Can a movie fail as artistic expression but succeed as a gut-wrenching, goo-spewing, fart-blasting orgy of unsettling images? Surprisingly, the answer is "yes." "Dreamcatcher," the latest film adaptation of a Stephen King novel, rewards your investment of two hours and eight bucks with a laudable level of nausea and anxiety.
"Dreamcatcher's" opening scenes introduce four friends who share a common burden. Jonesy (Damian Lewis), Pete (Timothy Olyphant), Beaver (Jason Lee) and Henry (Thomas Jane) are telepathic. When they were in elementary school, the friends saved a retarded boy, Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg), from bullies, and he gave them psychic powers as a reward. Inexplicably, their only reaction to this earth-shattering development was to include him in their playgroup, and they actually fail to keep in touch with him as an adult. Huh?
To forget the troubles of ESP, the guys hold an annual gathering at a backwoods cabin in Maine. Shortly after arriving, the group prepares to ride out a major snowstorm. Jonesy and Beaver encounter a lost hunter who exhibits some disturbingly unusual frostbite, and they take him into their cabin. At this point, the filmmakers introduce an intriguing concept: the fart as a portent of doom. The mysterious hunter begins farting uncontrollably. This film successfully imbues the innocent fart with macabre overtones. The ensuing bathroom monster scene reveals the source of the farts: aliens.
The final half of the film involves a typical horror movie race against time with a typical sci-fi quest to save the world. By this point, it's clear that innovation has no place in this screenplay; it's all about things that go "squish." The bottom line is that the filmmakers do a fair job of maintaining a fast pace and a high level of tension, so the technical excellence of the screenplay is of secondary importance. Who cares about plot holes as long as ugly aliens are still doing creepy things?
With gore galore, "Dreamcatcher" is not a good choice for dinner and a movie. The filmmakers went to great lengths to ensure that any monster scene that fails to scare will at least disgust. Moviegoers will once again enjoy the sensation of gagging on popcorn and losing their appetite.
"Dreamcatcher" combines as many disturbing ideas as possible in one movie, so there should be something to spook everyone. By including flying attack slugs, a poop fetish, an alien plague, body-snatchers, shape-shifters, a government conspiracy, a bleak setting and bloody messes, they have their bases covered.
Horror movies are a bizarre breed, and they should be judged on their own merit scale. Let's face it, trying to analyze or criticize most horror pictures as art is like trying to interpret a reeking dung pile as sculpture. Stinking excrement isn't pretty, but it most definitely provokes a reaction. "Dreamcatcher" does just that.
Finally, the animated short "Flight of the Osiris" cannot be seen before the feature presentation in Hanover as nationally advertised. The "Matrix" prequel stretches the movie length to a point that makes Nugget's four-show daily schedule impossible.
