>Most likely 80s-90s movie but possibly early 00s
>Definitely not Inception-esque but setup with dream sharing or something
>Lots of dimly lit areas
>Scene of the team moving around from level to level in some kind of dark underground bunker place
>Trying to go deeper and deeper down the levels
>Maybe some kind of center fall into the abyss in that bunker-y shaft place
>Horror-esque theme of team being taken out and they have to reset the process
>Somewhere near the end the surviving protagonist goes to the shared dream room
>Looks for the tell they're in a dream where the clock is spinning backwards
>It isn't and the team is dead but somehow the monster or whatever is outside of the dream
>Have to fight final boss off
>Forgot the ending of the movie at this point
I can't remember any more details than this, anyone have an idea about this? I've searched for the dream sharing and backwards spinning clock element and I am fairly certain this was some kind of scifi+psychological thriller and horror thing. The fast backwards spinning clock was the most memorable thing because it was how the protag and team would confirm they were still in the shared dream and not being murdered for real.
It definitely isn't:
Inception
The Cell
eXistenZ
Total Recall
Dreamscape
Brainstorm
Sounds like kino
Problem Child 2
Don't think those are right because I remember the protag team being a bit different. They were more like some kind of research staff in those disaster movies (think Event Horizon, The Abyss) or maybe they were like institutionalized and being pressed into some experimental procedure.
dream warriors.
Sorry anon, the only movie I know about fighting a "monster" in a bunker with a backwards clock is The Andromeda Strain, but it doesn't have any of the dreamworld stuff.
I can't remember if it was a monster proper because from what little memories I have of this movie (that has always bothered me when I watched when I was young and barely grasped it) was that parts of the team would wander off from the main group. It was almost like Event Horizon in that they would individually be targeted because they'd go around into a dark corner because they heard something (but with movie logic they're idiots and would wander off from the group) and then get rekt. Rinse and repeat as the team gets wiped out (off screen I think) and they'd have to restart the cycle and try to go back and go deeper down the levels.
Not it but you almost described Sphere there. As a bonus it does have a monster and timer counting down.
Dark City (1998) ?
Definitely not Dark City (watched it).
my mind when reading OP's greentext
>the cell
>the cell
>the cell
>dark city
>dark city
For a detail the room that they have everyone in has like reclining chairs or beds which may or may not have been mostly metallic and low-scifi looking. They may have been in a circle or something. The clock thing was in the control room I think that ran the whole shared dream. What happened towards the end is the surviving protag (which I think was female) woke up from one of the rekt moments after the team got wiped out, except she sees everyone in the collective dream room as dead. She ventures around within the reality facility where they're doing this in and ends up going into the control room. This was the scene where she looks at the clock and realizes that it isn't wildly spinning backwards and she's in reality. My memory is fuzzy but I believe she may have had nightmare sequences back in the facility (something like failed to insert into the dreamscape as a complete party) but realized that it was a dream because she looked at one of the clocks in the room and it was spinning backwards, causing her to quit the dreamscape. That or it may have been parts of the team together.
how did you watch it? video/dvd/streaming/broadcast tv/movie theater/etc?
when did you see it?
I was a kid and I was certain it was a video rental. I
can't remember what year but I was young which is why I think it is a 80s-90s thing. Anything newer than that would be outside of that period that my family used to do video rentals like that.
>Warning Sign
Not collective dream research from what I see of the plot
>Brainstorm
Doesn't look like it from footage of it
I watched The Cell and Dark City, it is neither of them. I distinctly remember the backwards spinning clock as a tell + team going through some kind of dark bunker/shaft facility.
ngl this sounds like a lot of movies squished together. Brainstorm (1983), Warning Sign (1985), The Cell (2000)...
There's a movie called Dreamscape about going into people's dreams, but it's nothing like this.
Big Mama's House
there's a sub at the website we all hate called tipofmytongue
they have a higher critical mass of users than here and someone might know
Thirt13n Ghosts?
Sounding more and more like Sphere lol. And it does have shared dreams, sort of.
Was there a distinct scene of an analog clock spinning backwards really fast with the surviving protag looking at it to realize that they're outside of the shared dream?
the cube
overdrawn at the memory bank
Sphere 1998
This type of movie, if it's not instantly recognizable, means it's most likely a B-to-Z grade genre movie.
Likely made by somebody like Uwe Boll (after 2000) or Charles Band (before 2000) and the Stuart Gordon/ Brian Yuzna collective of straight-to-vhs/cable z-grade filmmakers.
The problem is that these guys have made 100s of these movies with all these genre tropes in them which make them next to impossible to word-search the plot elements.
Even worse if it's just some rando cable TV movie. You'll never find it's name, but 100% it's sitting somewhere unloved on youtube right now.
Try this as a last resort:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_time_loops
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls069145438/
>Uwe Boll namedrop
It wasn't a time loop element but they kept trying to get at something in that collective dream. I don't remember the plot behind that and I think what little I can recall for the reason is getting blended with The Cell. It was definitely a video rental of a movie from what I can remember but you're right in that it could have been some direct to video flick which would make it painfully hard to figure out.
Don't think this is it.
I looked at some footage from Sphere but it doesn't seem like it either.
Another distinct thing I think is an accurate detail is the control room sat over the dream room or at least was elevated or on a second story.
Someone figure this out because now I wanna watch it
Sounds like a forgotten B movie. I am gen X, old as frick, and have watched fricktons of '80s and '90s movies and OPs description does not ring a bell whatsoever. Gotta be some straight to video movie that is lost forever.
>Be me
>Remember this movie because backwards spinning clock and other "tells" for dream state in the movie being used as plot
>Shared dream thing isn't really common, Inception being one of the notable movies where a team goes into a dream together
>The Cell is only 2 people (the killer and JLo)
>eXistenZ was way weirder and also sort of 2 people as well
>Total Recall was only Arnie
>Can barely remember anything concrete besides those elements about it being shared dream, some kind of facility, horror-y elements, the clock tell
>Thought it was pretty good with how those elements were setup but watched it as a kid and never knew the name of it because rental movie night
>Always remember the thing about the clock
Hnnngggh
Might be Prince of Darkness by John Carpenter.
Prince of Darkness
The Thirteenth Floor
The Cell
Honestly it probably is some direct-to-video schlock. Any details you might have about the actors, director, production company, etc would be extremely helpful. Even details about characters can go a long way, like how many were there? Do you remember any specific scene with dialog?
I suggested Prince of Darkness as well. They have a time limit to defeat the antagonist, have shared dreams, and OP says there's no real monster they remember which is precisely the case in the film.
This sounds definitely like something out of the Outer Limits tv series from the 90s.
Or perhaps even Tales from the Darkside if it's not a film.