DREAMCATCHER (2003) - Stephen King gets the shits.

DIRECTED by Lawrence Kasdan.

SCREENPLAY by William Goldman and Lawrence kasdan based on the novel 'Dreamcatcher' by Stephen King.

STARRING  - Thomas Jane as Henry Devlin (Mikey Holekamp as young Henry),  Damien Lewis as Gary "Jonesy" Jones/Mr Gray (Giacomo Baessato as young Gary),  Timothy Olyphant as Pete Moore (Joel Palmer as young Pete),  Jason Lee as Joe "Beaver" Clarendon (Reece Thompson as young Joe),  Donnie Wahlberg as Douglas "Duddits" Cavell (Andrew Robb/Tyler Myer as young Duddits),  Morgan Freeman as Col. Abraham Curtis,  Tom Sizemore as Lieut. Owen Underhill.

PLOT  - Twenty years ago in the town of Derry, four teenage boys - Henry,  Jonesy, Pete and Beaver save a young boy with Downs Syndrome  - Duddits  - from a beating at the hands of a group of local bullies. There is more to Duddits than meets the eye though, for he has psychic abilities that he can pass onto others if he so chooses. Duddits, by way of thanks, grants these abilities onto his new found friends. Thier lives will never be the same again...

Twenty years later - the boys are now in thier mid- Thirties and thier lives seem to be in a downwards spiral. Henry is suffering from depression. Jonesy has been in an accident that very nearly killed him and is still suffering from the side effects of his injuries. Pete is lonely and has a drinking problem and Beaver suffers from anxiety. The one thing that keeps them sane is thier friendship. Every year, regardless of what is going on, they meet up for a Winter break and go on a weekend hunting trip in a log cabin in the woods. This year is no different...at first...

Jonesy encounters a sick man in the woods, he has a strange red rash on his face, a bloated stomach and extreme flatulence. The man - Rick - is also suffering from frostbite. Jonesy takes him back to the cabin but Rick's symptoms worsen. Jonesy and Beaver notice that animals are suddenly running past the cabin as if in fear of thier lives, there is also a military helicopter flying overhead declaring the area to be in quarantine. Jonesy and Beaver discover Rick dead on the toilet, bleeding from his anus, he appears to have shat out a vicious and deadly worm like creature...

Very soon, the friends are fighting for thier lives against a terrifying alien menace and an insane military commander who is determined to the destroy the alien invaders no matter what the cost. Even if that means wiping out the entire human population of the quarantined area. Can the four friends escape with thier lives, and what does all this have to do with a sick and dying Duddits ?

DIALOUGE  - Col. Curtis - "Those poor schmucks...they drive Chevrolets, shop at Wal-Mart, never miss an episode of 'Friends'. Those are Americans. The idea of slaughtering Americans...it turns my stomach...but I WILL do it !"

PERFORMANCES  - Another Stephen King adaptation, another ensemble cast, this time featuring several "A-list" names mixed in with more obscure actors.

Thomas Jane plays Henry, the character who is probably the closest to being the main "hero" of the story. Henry is ostensibly the "leader" of the group of friends and although suffering from bouts of depression, he appears to be the most resourceful and adept at surviving both the harsh situation that the friends find themselves in and the bitter and treacherous winter conditions when he is trapped outdoors in the woods. Thomas Jane makes for a likeable main hero and went on to star as the central character in another King adaptation - the Mist (2007). Jane is a good actor but the thing that really stands out to me about him is his strong, physical resembelence to a young Star Trek era William Shatner...

He even has similar mannerisms. He could easily pass for Shatner's son and why someone hasn't cast the two as father and son in a film yet, I'll never know. Chris Pine was really good playing the young James. T. Kirk in the rebooted Star Trek films, but I can't help thinking that they missed a trick by not casting Jane as Kirk instead.

Damien Lewis plays two roles - Jonesy and also the evil alien that possesses him in the second half of the film - Mr Gray. As Jonesy he's an all round good guy but when Mr Gray takes over his consciousness he becomes camply evil. For some bizzare reason the Mr Gray personna speaks with an upper class English accent, this is never explained why but strangely it works. The clipped, recieved pronunciation makes Gray appear charming and friendly on the surface but flips seamlessly into outright psychosis. You can tell that Lewis is enjoying chewing the scenery as an intergalactic Bond villain. Its a somewhat O.T.T performance but its fun to watch nonetheless.

