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DREAMCATCHER by Tom McCurrie
When's the last time there's been a really good movie based on a Stephen King novel? You'd probably have to go back to the Ford Administration and CARRIE. Unfortunately, this misbegotten streak continues with DREAMCATCHER.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)
Written by Lawrence Kasdan and William Goldman, and based on the doorstop of a novel by Stephen King, DREAMCATCHER is about four psychically-gifted friends battling an alien invasion -- but it's really just a mess from start to finish.
First of all, the plot is shamelessly cannibalized from other King tales like THE SHINING, THE TOMMYKNOCKERS, STAND BY ME ("THE BODY"), IT, CREEPSHOW...the list goes on and on and on. It also steals from non-King sources, most notably the "creature-birthing" scene from ALIEN. (The only twist here has the critter burrowing out of the butt instead of the chest -- big deal.) The resulting hodgepodge is beyond predictable...and beyond dull.
Secondly, the plotholes are legion, so much so that the script seems to be more holes than plot. For instance, the big bad aliens have been invading Earth for years, right? So why haven't they achieved their nefarious goal: infecting the water supply? After all this time, they couldn't toss a single spaceworm into an itty-bitty reservoir? These guys must be total dorks! And how do they expect to infect humanity this way? You can see the worms with the naked eye, so no one's gonna chug them down once they flow out of the tap. They better hope all earthlings are legally blind!
The means of infection is also vague. In ALIEN, the critters go in the mouth, then pop out the chest when the timer goes off. In DREAMCATCHER, some humans are infected by red spores, while others (like Thomas Jane's Henry) wade through a cabin full of red fungus without a hitch. And barring some dope swallowing it, how is a spaceworm in the water supply supposed to infect anybody?
This brings up another point. It's unclear how the aliens operate. At first it seems the aliens use humans as birthing hosts, but then we see one of the spaceworms give birth on its own. And other aliens simply turn into red spores and possess people, skipping the birthing process entirely. So what do they need us for? (And when they do possess us, why do they speak in a British accent? Have they all flown in from Heathrow or something?)
The aliens seem to be divided into two camps. One is a spaceworm, a kind of tube sock with teeth. The other is more humanoid -- think ET on steroids. Are these two different versions of the same creature? Or does ET control the tube sock like a biker does his pit bull? We see humans give birth to the spaceworms -- do they also spawn their bigger cousins? And can the spaceworms turn into red spores and possess people, too? The parameters of the aliens simply aren't defined, making them too confusing to be scary.
Of course, there's one alien who's not supposed to be scary -- he's the one disguised as Duddits. Duddits gives our four protagonists psychic powers to help them battle the aliens. Unfortunately, these powers don't help too much, since two out of the four leads are iced right off the bat, while the third is quickly possessed and turned into a bad guy/stooge for the little green men. And none of this answers the truly important questions. Why is the "good" Duddits hiding on Earth in the first place -- and in such a mentally crippled body to boot? The screenwriters may know, but they don't bother to tell us.
Finally, what's the point of the Morgan Freeman-Tom Sizemore characters? The conflict between this Loony Alien Hunter and his more moderate protege may be fun, but it's completely tangential to the story of our four leads. Henry doesn't need these military types to battle the aliens -- he uses his psychic powers (and Duddits' elbow grease) to defeat them on his own. Worse still, the more time the script spends with Freeman & Co., the less time it spends developing the real protagonists. That's not good when the audience needs to have an emotional stake in their success or failure.
Stephen King once said he judges adaptations of his movies three ways: good, bad or indifferent. I'd have to say DREAMCATCHER falls in the last two categories. Hopefully his next adaptation will fall in the first.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is currently a screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
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