Dreamcatcher is a bizarre film. Why so many talented people got together to work on a film about ass aliens defies all explanation. The creative team involved was behind some of my favorite films, including The Empire Strikes Back, on of the best movies ever made. The key actors are some of the most underrated actors of our era. Why did they all get together to make this mess of a movie?
The plot, such as it is, involves a group of psychic friends who go on a hunting trip, where a good third of the movie is spent on them joking around about viagra and boners. Soon they encounter a couple of diseased locals. These locals spend a good ten minutes of film time farting and belching, before finally giving birth to the aforementioned ass aliens. This leads to one of the more dramatic scenes in the film, when Beaver (Jason Lee) frantically sits on a toilet lid to prevent an ass alien from escaping.
Soon the military gets involved, setting up a quarantine and plotting to kill everyone who may have been exposed to the aliens. Morgan Freeman plays a crazed general who at one point blows off the fingers of an underling who disobeyed him. For some reason, Tom Sizemore (a real life crazy person) plays Freeman’s sane second-in-command.
The surviving psychic buddies escape. One, Jonesy, has been possessed by an alien, Mr.Gray, and the other, Henry, goes to their other psychic friend with down syndrome, Duddits, to stop the evil aliens. Meanwhile, Morgan Freeman is hot on their trail.
If this sounds convoluted and strange, it’s nothing compared to the actual film. I’m assuming that this is the only movie where Timothy Olyphant will have to hump a lit fire. At least I hope so. Did I mention the ass aliens?
Dreamcatcher never seems to maintain a proper tone, shifting between raunchy comedy, horror, and action. This inability to choose a tone is very distracting to the overall film. Besides this, none of these are well done. The comedy feels very unnatural and forced, the horror is just too silly (Ass Aliens!), and the action scenes are incredibly unexciting and ugly. Funny how little time it takes for CGI to age horribly.
The character of Duddits is at the very least borderline offensive- a magical handicapped person seems quite similar to the old standard of the “magic negro”. Besides this, Lawrence Kasdan chose to use non-disabled actors for the part. This is troublesome for two reasons : acting gigs for those with down syndrome are already few and far between, and having non-disabled actors is similar to having a white man don blackface.
These aliens are essentially like the alien from Alien. They gestate inside a host body, then emerge to feed and spread their seed. Although, these aliens are vaginal instead of phallic (reminiscent of the indie horror film, Teeth), Dreamcatcher doesn’t try to hide its influences. The soldiers actually refer to the aliens as Ripley, a stated allusion to the classic sci-fi horror film. Unfortunately, that comparison only hurts this movie, as we're reminded of a much better film.
However, despite these serious flaws, the film still has ass aliens, crazy Morgan Freeman, an alien with a British accent, and a multitude of other weird elements that I don’t want to ruin for you. Like most crapsterpieces, I can’t claim that this is a well made film. I can say that it is moderately fun, and might make a good nights entertainment with your buddies.
Critical Score: 2 out of 5
Crapsterpiece Score: 3.5 out of 5
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