Dreamcatcher (film)
Encyclopedia
Dreamcatcher is a 2003 film adaptation
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...

 of Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...

's novel of the same name
Dreamcatcher (novel)
Dreamcatcher is a horror novel written by Stephen King. It was adapted into a 2003 movie of the same name. The book, written longhand, was the author's tool for recuperation from a 1999 car accident, and was completed in half a year...

. It was directed by Lawrence Kasdan
Lawrence Kasdan
Lawrence Edward "Larry" Kasdan is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Kasdan was born in Miami, Florida, the son of Sylvia Sarah , an employment counselor, and Clarence Norman Kasdan, who managed retail electronics stores.His Brother is the writer/producer Mark...

, and co-written by Kasdan and screenwriter William Goldman
William Goldman
William Goldman is an American novelist, playwright, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.-Early life and education:...

. The film stars Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...

 as Colonel Abraham Curtis, a shoot-first alien hunter, Thomas Jane
Thomas Jane
Thomas Jane is an American actor known for his roles in the 1999 film Deep Blue Sea, the 2001 TV film 61*, the 2004 film The Punisher and the 2007 Stephen King adaptation The Mist...

 as Henry Devlin, Donnie Wahlberg
Donnie Wahlberg
Donald Edward "Donnie" Wahlberg, Jr. is an American singer, actor and film producer. He is a member of the popular 1980s and 1990s boy band New Kids on the Block. His work background includes music, feature films, and television...

 as Douglas "Duddits" Cavell, Jason Lee
Jason Lee (actor)
Jason Michael Lee is an American actor and skateboarder known for his role as the title character on the NBC television series My Name is Earl, his portrayal of Syndrome in the film The Incredibles, his role as Dave Seville in the Alvin and the Chipmunks films, and his work with director Kevin...

 as Joe "Beaver" Clarendon, Timothy Olyphant
Timothy Olyphant
Timothy David Olyphant is an American actor whose notable roles in television drama series include Deadwood as Seth Bullock, Justified as Raylan Givens, The Office as Danny Cordray, and Damages as Wes Krulik...

 as Pete Moore, and Damian Lewis
Damian Lewis
Lewis was born in St John's Wood, London, the son of Charlotte Mary and J. Watcyn Lewis, a City broker. His paternal grandparents were Welsh. His maternal grandfather was Lord Mayor of London Ian Frank Bowater and his maternal grandmother's ancestors include Bertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of...

 as Gary "Jonesy" Jones. It was filmed around Prince George, British Columbia
Prince George, British Columbia
Prince George, with a population of 71,030 , is the largest city in northern British Columbia, Canada, and is known as "BC's Northern Capital"...

.

Plot

Henry (Thomas Jane
Thomas Jane
Thomas Jane is an American actor known for his roles in the 1999 film Deep Blue Sea, the 2001 TV film 61*, the 2004 film The Punisher and the 2007 Stephen King adaptation The Mist...

), Beaver (Jason Lee
Jason Lee (actor)
Jason Michael Lee is an American actor and skateboarder known for his role as the title character on the NBC television series My Name is Earl, his portrayal of Syndrome in the film The Incredibles, his role as Dave Seville in the Alvin and the Chipmunks films, and his work with director Kevin...

), Pete (Timothy Olyphant
Timothy Olyphant
Timothy David Olyphant is an American actor whose notable roles in television drama series include Deadwood as Seth Bullock, Justified as Raylan Givens, The Office as Danny Cordray, and Damages as Wes Krulik...

) and Jonesy (Damian Lewis
Damian Lewis
Lewis was born in St John's Wood, London, the son of Charlotte Mary and J. Watcyn Lewis, a City broker. His paternal grandparents were Welsh. His maternal grandfather was Lord Mayor of London Ian Frank Bowater and his maternal grandmother's ancestors include Bertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of...

) are four lifelong friends on their annual hunting trip in Maine. As children they all acquired telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...

, which they call "the line". A flashback shows them save and befriend a mentally deficient boy named Douglas "Duddits" Cavell (played, as a boy, by Andrew Robb
Andrew Robb
Andrew John Robb AO , Australian politician and former federal Director of the Liberal Party of Australia, was elected to the House of Representatives as member for the Division of Goldstein, Victoria for the Liberal Party of Australia at the 2004 federal election.Robb, one of nine children, was...

; as an adult, by Donnie Wahlberg
Donnie Wahlberg
Donald Edward "Donnie" Wahlberg, Jr. is an American singer, actor and film producer. He is a member of the popular 1980s and 1990s boy band New Kids on the Block. His work background includes music, feature films, and television...

) from bullies.

Jonesy sees Duddits across a street, who beckons him to cross the street where he is struck by a motor vehicle. His injuries heal with mysterious speed and 6 months later, he makes the annual trip. Jonesy and Beaver meet a lost man named Rick McCarthy, apparently ill, and let him rest in their cabin. Mysterious helicopters fly over and announce that the area will be quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....

d. Jonesy and Beaver return to the cabin and find Rick dead in the bathroom, and reddish moss and gore all over the walls. His body excretes a creature into the toilet. The mystifying creature is later referenced as a worm and the reddish moss as The Ripley, after the character of the same name
Ellen Ripley
Ellen Ripley is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Alien film series played by American actress Sigourney Weaver. The character was heralded as a seminal role for challenging gender roles, particularly in the science fiction genre, and remains Weaver's most famous role to...

 from the Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...

franchise. Beaver tries to trap the creature beneath the toilet lid, but the lamprey
Lamprey
Lampreys are a family of jawless fish, whose adults are characterized by a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. Translated from an admixture of Latin and Greek, lamprey means stone lickers...

