The film follows four friends as they go on their yearly camping trip at a cabin, only to be interrupted by strange, interstellar happenings. The friends share a common bond, having grown up with a young man named Duddits who showed a penchant for the psychic. Very bad things happen and people die in a overwhelming avalanche of plot.

Dreamcatcher carries with it a strange tone that isn’t really present in King books. King’s writing has always balanced that very fine line between the humorous and the macabre. It’s quite obvious that the makers of Dreamcatcher attempted to do that same thing, but they don’t quite get it right. It’s like that drunken idiot that you see at the bar singing karaoke. He gets the general sense of the tune right, but the words are all wrong.

Nonetheless the cast is all top notch. With Damien Lewis (Band of Brothers), Chasing Amy’s Jason Lee, future Punisher Thomas Jane and slinky, sometime creepy Tim Olyphant, the movie certainly looks good on paper. But there’s a whole lot of bad line readings and very few opportunities for these guys to show their usually strong acting chops.

The four leads all fit their characters well, but there are also a few mis-castings as well. I usually despise it when a mentally able actor plays a mentally disabled person. Unless you do it Tom Hanks style, let’s forget the slurring of the words and the funny walk. There’s plenty of fine disabled actors out there who are better suited to the gig than Donnie Wahlberg. And I like the guy, but here, it’s just silly. The most egregious miscast is Morgan Freeman as the supposed-to-be-crazy Colonel Curtis. Freeman, grandfather of cool cinema actors, is completely believable as the president of the United States, but I just can’t buy him as a movie heavy. He’s too calm, even when’s he trying to be crazy and kill people.

The problem is, you don’t know what to make of the tone of the movie. At points, you think that it’s so silly that it borders on a satire, only in one moment later, it turns to visions of horror. And where King is great at is character development, Dreamcatcher, barely gives us time to remember the characters' names. The film moves from plot point to plot point in a frenzy of idiotic twists and occurrences.

Ultimately, Dreamcatcher the movie would only be understood by fans of Dreamcatcher the book. It’s these same fans however, that will be most disappointed by the direction and writing. King’s books usually make great movies, this isn’t one of them.

Movie Grade: C

Video: 3 out of 5
The presentation is a little hazy, with the dark levels reading a bit gray. Otherwise, though, it’s a new looking transfer and even the CGI looks like it’s part of the world.
Widescreen Anamorphic 1.85:1