K, so here I am, the innocent and blissfully unsuspecting film buff and amateur critic, wandering into my local multiplex to catch a late show of the newest science fiction/suspense thriller Dreamcatcher, based on a not-half bad Stephen King novel about an alien invasion. I thought the book was pretty good, in a pulpy sort of way, and the studio apparently put some effort into classing up the inevitable film adaptation. They went ahead and hired Lawrence Kasdan, writer/director of one certifiable noir classic (Body Heat) and a bunch of wordy but heartfelt character-driven dramas, including Grand Canyon, The Accidental Tourist, and that overrated paean to self-indulgent Baby Boomer navel-gazing, The Big Chill. Perhaps, I think to myself (oh, the naïveté!), this is Kasdan returning to his fanboy roots. He did, after all, get his start by writing the scripts for The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. The final bait to lure me into the theater was the casting of Morgan Freeman as the psychotic Gen. Curtis. This, I distinctly remember thinking, could be interesting, a well-made mainstream Hollywood thriller that actually succeeds at delivering its fair share of chills and a modicum of character development.


As it turns out, my expectations were rather low. Instead of merely seeing an above-average Hollywood sci-fi thriller, my viewing of Dreamcatcher allowed me to answer an age old philosophical and artistic question: Is it possible for a film to be stunningly awful and spasmodically, insanely brilliant at the same time? Yes, apparently. When attempting to describe this movie to friends, words often fail me. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before—this film is so ridiculously over-the-top that it achieves a kind of idiotic transcendence. I’m still not sure whether to recommend Dreamcatcher as a must-see or an “avoid at all costs.” I guess, though, it all comes down to how you react to a movie entirely devoid of character development, acting, a good script, plausibility, and basic directorial competence for the sake of a nutty thrill ride.


This, I realize, requires an explanation. All I can say is that as the credits rolled and I lay slumped back in my seat, as if physically struck by the sheer, balls-out awfulness of the movie, my mind began to concoct a scenario. What if you were a studio producer and decided to provide 1950s trash director Ed Wood with, say, a $60 million budget and complete artistic control over his next movie? What if Wood, in turn, were to hire the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons to write the script? And to top it off, what if Wood were to leave the editing of his new film to his trusted associate, Helen Keller? The final result, I think, would reasonably approximate Dreamcatcher.


In retrospect, the opening scene should have provided a clue as to the kind of movie Dreamcatcher was going to be. We meet Henry (Thomas Jane), a prosperous psychiatrist apparently haunted by his own mental demons. How do we know this? Well, in the first minute of the movie he tries to kill himself. No explanation is provided as to why, either in that first scene or the entire rest of the movie. He’s just, you know, troubled. But he gets better after killing a bunch of aliens, and by the end of the movie he seems to be right as rain. Talk about your character arcs.


We are also introduced to Pete, Jonesy, and Beav. These guys are all old childhood friends, and have a deep psychic connection that is rooted in a shared past experience. Example Number One of this psychic power is when Beav calls Jonesy up and tells him to “be careful, I’ve got a bad feeling about tonight.” Ten seconds later Jonesy (Damian Lewis) unthinkingly walks out onto the street and gets creamed by a car going full speed. See, telepathic powers lose their utility unless you are prepared to act on them—looking both ways while crossing the street might be a start. But Jonesy survives, and as an indicator of the excruciating pain with which he must now live, limps slightly for the remainder of the movie.


Meanwhile, Pete (Timothy Olyphant) is a full-blown alcoholic, while Beav is just not all that bright (It says something about the poor casting of this movie that Beav, who is supposed to the lovably stupid one, is played by Jason Lee as the only one of the four friends who you would possibly want to spend more than thirty seconds talking to). The four of them make their annual winter pilgrimage to a cabin located deep in the Maine woods, which a bunch of badass aliens have unfortunately chosen as ground zero for their upcoming takeover of Planet Earth. How the aliens manifest themselves, is, um, problematic for the human race, particularly those humans with high fiber intakes. The aliens, you see, plant themselves in the human digestive tract, grow, and eventually explode out of their host’s anal cavities, ready to rock and roll. Yes, you read that right.


