10 Awesome Films That Never Got The Cult Following They Deserved 

The Film:

Joseph Ruben's Dreamscape is a sci-fi horror that follows a young psychic who has been using his powers for personal gain, with gambling and womanising his two favourite hobbies. Alex (Dennis Quaid) thinks he has it made for life, but he is forced to leave his old ways behind when he is recruited by a government agency experimenting with the use of the dream-sharing technology.

Alex is taught how to project himself into another person's subconscious during REM sleep, though he isn't the only man capable of using the high tech equipment. When a rogue government agent hijacks the machine and uses it to go after the President, it is up to Alex to enter his mind and save him in this imaginative piece of escapism.

Why It Never Got The Cult Following It Deserved:

Dreamscape suffered the same fate as many before and after it - it was the weaker of two twins and was overshadowed as a result. The twin was A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film that came out in the same year that also revolved around the idea of entering the subconscious of others and being able to kill them in real-life by killing them in their dreams.

Wes Craven revealed before his passing that A Nightmare on Elm Street was nearly never made due to its similarity to Dreamscape, with early suitor Paramount passing for that reason. Eventually, the fledgling New Line Cinema backed the film, and it went on to become a mega-franchise that towered over genre competitors, Dreamscape included.

This is a film that should have become a cult classic: light and trashy with subtle political overtones and some perfect B-movie moments. While the effects most definitely do not hold up today, that unmistakable '80s look would have undoubtedly become part of the appeal much in the same way it did for Elm Street.