When Larry (Kasdan) met Stephen (King): 'Dreamcatcher' movie review

What do you get when you combine the talents of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, whose films are character-driven and meditative, and Stephen King, whose stories often focus on ordinary people in extraordinary (and often horrific) situations? You probably expect to see an odd hybrid that is part “The Big Chill,” part “Stand by Me.”

Well, if you toss in a smidgen of thematic material from Byron Haskin’s 1953 invaders-from-Mars classic “The War of the Worlds,” the result of such a mashup is Kasdan’s 2003 film “Dreamcatcher,” a science fiction/horror tale based on King’s eponymous 2001 novel.

Co-written by Kasdan (“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) and William Goldman (“A Bridge Too Far,” “Misery,” “The Princess Bride”), “Dreamcatcher” tells the tale of four lifelong friends (played by Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, and Timothy Olyphant) who stumble upon an alien invasion while on their annual hunting trip to a cabin near Derry, Maine.

Kasdan begins “Dreamcatcher” in a short but revelatory sequence that introduces the four protagonists. Henry Devlin (Jane) is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist; Joe “Beaver” Clarendon (Lee) is an amiable carpenter with a fondness for oldies songs; Pete Moore (Olyphant) is a used car salesman who had dreamed of becoming an astronaut; and Gary “Jonesy” Jones, a professor of history at a local college.

Joe 'Beaver' Clarendon: Here's to Duddits... our dreamcatcher. Wish he was here.

Pete Moore: To the Duds.

Dr. Henry Devlin: To Douglas Cavell.

Gary 'Jonesy' Jones: To Duddits.

“Dreamcatcher” then flashes back 20 years, when the four friends were 12 years old. In a scene that evokes Rob Reiner’s “Stand by Me,” Jonesy, Beaver, Henry, and Pete stop two high school football players from tormenting a mentally challenged boy named Douglas “Duddits” Cavell (Andrew Robb). Gratefully, Duddits becomes their lifelong friend – and somehow gives the boys the gift of telepathy (which they call “the line”).

Back in the film’s present day, ominous things are afoot. Six months after Jonesy is nearly killed when he is hit by a car (an event based on the 1999 accident that seriously injured author Stephen King), the guys meet at their cabin, Hole in the Woods, for their annual hunting trip. But a severe snowstorm is coming – with sub-freezing temperatures, strong winds, and an estimated eight inches of snow.

But worse things than a blizzard and icy winds lurk in the woods, as Beaver, Henry, Pete, and Jonesy discover the next day when Jonesy encounters Rick McCarthy (Eric Keenleyside), a lost and disoriented hunter who spent the night out in the woods. His face bears red marks that resemble frostbite, and he has gas in his belly, which he says he got by eating berries in the wild.

Helpful as ever, Jonesy invites McCarthy to take shelter in Hole in the Woods to rest and recover from his ordeal. Things take a horrifying turn, however, when Rick’s strange digestive issues turn out to be something stranger than anyone imagines.

At this point, “Dreamcatcher” leaves the realm of Kasdan’s world of character-driven drama and enters King’s eerie mix of horror and sci-fi. From this point on, the film tracks two storylines – the four friends’ struggle to survive what can be politely referred to as the Invasion of the Crap Weasels, and the efforts of the obsessive Col. Abe Curtis (Morgan Freeman) to eradicate the aliens from their foothold in the snowy Maine woods.

“Dreamcatcher” is Lawrence Kasdan’s first time out as a director of a big special effects film along the lines of “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” (which he wrote after the death of that film’s original screenwriter, Leigh Brackett). His production company, Kasdan Pictures, hired George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic to create the impressive visual effects, which include a mix of old-school practical effects and digitally-rendered CG imagery.

The film has much going for it. The ensemble of veteran actors, which includes Donnie Wahlberg as the adult Duddits, gives the audience good, solid performances that make the characters both believable and watchable. The best acting in “Dreamcatcher” is Damian Lewis’ double role as Jonesy and the aliens’ leader, Mr. Gray.

“Dreamcatcher” also benefits from excellent production design by Jon Hutman, who created an ingenious set for the film’s “Memory Warehouse” sequences. The cinematography by John Seale and the eerie, heavy-on-electronics score by composer James Newton Howard add a distinct mix of camera work and music that makes “Dreamcatcher” one of the more stylish adaptations of a work by Stephen King.

Sadly, the film didn’t do well at the box office during its 2003 theatrical run. It earned $75 million worldwide, which means “Dreamcatcher” broke even – its budget was an estimated $68 million, and it performed better overseas than in the crucial North American market.   

“Dreamcatcher’s” underperformance had a negative effect on its director’s career. In a 2012 interview with LA Weekly, Kasdan said that he had been "wounded careerwise. But not so much personally. I've been personally wounded by other movies, where I'd written it, and thought, 'Oh, God, the world's not interested in what I'm interested in.' With ‘Dreamcatcher,’ the career was hurt. I was planning to do ‘The Risk Pool’ with Tom Hanks. I had written the script from a great book by Richard Russo (Nobody's Fool). And it didn't happen. Then another one didn't happen. Meanwhile, two years have passed here, two have passed there. That's how you're wounded.”

Blu-ray Specifications

Video

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (29.99 Mbps)

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect ratio: 2.40:1

Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)

French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)

German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)

Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)

Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0

Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0
Russian: Dolby Digital 2.0
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles

English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German SDH, Russian

Discs

50GB Blu-ray Disc

Single disc (1 BD)

Playback

Region 1   

Miscellaneous

·        Rated: R (Restricted)

·        Studio: Warner Home Video

·        DVD Release Date: September 16, 2014

·        Run Time: 134 minutes