But these “shit weasels” are mere attack dogs for the truly nasty aliens, which come as giant, gray beings that are able to take over a human body, pass as actual people, and apparently speak with British accents. The military, fortunately, is aware of this problem, and sends out a special commando unit run by Morgan Freeman as the aforementioned Colonel Curtis. In the book, Curtis is actually “Kurtz,” but the filmmakers probably made a wise choice in not attempting to insert Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness references into Dreamcatcher. For this, we should be very thankful. Anyway, Curtis is quickly revealed to be out of his fucking mind, willing to massacre entire towns of unsuspecting civilians to eliminate the chance that the aliens-in-disguise can run free. Our friend Henry therefore takes it upon himself to track down the evil master alien, who has possessed his best buddy Jonesy, before said alien can infect Boston’s Quabbin Reservoir with an evil virus that will allow the extraterrestrial visitors to take over the world. The only way he can do this is to find his old friend Duddits, a retarded man with great psychic powers whom the four friends once saved from bullies when they were all young boys. Duddits is played by Donnie Wahlberg, natch.


If this sounds like the plot to a 1957 B picture, that’s because it is (with apologies to some of those fine films). Kasdan and screenwriter William Goldman (yes, that William Goldman) take this plot and proceed to round it out with mind-bogglingly implausible and laughable scenes. My personal favorite is when a desperate Henry needs to make a long-distance telepathic connection to his pal Jonesy. Henry needs some physical approximation of a phone, so he borrows a gun and begins speaking into the handle. Jonesy and Henry carry on this psychic conversation for about a minute, while the audience and myself attempt to retrieve our jaws from the floor and Tom Sizemore (also in the scene) struggles valiantly to keep a massive grin off his face. Or you may prefer the scene in which Beav traps one of the shit weasels in the toilet and desperately tries to keep the alien ensconced by sitting on the seat. Problem is, Beav is a bit of a toothpick fan, and his stash spilled all over the floor while he struggled with the shit weasel. So, Beav leans forward off the toilet seat, not once, not twice, but three times to try and grab a toothpick while the lethal shit weasel slams itself against the top of the seat. Predictably, the alien is able to get out of the toilet when Beav removes his weight, and Beav suffers the consequences.


And then there’s the ending. Ah, the ending. Please skip this paragraph if you intend to see this movie and are still under the impression that the plot is important. I feel compelled to share the ending with you, if only to confirm to myself that it actually happened. Henry and Duddits battle the master alien in the Quabbin Reservoir. As a native Bostonian, it gave me great pride to see Donnie Wahlberg’s Down Syndrome-suffering hero Duddits take on the alien while wearing a Red Sox jacket. I was considerably nonplussed, however, when Duddits inexplicably and without warning raised his arms, shouted “Scooby doobie Doo, we’ve got a lot of work to do now,” and transmogrified into a giant, clawed good alien, who proceeds to kill the bad one and promptly disappears in a puff of colored smoke. Henry and Jonesy, realizing how “special” their old friend Duddits truly was, smile at each other. End of movie. All of you out there who secretly suspected that Donnie Wahlberg was in fact a giant alien come to save the human race, raise your hands. Yeah, me too—I pegged him way back in the NKOTB days.


Yes, this movie, by any conventional, rational judgment, truly sucked. It was made without regard for the intelligence of your average four-year old, had a plot that made absolutely no rational sense on any level that I can think of, and made me one more than one occasion wonder if Lawrence Kasdan had truly lost his mind. Then why is it that I could not suppress a huge, shameless grin when walking out of the theater? Probably because, for all its faults, indeed because of all its faults, few films can surpass Dreamcatcher for pure, insane, giddy fun. You cannot take this film seriously—so don’t. Get high as a kite and wander into your local cinema on a rainy weekend afternoon. You might be surprised by how much you enjoy this moviegoing experience. Then again, maybe not. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.