-like worm, with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth, overpowers and kills him. Jonesy escapes but is met by a large alien, called Mr. Gray, who enters Jonesy's body and possesses it.

Nearby, Henry and Pete nearly run over a frost-bitten
Frostbite
Frostbite is the medical condition where localized damage is caused to skin and other tissues due to extreme cold. Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas...

 woman, one of Rick's hunting party. Henry leaves to get help while Pete stays with the mysterious woman. The woman dies and excretes a worm, which Pete barely manages to kill. Mr. Gray then captures Pete, but Jonesy telepathically warns Henry to stay hidden.

Henry returns to the cabin to find Beaver dead and finds the worm that killed him laying a bunch of eggs. In order to kill the eggs and larvae that have already hatched, he sets the cabin on fire.

Meanwhile, a secret military unit, led by Curtis (Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...

), seeks to contain, and eventually kill, everyone exposed to the alien plague. Curtis sends Owen (Tom Sizemore
Tom Sizemore
Thomas Edward "Tom" Sizemore, Jr. is an American film and television actor and producer. He is known for his roles in films such as Saving Private Ryan, Strange Days, Pearl Harbor, Heat and Black Hawk Down....

) to lead an air strike against the aliens' landed spaceship. The aliens use telepathic abilities to try to confuse the task force, but the four Apaches
AH-64 Apache
The Boeing AH-64 Apache is a four-blade, twin-engine attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement, and a tandem cockpit for a two-man crew. The Apache was developed as Model 77 by Hughes Helicopters for the United States Army's Advanced Attack Helicopter program to replace the...

 and Curtis' Little Bird
MH-6 Little Bird
The MH-6 Little Bird , and its attack variant AH-6, are light helicopters used for special operations in the United States Army. Originally based on a modified OH-6A, it was later based on the MD 500E, with a single five-bladed main rotor...

 massacre most of the aliens on the ground with a minigun
Minigun
The Minigun is a 7.62 mm, multi-barrel heavy machine gun with a high rate of fire , employing Gatling-style rotating barrels with an external power source...

, chain guns, and Hellfire
Hellfire
Hellfire may refer to:* The fires of Hell or lake of fire, terms used to describe Hell-In music:* "Hell Fire" a heavy metal/speed metal band Formed by Tony Campos in the spring of 2010. Hell Fire taking it back to influences such as Iron Maiden, Helloween, Metallica, Angel Witch, Overkill etc...

 missiles. The aliens then release an explosive force which destroys some themselves, their spaceship, and a few helicopters. When the remaining helicopters return to base, Henry is also brought to the base. Henry sees Owen and convinces Owen to reveal the camp to the regular U.S. Army. After tracking Owen through a chip in the gun, Curtis escapes in a helicopter.

Jonesy explores a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

ical warehouse of his own past memories while watching Mr. Gray use his body. Mr. Gray tries to coerce Pete to cooperate, then eats him when he refuses. Jonesy realizes that his mind contains memories of Duddits' that would help Mr. Gray with his scheme, and therefore hides them deeper in the warehouse of his subconscious.

Henry and Owen arrive at the home of Duddits, who reveals that Mr. Gray is headed for Quabbin Reservoir
Quabbin Reservoir
The Quabbin Reservoir is the largest inland body of water in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and was built between 1930 and 1939. Today along with the Wachusett Reservoir, it is the primary water supply for Boston, some to the east, as well as 40 other communities in Greater Boston...

 to pollute the water with a shit-weasel. Arriving at the reservoir, Owen is ambushed by Curtis' helicopter. Owen shoots Curtis down, but dies from his wounds. Henry takes Owen's weapon and kills Mr. Gray's worm. Duddits confronts Mr. Gray, who finally exits Jonesy's body. Duddits turns into an alien creature himself and attacks, causing both aliens to explode in a cloud of red dust which briefly resembles a dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher is a Native American cultural object.Dreamcatcher may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Dreamcatcher , a 2001 novel by Stephen King** Dreamcatcher , based on the Stephen King novel...

. Jonesy, now back to normal, smashes a final larva that was about to contaminate the water.

Reception

The film was poorly received by critics, earning a 30% "rotten" rating on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

. Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...

's review for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

summed up the film as "a likeable disaster," whereas Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...

 commented that "not since Death to Smoochy
Death to Smoochy
Death to Smoochy is a 2002 American dark comedy film directed by and starring Danny DeVito and starring Robin Williams, Edward Norton, Catherine Keener, and Jon Stewart.-Plot:...

have so many talented people made such a mess of things." Although often considered a flop
Box office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...

, the film broke even on its estimated $68 million budget, earning only $33,685,268 domestically, but $75,715,436 worldwide.
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