Dreamcatcher (film)
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| Dreamcatcher | |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Lawrence Kasdan |
| Produced by | Charles Okun |
| Written by | Novel: Stephen King Screenplay: William Goldman Lawrence Kasdan |
| Starring | Morgan Freeman Damian Lewis Thomas Jane Tom Sizemore Jason Lee Timothy Olyphant Donnie Wahlberg |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Release date(s) | 2003 |
| Running time | 136 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $68 million |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dreamcatcher (2003) is a movie adapted from the Stephen King novel of the same name. It was directed by Lawrence Kasdan, cowritten by Kasdan and screenwriter William Goldman. The film featured Morgan Freeman as Colonel Abraham Curtis, a shoot-first alien hunter, Thomas Jane as Henry Devlin, Donnie Wahlberg as Douglas "Duddits" Cavell, Jason Lee as Joe "Beaver" Clarendon, Timothy Olyphant as Pete Moore, and Damian Lewis as Gary "Jonesy" Jones.
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[edit] Plot
Jonesy, Henry, Pete and Beaver are four friends who share the unique telepathic ability to read each other's minds, a gift they call the "line" which they each acquired as children when they befriended a mentally challenged boy named Douglas "Duddits" Clavell, after rescuing him from a brutal group of high school boys. Grown up, the four friends go on their annual hunting trip one cold winter in Derry, Maine, staying at a log cabin known as Hole in the Wall.
One morning while hunting at Hole in the Wall, Jonesy almost shoots a man named Rick McCarthy, who has been wandering out in the woods because he has lost his fellow travelers. Jonesy and Beaver courteously invite him into the cabin, and then notice a red mark on his cheek, as well as how he exhibits dyspepsia and extremely foul flatulence. The two men send McCarthy into the bedroom to rest before they witness a spectacular animal migration outside, studying the red marks on the animals that resemble the red mark on McCarthy' cheek. Then they encounter two helicopters that loom over the cabin. The pilot warns them that the area is destined to be quarantined, but no one takes him seriously. Jonesy and Beaver go back into the cabin only to find McCarthy's blood trailed all over the wooden floor; leading all the way to the bathroom. When McCarthy fails to let them in, they bust the door open and find a horrifying display of reddish moss and gore splattered all over the bathroom walls. McCarthy is seated on the toilet, and excretes something that sounds alive. Beaver knocks McCarthy's dead body into the bathtub and seats himself on the toilet, the lid shut beneath him, with the "thing" trapped inside.
Beaver attempts to flush the creature down the toilet, and into the septic tank. Silence is heard from the toilet, and Beaver takes out his box of toothpicks (chewing on toothpicks is a nervous habit of Beaver's). Suddenly, the creature in the toilet bursts beneath Beaver, causing the toothpicks to scatter on the floor. Jonesy then runs out to the shed to find a roll of tape to strap down the toilet seat, as Beaver waits nervously, (with no toothpick to calm him down) he attempts to grab two clean toothpicks on the floor, but is knocked off the seat when the creature bursts up with a powerful force. The creature is a terrifying lamprey-like creature (nicknamed the "Shit Weasel") with a long set of ferocious jaws, and by the time Jonesy returns, he is too late to save his friend, and Beaver is killed when the Weasel flies into his face and devours it off screen. Jonesy escapes the bathroom and tries to keep the Weasel trapped inside, but accidentally pulls out the doorknob and is approached out of nowhere by a gargantuan gray alien creature, who explodes into a cloud of red dust, which Jonesy inhales. As a result, the alien, known as Mr. Gray, takes over Jonesy's body. Mr. Gray has a meticulous English accent, which distinguishes him from Jonesy's American accent, as both inhabit the same body and argue in back-to-back perspectives.
Meanwhile, Henry and Pete, who are miles away from the cabin and unaware of what is going on, end up in a car accident that occurs when Henry swerves to avoid a frost-bitten woman who is sitting in the middle of the road. She tells them that she "has to find Rick", but they have no idea what she is talking about. Henry volunteers to leave and get help while Pete stays with the mysterious woman and gets drunk. The woman dies silently and excretes a Weasel into the snow, which then attacks Pete during his drunken state. Pete is able to kill the Weasel with a piece of firewood, but is then found and captured by Mr. Gray, who is still controlling Jonesy's body; Jonesy, however, is still able to telepathically warn Henry to stay hidden from Mr. Gray.
