In “Dreamcatcher,” author Stephen King revisited some old haunts – the enduring childhood friendship from “Stand By Me;” a collective secret that affects the boys as adults from “It;” and the isolated, snow-bound setting similar to “The Shining” – plus the trauma of a car accident, which King suffered in real-life from a pet-friendly motorist.
As he explains in the brief featurette/interview “DreamWriter,” King describes his efforts to write the book during the rehabilitation at home, and some of the fears and deliberate shock elements injected into the story. Certainly the most talked about is the film's alien creatures, which make an appearance in the cabin bathroom, with grotesque detail.
It's the theme of adults taking stock of their friendships and the stumbling blocks of life that drew writer-director Lawrence Kasdan to the project. Better known for his yuppie meditations like “The Big Chill,” it's easy to forget he co-wrote both “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Having written effects movies, he figured why not make one after so many years, and in his inimitably nasal voice (which should remain inimitable), he chronicles the film's main production aspects – the bathroom assault, his cast, and King's work – with plenty of behind-the-scenes footage.
The film's astonishing visual effects are broken down in “DreamWeavers,” with snapshots of creature and craft developments during production. The masters at ILM created near-perfect slugs (affectionately nicknamed by the illustrators as “weasels”), with naturalistic movements and appropriately disgusting sound effects.
The deleted scenes include a dropped character, short scene extensions, and the alternate ending (which dips into heavy sentimentality in favour of the final gore-and-viscous creature goo), and the last segment is a rather funny outtake, with an unrecognizable Donnie Wahlberg breaking out of character.
Warner Bros' transfer is gorgeous, nicely showing off John Seale's stunning cinematography, and the sound mix boasts a fluid mix of sound design and James Newton Howard's fun score.
© 2003 Mark R. Hasan
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