Dreamcatcher Analysis & Recap: Poop Goes the Weasel

Imagine encountering a stranger in the snowy woods, seemingly suffering from exposure. So you bring them back to your warm and cozy cabin, cook them some soup and give them blankets, and they repay this kindness by proceeding to drop the most foul -smelling butt bubbles so close to you that the taste seems to settle on your tongue. How would you react? I'm Brandon O, this is Terrorific, and we're chopping up 2003's Dreamcatcher.

Welcome back to the place where it's perpetually spooky season. It's been six weeks since the season three finale and low -key I planned to take off at least like eight weeks bro but the little smiling heart was like the green goblin mask dog just like calling to me bro so we back. I've been in the trenches on threads lately. Every time one of those dear algo threads comes up with folks asking to be connected with horror fans or seeking new podcasts to listen to I reply to all that shit. And sometimes I'm successful in recruiting new listeners.

So if you're one of them, welcome. But I responded to one thread recently asking for people to share their show. So I did. And someone replied saying that Terrific sounds amazing and that they were going to check it out. Now, most times when folks say they're going to check something out, they, in fact, do not check things out. But this particular person actually followed up with this response. Quote. My son and I listened to Gorgon's Gone Wild yesterday. Totally enjoyed it. I love that I can find gems like your podcast on these threads.

So nice to quote unquote meet you. And that right there is what it's all about. Interacting with people on an individual level, putting them onto this little passion project of mine and hopefully providing some entertainment along the way. So shout out to Kat Yorick and her son for pulling up to the party. And Kat is actually a podcast host herself. Her show is titled Call Her Kat. And every week, she and guests gently dive into the messy, complex, and profound truth of healing, exploring generational trauma, personal struggles, and the unexpected joys that emerge when you trade old habits for healthier ones.

So you can find Call Her Kat on Spotify, Apple, and more. But here we are at the season four premiere. And honestly, every time i start a new season part of me a relatively large part of me actually is surprised that i'm still doing this because if past behaviors are any indicator then i should have been done after like six episodes i am notorious for picking up new hobbies and getting really into them for like two three weeks maybe a couple of months and then Losing all interest overnight and trying something new.

But here I am still going with this show. So maybe after 35 years, I have finally found something that's going to stick. But let's take things back to the summer of like 2002, 2003. I was in like eighth, ninth grade around that time. And my parents used to make me read books over the summer just to keep the mind sharp. So I wasn't just vegging out watching TV all day. And my dad had like Stephen King novels lying around. So eventually I picked up a couple of these. And I started with some that were like the collection of short stories, like Everything's Eventual.

And these short stories included things like 1408, The Night Flyer, The Road Virus Heads North, etc. And it didn't take long for me to become like a really big fan of Stephen King's work. And that became the foundation of my affinity for horror. Naturally, I had to dedicate a season to the film adaptations of The Horror King himself. Now, if you aren't already, be sure to follow the show on IG at Terrorific Podcast because that's where I leave little breadcrumbs about each season's new theme, as well as clues about which film would be covered in the upcoming episode.

Crowns were the centerpiece of my hints for this season for reasons that are now... Obvious, and I put something on my story for folks to guess the theme, and I got some varied responses. For example, someone guessed Halloween, which I guess Michael Myers is the king of murder and mayhem, so sure, I guess I can check out. Scream Queens, which I see where you're going with that. Best Horror Franchises, that's a solid guess. And even Evil Dead, but there were two that guessed correctly. First was my guy Isaiah, aka The Bitter Wolf.

He has a series called The Horror Mosaic where he interviews people in the horror space about the genre, their upcoming projects, their origins, etc. And you can find it on YouTube on his channel. And check out episode 36 featuring yours truly if you're looking for a place to start. And the second person to correctly guess the theme of the season was Missy, one of the hosts of the Grimley podcast. And Missy also correctly guessed Season 3's VHS theme, so I guess I need some tougher clues in the future.

