring it alongside the first of the "Nightmare On Elm Street" franchise movies which was released in the same year, (but only three months later), it still seems that this movie was ahead of the concept of dream intervention and nut-job infiltration. (No spoiler intended, but watch out for Tommy Ray and his five sharp fingernails.) You see now what I did there now with the header? ...Oh well, never mind...Thirty years on this year anyway, and I still find this movie thoroughly enjoyable as a decent and compelling sci-fi-ish thriller, and believe you me, that's not just nostalgia orientated, because I could say otherwise about David Lynch's "Dune", but that's just another epic story altogether.Yes, the effects are dodgy in this day and age, just like ED-209 trying to walk down a flight of stairs, which we've all come to accept and admire for what was and will never be again, but both the story and concept are still fully valid, and very well portrayed without resorting to any tea-kettle-boiling-techno-mumbo-jumbo-filler-crap. It's compact, gets straight to the point very quickly, no lagging moments, and the momentum keeps going throughout at a steady pace all the way to the end credits, with some brief moments of armchair gripping excitement. (I'd beg to differ with anyone that say they don't flinch when the snake-man receives his 'pipe dream'.)Not a fantastic film, but a cracker nonetheless that stands the test of time in my books, and after yet another recent viewing, it's gonna stay that way until that snake-man finally gets me in my sleep. Current IMDb rating is 6.3, and I would totally agree with that, but there's no half-measures here, so I'll give it a 7/10, coz 6/10 is just too mean and disrespectful for such a bloody good flick.

I watched this as a teenager in the theater. This movie was one of the few movies in my life that I continually reflected upon.Do dreams really matter, how important are they, and can you truly control dreams as though you lived in the Matrix? I loved this movie then, and after watching Inception, i wanted to go back and rent this movie again. Will watch it in the coming week.Nothing is more exciting than to think that every night we enter our own alien world where we have more control and more power than we have ever realized.We don't have enough dream research going on.

I don't remember seeing this in the 80's, but watched it on AMC recently. The dream scenes may have been "cheesy" as some put it, but they worked. Better than having them all shiny and computerized. The style looked a lot like the Twilight Zone movie....all crooked doors, funky angles etc. It might be cool to see it redone, maybe not TOO computerized though. More psychological than visual. Some seriously big names in this movie though. Was fun seeing Dennis Quaid all perky and cocky, like he was in Breaking Away. Have fun...there is nothing better than a good sci-fi or any sci-fi for that matter!!!

I just watched this movie with my mom. We're both Dennis Quaid fans, and I have enjoyed his other forays into the scifi realm (Enemy Mine and Innerspace being a couple of them). However, this movie was completely uninteresting. All of the actors in the film seemed bored with their lines and characters. Quaid's Alex Gardner is rather bland. They try to play up his "bad boy" persona in the beginning, but he comes off as a self-righteous bum. Later attempts to make him appear good and selfless in the eyes of the audience come off as shallow. There was nothing there for me to believe that he would have any genuine interest in Kate Capshaw's character. Christopher Plummer plays a terrifically not-menacing "Big Bad". The only character that stands out is David Patrick Kelly's psychopathic Tommy, though there was not much subtlety in the presentation of his character.Though it had a great idea, the script does nothing interesting. It becomes predictable midway through the film. The final showdown is staged awkwardly. The special effects appeared to be incredibly cheap, even for the time (this was after Blade Runner and Alien...the "Snakeman" character here does not have anything on the lava monsters in "The Journey to the Center of the Earth"). Overall, the most striking aspect of this film is the by-the-numbers approach it took to making a scifi film. One gets the sense watching this film that it was trying to do something interesting with as little effort as possible.