Dreamcatcher (2003)

Movie Info

We’re not fleeing from aliens or anything…we just don’t want to be part of this movie…

Jonesy (Damian Lewis), Peter (Timothy Olyphant), Beaver (Jason Lee), and Henry (Thomas Jane) have been best friends after growing up together in Derry, Maine.  After a childhood encounter with a young handicapped boy named Douglas “Duddits” Cavell (Andrew Robb), the children discover that Duddits has left with something extra.  Now, their yearly trip to a wooded cabin might reveal what Duddits was preparing them for.  Aliens have landed and an invasion has been launched.  As Colonel Abraham Curtis (Morgan Freeman) and his back-up Owen Underhill (Tom Sizemore) try to contain the outbreak, Duddits (Donnie Walberg) might be needed to stop the alien threat before it is too late.

We have come to complicate this movie more!

Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, Dreamcatcher is sci-fi horror movie adaptation of Stephen King’s 2001 novel.  The movie was released to poor reviews and so-so box office draw.

Dreamcatcher looked like a movie that was confused from the get-go.  The movie combined elements of the typical Stephen King horror novel aka the psychic kid and Maine (this time returning to Derry where It took place) and it combined them with an episode of The X-Files.  The results are pretty disastrous…and not in a good disaster film way.

Can you explain you’re role in this film?

The movie has way too much going on.  I realize that all the elements tie together at the end, but for too much of the movie, there are weird, long, and unnecessary story “branches” that just drag out the film’s already long runtime.  Included in this is the military attack on the “grays” at their downed spaceship, Jonesy’s confusing near death experience, and much of the flashback material involving the young kids (which meant to build a kind of Stand by Me feel, but instead just prolongs already long movie).  The horror isn’t scary and the tension just isn’t there.  *****Spoiler Alert***** In addition, the movie leaves you with the “what the hell was Duddits” since he transforms into an alien…what his mom an alien too?  It is more confusing than fun or interesting.

Ass Weasel!

The movie does have a fantastic cast going for it which makes the failure all the more tragic.  It isn’t afraid to sacrifice characters (which is a plus), but I would have loved to have seen more from all the main leads but they worked with what they had…and I really still don’t get why Jason Lee couldn’t wait a few extra minutes before picking up that toothpick from the bloody, nasty floor (seriously, you have an alien creature trapped in a toilet and you can’t get over your nervous tic for a few minutes?)  Damian Lewis gets the best of the group by getting to ham up his role with two personalities.

Hey, guy. What exactly are we watching here?

The visuals also are quite weak.  Sure, the visuals of the animals streaming from the forest are kind of cool, but I don’t know if it would look like a mass exodus.  I also don’t entirely understand the gestation formation of the whole gray alien creatures…the little “ass weasels” seem to grow on their own and lay eggs…why are grays involved and how to they turn into ostrich looking creatures when they are attacked?  It might have been explained, but it was mind-numbing.

Dreamcatcher isn’t a good film, and it wasn’t that much better of a book.  The story was one of King’s weaker outings and as a result, a weak film.  The whole cast was let down by the confused, dragging film that lacks scares or chills…it does have some grossness, but not up to the level of popular torture porn type films like Saw.  Dreamcatcher is a flat lifeless movie that isn’t worth seeing.