But Grimly is a true crime pod where each week Missy and her co -host Meg uncover the creepy, unexplained, and downright terrifying stories and cases, all with a dash of humor, wit, and curiosity. And you can find Grimly on Wondery, Spotify, Apple, etc. But the first full -length Stephen King novel I remember reading during those summer sessions, and it's still one of my favorites of his works, is the subject of today's episode, Dreamcatcher. The novel was released in 2001 after being written in 1999 while King was recovering from an accident where he was hit by a car.

Its working title was Cancer. Jesus, until his wife Tabitha convinced him to change it, which Tabitha, that was probably a good call. I don't know if a book titled Cancer would really fly off the shelves, even if it was one of Stephen King's books. But King told Rolling Stone in 2014 that he doesn't really like Dreamcatcher very much. And this is possibly due to the fact that he was hopped up on Oxy when he wrote it to deal with the pain of his injuries. So back in June of 99, Stephen King was walking on the side of a road in Maine when a driver, distracted by his loose dog moving around in the back of his minivan, hit him.

And his injuries were severe. It included a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, a scalp laceration and a broken hip. And all this led to him being hospitalized for about three weeks, bro. And King's leg was so shattered that doctors initially considered amputation, but they were able to stabilize the bones in his leg with an external fixator, which if you haven't seen what an external fixator looks like, holy shit, it is like gnarly, bro. Just this metal monstrosity that's insane looking.

So yeah, bro underwent like five operations in 10 days to get his shit fixed. Insane. What's arguably even more insane is that the driver of this minivan was charged with driving to endanger an aggravated assault. He ended up pleading guilty to the former charge and received a whopping six month jail sentence, which was suspended. And he had his license suspended for a year as well. This is pretty light work for hitting one of the world's most famous authors with your whip and having him hospitalized for three weeks.

But Stephen King and his wife ended up purchasing the van to prevent someone else from buying it and chopping it up to sell on eBay, before eventually disposing of it themselves. But some of the plot points in Dreamcatcher make a lot more sense when you have this context. So the film adaptation, released in 2003, was directed by Lawrence Kazdan, and it was co -written by Kazdan and screenwriter William Goldman. Kasdan's filmography includes writing four Star Wars films. The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, and the one that I think people try to forget about, Solo.

Goldman's screenplay credits include The Princess Bride and another notable King adaptation, Misery. Now, Dreamcatcher was considered a box office flop. It only grossed about $34 million domestically against a budget of $68 million. And it barely made its budget back once you add in the worldwide box office, generating about $76 million in total. The film holds an average rating of 2 .5 on Letterboxd, and I gave it a 2 myself. So let's dive into it. The story of Dreamcatcher centers on four childhood friends with telepathic powers who reunite for their annual hunting trip and encounter a parasitic alien invasion while in the woods in Maine.

It stars Thomas Jane as Henry, Jason Lee as Beaver, Damian Lewis as Gary Jones, aka Jonesy, and Timothy Olyphant as Pete, with Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore playing supporting roles as Curtis and Owen, respectively. The film opens with a patient named Barry speaking to his therapist, Henry, about his compulsion to overeat. While Barry speaks, Henry is doodling in his notepad seemingly uninterested in anything Barry is saying until he chimes in with the theory that Barry overeats because he thinks he killed his mother and is now eating himself to death as punishment.

Now Barry is hella shook by this because Henry goes into even more detail about how Barry's mother called out to him from her big wooden bed complaining of chest pain and told him to call 911. but he ignored it because he always did shit like that. But Barry has never told Henry any of this, so he runs out hysterically telling him to stop looking in his head. But being a telepath doesn't seem like it'd be very good for the therapy business, because if you're able to diagnose the root cause of their problem simply by just looking through their repressed and subconscious thoughts, then how much time are you cutting out of this journey helping them to figure out what's wrong like you're taking money out of your own pocket and i've never been to therapy but isn't the point of it to have people come to realizations on their own and not just like spoon feed them what's wrong or whatever not only Would that be a hindrance to the process and their growth and their ability to overcome whatever is troubling them?

