Shelfbound

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King is a weird old book and the film adaptation, written by William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Kasdan, is fucking nuts. This was the first novel King wrote after being knocked all to shit by a van and it has about a thousand different themes shoved into it at weird angles. There are childhood friends tied together by a formative supernatural event, the mentally challenged as extra-perceptive vehicles of The Other, an alien invasion, military black ops, psychic abilities, mental subjugation, and an amazing epilogue in which two main characters hang out at a barbeque and summarize what happened in case the reader didn’t catch it. Which, make no mistake, is entirely possible because that’s one dense book.

The movie manages to be even denser. This is a classic B-movie with a cast that brings their A-games; the remarkable thing is how many insanely talented people are in this movie and how completely they commit to the batshit crazy plot. Four childhood friends stop a group of bullies from making a young mentally challenged boy eat dog shit and are rewarded with psychic powers. Years later the four friends gather at a remote cabin in wintry Maine to do some hunting and bonding. This is interrupted when an alien craft crash-lands nearby and some of the critters start infecting the humans. How do these creatures work? See, a tiny worm works its way into a human body and gestates there, slowly moving down the intestinal tract whilst it grows–causing the host to let out thunderous belches and farts–and ultimately eats its way out of the host’s asshole.

"What about the shit weasels? The ones blasting out the basement door."

Then the military shows up and things manage to get even more ludicrous. So now there is a black ops military unit operating in the woods of Maine, quarantining civilians and having internal power struggles and expositing the hell out of the background of the alien race. As a bonus there is a handgun that once belonged to John Wayne and the obligatory shooting of a subordinate to maintain discipline. Meanwhile an alien has also possessed (the mind not the colon of) one of the friends, leading to inevitable scenes of death, maiming and drunkenness. Amidst all of this military attack helicopters find time to mount an assault on the downed alien craft in a scene that manages to evoke Apocalypse Now, Independence Day and Starship Troopers in a special effects extravaganza that is as awesome as it is totally out of place.

"See, I'm practically priasmic."

Jason Lee plays Beaver, the blue collar member of the group. He is saddled with some of the most annoying dialogue from the novel–King’s cutesy made-up slang like “fuck-a-ree” and “fuck-a-row” and “Jesus-Christ-bananas” which no one would ever say out loud ever… but to Lee’s credit he makes it work. This is not a comic relief role; in fact all four of the main characters veer from comedy to drama with ease. Lee hints at a deep sadness within Beaver, maybe something that Beav himself doesn’t understand, particularly in his opening moments drinking alone at a bar. It’s nearly too nuanced for the character, who is good-hearted but also reveals himself to be criminally fucking stupid when he confronts one of the shit weasels. It speaks to the level of work that Lee does as the character, though, that you still root for him even when his behavior is so abysmally lacking in logic that his reward should be a horrifying death.

"I don't know. I think I'm gonna have to shoot you. Just to be sure."

In many ways Thomas Jane has the least rewarding job in this film. He plays Henry, a psychiatrist who finds himself using his mind-reading powers to violate his patients’ privacy and force unwanted therapeutic revelations on them. Which, you know, funny, but probably not board-approved. Henry is suicidal at the beginning of the film but his reasons are never quite revealed nor does that depression play out as a character arc. Instead events quickly push him to the center of the alien invasion story and Jane plays the humor, desperation, sadness, and heroism that Henry cycles through equally well. He simply doesn’t have as interesting a characterization or motivation as his three friends and so stands out a little less.

"Talkin' shit about the only perfect person I ever knew."

Oh Timothy Olyphant. You are so handsome.

Wait am I supposed to say more here? Okay. Olyphant plays Pete, a used car salesman who uses his magical-psychic-finding-lost-things power (with the bonus power of locating the highway super easily) to pick up women who show up on the lot. Pete is supposed to be a little schlubby, a little sleazy, but decent-hearted enough. Not quite Paul Giamatti-level, but probably not as handsome as Timothy Olyphant. But will you catch me complaining about how handsome Timothy Olyphant is? No sir or madam you will not. Particularly not when he imbues Pete with a hilarious and boozy self-awareness that makes him the guy to beat in this movie of scene-stealers. Pete delivers a monologue, drunk and alone and freezing his ass off in the snow, that is the highlight of the movie. This speech encompasses his alcoholism, his womanizing, his shitty job, his powers, his friends, and his will to keep living; Olyphant delivers it with an amazing combination of pathos and humor.

"And Beav... sit tight, buddy."

Damien Lewis is a fantastic actor with a great track record, from Band of Brothers all the way through the tragically underrated Life, and this performance is no different. He plays Jonesy, the teacher who gets hit by a car (King had some shit to work through, okay?) and eventually gets possessed by an alien they call Mr. Gray. Lewis swaps between American and British accents to play the dueling personalities. There are no special effects used to denote the changes, just the voice, posture, and facial expressions. This effect is particularly chilling when Lewis smiles; he looks like someone is test-driving his face and doesn’t quite know what a smile is supposed to look like. Which is, in effect, exactly what is happening.  Part of Jonesy’s gift is manifested in his “memory warehouse”: he visualizes a vast physical space in which he can catalog and recall all of his memories. There is also an office in the warehouse and this is where Jonesy’s mind is trapped, safe from the Mr. Grey personality but forced to watch helplessly as the alien hijacks his body and uses it to do terrible terrible things.

"Those poor schmucks... they drive Chevrolets, shop at Wal-Mart, never miss an episode of Friends. These are Americans. The idea of slaughtering Americans... it just turns my stomach."

Then there is Morgan Freeman continuing his streak of playing white dudes from Stephen King novels. His character is about as subtle and sane as his eyebrows. Seriously look at those eyebrows! That’s the wildest special effect in the movie. King threw nuance out the window (and delightfully so) in the novel, straight up naming him Kurtz. The film pulls back a little and renames him Curtis but the core of crazy is intact. Colonel Curtis leads the black ops military unit that has been fighting alien incursions for years. Nearly everything he says is an action movie cliche. He’s an amalgamation of a half dozen Claremont-ian vocal tics- “boyo” and “schmuck” and “laddie” and “capice” all emerge from his mouth like it’s the United Nations scene at the end of Batman. Freeman is completely self-aware in this role, playing it with a wink and a nod and a helicopter-piloting hair trigger.

The first half of the movie unfolds fairly leisurely, letting the audience spend time with each of the main characters and doing some nice world building. Then the second half gets all crazy compacted and suddenly there are these Star Wars-style screen wipes for transitions happening every three minutes and things start speeding up like mad. It feels like plot elements are being flung aside or left out entirely by the sheer speed of the advancing plot. Characters start dying off rather perfunctorily and then Donnie Wahlberg shows up for like five minutes plus two CGI alien creatures have a wrestling match. I feel like there’s a four hour director’s cut out there that we’ll never see. The last half of the movie plays like a highlight reel for a much longer movie. Don’t get me wrong- it’s a delightful highlight reel but ultimately I’m left wanting more. There are enough ideas in this movie to fuel an entire television show of mind readers and shit weasels. In the end, sadly, those possibilities must be stored away in the memory warehouse.