The Pumpkin King: DREAMCATCHER (2003)

Stephen King has not only written an astounding number of books but an impressive number have been adapted into films. Some are award-winning. Some are downright terrible. There’s one, though, that I flip-flop about. Most of the time, I enjoy it. But every once in a while I think about it for long enough and go “hmm yeah maybe that wasn’t such a great idea.” I’m talking about 2003’s DREAMCATCHER.

Based on the book of the same title, DREAMCATCHER follows a group of friends on their yearly cabin retreat when an alien invasion puts a wrench in things. It’s mostly remembered for the way the alien worms get you: through your butthole. A twist on the classic alien anal probe trope, it’s equally ridiculous and terrifying—and frankly, these two words sum up the film perfectly.

Combining several King-isms, the friends (Jonesy, Beaver, Pete and Henry) had a life-altering childhood experience that left them with supernatural powers.

They intervene when Douglas (referred to as “Duddits”), a boy with obvious disabilities, is bullied. Here is where a major part of my conflicted feelings lay: Duddits is an incredibly important character, but at the same time he is barely more than an afterthought.

He’s not fleshed out at all besides his speech impediment (and a frankly dumb plot twist), and while the group refers to him as a friend, he’s never been part of these trips, they don’t visit him, he’s just a prop to move the plot along. If we’re applying the “Sexy Lamp Test,” he could just as well be a magic rock. It kind of sucks.

Another thing about the film is the sheer amount of star power: Jane, Lewis, Olyphant and Lee are all talented and fairly renowned actors. Morgan Freeman is here, as a Colonel! Duddits is strangely played by Donnie Wahlberg, a fact I had completely put out of my mind. (I could get into why having abled actors playing disabled characters is kinda shitty too, but let’s be honest, this isn’t the film on which to bring up such a discussion.)

Really, all the best bits happen in the first half of the film. A hunter with some mega-stomach aches gets rescued by the group and takes a power nap in their cabin. Hearing weird noises, they look outside to see all the animals of the forest running in the same direction (away from the aliens). They all have red, blotchy rashes on them and this visual of every species fleeing is really striking and bizarre. “Okay, well that’s weird,” they remark. Hey what happened to that guy in our room? Well, he tried to use the toilet and died. RIP. Poor, poor Beaver tries to contain the alien worm in the toilet and gets similarly chomped.

Back to that ridiculous/terrifying dichotomy I mentioned: Jonesy is possessed by the lead alien, referred to as “Mr. Gray.”

To show this change, he puts on an exaggerated English accent (Damian Lewis is English himself, but the Jonesy character is American) and this tug-of-war takes up a fair portion of the film, both in the real world and inside Jonesy’s mind.

This cerebral space is represented as a sprawling, seemingly endless library of memories and knowledge where Mr. Gray the monster-alien chases him around. Critics, including Roger Ebert, lamented this wasn’t in the film more—because it rules! You could have some crazy INCEPTION-type shit in there but instead it’s just a mass of weird early ‘00s CGI flailing around for a few seconds before we cut back to a dude on a snowmobile talking to himself in a posh voice.

Because Mr. Gray does have a goal: he’s headed towards a water reservoir, planning to spread the alien seeds throughout the country. Henry (Heroic as always Thomas Jane) and Colonel Morgan Freeman’s eyebrows race him there, Duddits in tow. They get there in the nick of time! But what’s this? Mr. Gray jumps out of Jonesy’s body, huge and ready to attack! Don’t worry, because Duddits is secretly an alien of a different, but very similar, race and they fight to the death and explode into red mist shaped like a Dreamcatcher. YUP.

Listen, they can’t all be winners. The first time I saw DREAMCATCHER was on a sleepover when I was 12 with a group of equally awkward, giggling preteens. We shrieked and took turns guarding the bathroom door for each other, as if the worms would get us during a late night pee. So maybe I need to get back into that mindset. After all, it is a movie about alien butt worms.