Far away, an alien hunter named Curtis (Morgan Freeman) is the leader of Blue Unit, a secret military unit involved with containing the aliens and he is running a military camp containing a horde of civilians victimized by the alien plague. Curtis' strategy is to have all the civilians killed and appoints Owen (Tom Sizemore) to help him win the battle against the aliens in a spectacularly demonstrated aerial fight against the nearby spaceship. In that battle, it is observed that the aliens possess telepathic abilities, and attempt to guilt the task force from decimating the landing site. The aliens also possess the ability to camouflage or change into a more benevolent appearing, humanoid-type alien. However, shortly after bombarding the site with hellfire missiles, the aliens quickly changed back into their true forms and activated a defense-mechanism that can only be described as, "an intelligent, red-byrus explosion", destroying 2 other helicopters excluding Curtis and Owens ones. Later, Henry enters the camp discovering that he is able to read Owen's mind, thus convincing him that Curtis is going insane and should not be obeyed. Owen teams up with Henry and has the camp seized by the regular U.S. Army. Curtis escapes via helicopter.
As Owen and Henry flee the camp, Jonesy is still trapped inside his own mind, which is portrayed as a vast Memory Warehouse in which all of Jonesy's important memories are stored in boxes. The majority of his body, unfortunately, is still controlled by Mr. Gray, who is holding Pete hostage during a snowmobile ride. Jonesy is devastated when Pete refuses to cooperate with Mr. Gray and is tragically eaten by him. Then, Mr. Gray kills a truck driver, kidnaps his dog, and hijacks a police cruiser after killing the police officer. He forces the dog to eat a portion of red moss so that a Weasel can grow inside its stomach. Next, Jonesy realizes that the boxes in his Memory Warehouse containing the memories of Duddits are vital to Mr. Gray's needs. Jonesy frantically collects all the boxes and moves them down to a lower floor of the Warehouse so that Mr. Gray cannot get them.
As Jonesy continues to elude Mr. Gray from within the Memory Warehouse, Henry and Owen arrive at the home of Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg) and take him along so that he can guide them in their quest to stop Mr. Gray. Duddits reveals that Mr. Gray is headed for the Quabbin Reservoir and plans to pollute the water with the Weasel growing inside the suffering dog. They arrive at the Reservoir and approach the abandoned police cruiser when Owen is suddenly ambushed by Curtis' helicopter. Owen is able to shoot Curtis down, but dies from his wounds.
Henry takes Owen's submachinegun and breaks into the Reservoir, finding Mr. Gray inside. After killing the Weasel that has come out of the dead dog's body, Henry vows to shoot Mr. Gray if he cannot prove that he is really Jonesy. However, Duddits walks inside and identifies him as Mr. Gray. Enraged, Mr. Gray finally comes out of Jonesy's body, reverts to his true alien form, and battles Duddits. Duddits then turns into an alien creature himself, and sacrifices his life as both creatures attach to each other and explode in a cloud of red dust, which briefly resembles a dreamcatcher. The real Jonesy, now back to normal, gets up from the ground and stomps his foot on a Weasel worm-larvae that was about to contaminate the water. Henry then smiles at Jonesy, realizing that he is now back to normal, Mr. Gray has perished, and the world has been saved.
[edit] Relation to the book
The basic content of the movie very closely followed the original book, but the ending of the movie is drastically changed to an alien showdown. Duddits ends up morphing into an alien and engages into a duel with Mr. Gray; unlike in the book, when Jonesy apparently kills Mr. Gray while Mr. Gray is still occupying his body.
[edit] Differences from the book
- Kurtz, called Curtis in the movie, follows Underhill and Henry with the help of two byrus-infected soldiers who have telepathic abilities in the book whereas in the movie he follows them by putting a GPS transmitter in the gun that he gives Underhill. This was probably done to shorten the movie and create less confusion.
- Mr Gray kills the truck driver and police officer by changing shape into a large byrus-type animal in the movie but kills them by controlling their minds and forcing them to kill themselves in the book.
- The "Grayboys" and byrum appear to be the same organism in the movie but in the book they are different, Mr Gray cannot change shape in the book.
- In the book, everyone who came into contact with the byrus gained telepathic abilities to some extent. This subplot is absent from the movie, in which only the five friends have this ability.
- There is no reference in the novel to Duddits being an otherworldly entity, or set there on purpose as an antithesis to Mr. Gray. As such, the climactic showdown between Duddits and Mr. Gray at the end of the movie never occurs in the book.
[edit] External links
- Dreamcatcher at the Internet Movie Database
- Dreamcatcher at Rotten Tomatoes
- Dreamcatcher at Metacritic
- Dreamcatcher at Box Office Mojo
- Morgan Freeman interview for Dreamcatcher
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