The other two characters out of the initial group of four, appear in the film for a shorter amount of time but are still good performances. Jason Lee as Beaver is basically playing a variation on the usual character type that he plays - a potty mouthed, loveable, smart arse, but here he gives Beaver a vulnerable side that adds depth to the character. Timothy Olyphant plays Pete as a likeable loser, unlucky in love and coping with his loneliness by drinking too much. He's good, you'll feel sorry for him. It's testament to how well these two play thier roles that you feel thier loss and miss the characters in the second half of the film.

Morgan Freeman plays the film's human villain - Colonel Abraham Curtis. Curtis is a veteran soldier who has spent the past few decades fighting alien invaders and covering up the incursions after the fact. You get the impression that he was originally a good man but somewhere along the line he has snapped and gone insane. That he's become so obsessed with protecting the Earth that he now believes that the ends justify the means. He's remorseless and utterly ruthless. A dangerous man who believes that he is unquestionably right. Freeman, of course, plays this character brilliantly. I've never seen the man put in a bad performance and his turn as Curtis is no exception.

Rounding out the cast is Tom Sizemore as Owen Underhill, Curtis's second in command and the man being groomed to take over when Curtis retires. Underhill starts out as a loyal soldier who carries out his orders to the letter, but as the film progresses he becomes disillusioned and horrified by the lengths to which Curtis is prepared to go. He eventually betrays Curtis and helps Henry. Sizemore is another good actor and he gives Underhill a sense of weariness as the character's eyes are slowly opened to the truth of what he is becoming a party to.

An unrecognisable Donnie Wahlberg plays the dying Duddits. In the present day section of the story, Duddits is dying from Lukemia. Wahlberg plays the part with a quiet dignity and aided by the excellent make-up work he really does look like a sick and dying man. He's not in it for long but he leaves his mark on the film.

Just a quick mention of the kids who play the teenaged versions of the main characters. All of them do a good job and are well cast. They all manage to convincingly look and act like thier older counterparts. Joel Palmer as the younger version of Pete looks uncannily like Timothy Olyphant, theres no trouble making the connection that they're supposed to be the same person at different points of his life. A thought occurred to me whilst writing this that this film was made twenty years ago. All the kids will now be grown up and will be about the same ages as the actors where at the time who played thier adult versions in this film. The passage of time is a strange thing...

SFX  - This being the early 00's the effects are all CGI. However, unlike The Langoliers, here the effects have actually had a decent wedge of money thrown at them and hold up well twenty years later.

The creatures that are "born" from thier human host's bowels (nicknamed "Shit Weasels") are stomach churningly horrible, they look like a cross between a snake and a slimy turd with teeth...

You really wouldn't want that crawling out of your arse at 3am in the morning, would you...

The grey aliens are OK but they work less well than the Shit Weasels, the CGI somehow seems to have aged less well and they don't look as realistic...

Mr Gray's final form is yet another CG creation and looks to be a cross between both the Shit Weasel and Grey alien forms...

I like this creature, you can never go far wrong with a cool monster. As with all the other CG creature effects in this movie it still looks good two decades later.

There's also a nice CGI alien spaceship too...

SEX & VIOLENCE  - This is probably one of the more violent Stephen King movie adaptations. People get chomped in half by aliens, limbs get severed, blood pours from ruptured arses and a toilet in a cosy log cabin ends up looking like an abattoir on a busy day.

RATING  - Dreamcatcher is a strange movie. It's like a cross between a mainstream Hollywood motion picture (the type that wins awards and everything) and a sleazy Grindhouse B-movie. 

It's a beautifully shot film. The snowed over landscapes are stunning to look at and the whole film evokes a cold, wintery feel. I usually watch this around Christmas time for full effect. The acting is all top notch and the effects show that CGI can work when its used properly and has a decent budget allocated to it.

The story is absolutely mental and is totally at odds to what you'd expect from such a lavish production. This has got to be the only film where people shit out aliens. As a concept its absolutely bonkers. When Stephen King wrote the original novel, he was recovering from a hit and run accident in which he nearly lost his life and was out of his mind on industrial strength painkillers. It certainly shows as this story is NOT the product of a stable and healthy mind. It's absolutely great though - Dreamcatcher remains one of my favourite Stephen King books and also one of my favourite Stephen King films. A touching story of friendship across the decades and killer turds, thats really not something you can say about most books and movies.

I'm giving it 4 and a half carnivorous stools out of 5, it drops half a point for the disappointing and confusing ending twist that comes out of nowhere, totally left field. Apart from that, excellent stuff. You'll never look at going for a dump in quite the same way ever again.

Literally seconds after posting this review, I found this in my inbox, I felt it was appropriate and a nice little quirk of coincidence and just had to share it. Enjoy.