Album Review

Bruce Eder [allmusic.com]

Maurice Jarre's music for the psychic thriller Dreamscape is a kind of new age successor to his music for Ryan's Daughter way back when, with bright, cheerful melodies -- mostly played on keyboards -- that sound as though they're channeled through water. Between the odd electronic oscillations and other effects meant to indicate that the action viewers are seeing is taking place on a psychic level, the music comes off as eerie and unsettling in some spots, and dullish elsewhere -- a lot of it also seems inappropriately cheerful at times, almost like circus music, all with that odd, eerie layer of effects. Fans do seem to have developed a fondness for the soundtrack, and have given it serious cult status.