But if they're not ready to hear it, as in this case with old dude Barry, that could probably add more problems and make things worse. But once Barry leaves his office, Henry grabs a revolver from his desk and holds it to his head, but the phone rings before he can pull the trigger. And along those lines, if you or anyone you know is experiencing thoughts of self -harm or suicide, please call or text 988 ASAP. You do not have to suffer in silence and you are not alone. But as Henry lowers the gun, it accidentally fires and the bullet hits his framed Harvard doctoral degree on the wall.

But notably... Nobody comes running in to see what's happening after, you know, this loud ass gunshot popped off. So Henry either has like a private practice with no receptionist or no executive assistant, or he's working out of his home office and no one's there. Perhaps he doesn't even have a family. I think one of the themes in Dreamcatcher, which we can talk more about later, is isolation and like this feeling of being trapped in particular circumstances. So I wonder if Henry was experiencing this, which helped lead to his suicidal ideation.

And you can draw a parallel to this feeling of isolation or loneliness to the fact that Stephen King spent three weeks in the hospital. After getting hit by this car. Now, of course, I imagine his wife and maybe other family pulled up. But no one can stay there for the full 24 hours for three weeks straight. So, yeah, he probably went a little bit start crazy. But the one calling Henry is his BFF Jonesy, saying they should link up with their friend Duditz this weekend. Jonesy is a college professor.

He has to hang up this call when a student comes into his office whom he caught cheating on an exam, but he's a cool professor. So Jonesy cuts him a break by ripping up the exam, saying that the student was quote unquote sick, and he can make things up by writing a 3 ,000 word essay instead. But as he leaves, the student asks Jonesy how he even knew that he cheated in the first place because he wasn't there that day. and jonesy just does his best david blaine impression and says sometimes i just know but this also likely means that it wasn't just a coincidence that jonesy called henry right before he was about to pull the trigger now saving his life of course is a fantastic thing however i'm not quite sure that i would want to be friends with telepaths like if you can read my mind at any moment of any given day like some things just need to stay private and personal bro like i don't want you to hear me thinking about how i'm about to take a big ass shit after going to fucking taco bell or something you know what i mean like some things just need to stay between me and myself next the audience is introduced to pete pete is a car salesman and he's sitting at the dealership notably by himself so again feeding into this theme of isolation when eventually a customer comes in saying she's showing a house in an hour and it would bring in a fat -ass commission but she's lost her car keys and is wondering if Pete can make her a spare set.

He informs her that the process takes at least a day and while explaining this he calls her by her first name Trish even though she never introduced herself so she's like uh what the fuck who is this stalker? But that commission is calling her name. So even though Pete's on some weird shit, Trish agrees to go with him to help retrace her steps. So they head to a convenience store where he does another weird thing. This finger twirling gesture that he says helps him think, but it appears to be connected to the whole telepathy thing somehow.

And while he's twirling his finger, which. maybe construed as some innuendo because pete definitely has eyes for trish here as well he starts saying okay so you were here you bought whatever and then you went over to the candy bars and got a mars bar and then from there you walk to your car and then he says hey if i am able to find your keys will you let me buy you dinner? And Trish agrees. When you have an opportunity, you got to take it, bro. Shooters shoot. But next to Trish's car is a puddle.

So Pete bends down, reaches his hand in there and pulls out her formerly submerged keys. And he's like, all right, let's go to dinner. There's a spot up the road that has some good clams or something. Pretty sure he said clams, which again, sounds like innuendo to me. But Trish is like visibly uncomfortable and she's like, ha ha. Yeah, I'll meet you there at 630. Sounds good. Cool. Got bad news for you, Pete. That dinner ain't happening, playboy. Like based on the way that Trish peeled out of the parking lot.

All right. Literally rubber burning out there. She has no desire to get clams with this dude. And I guess Pete is not going to have any clam tonight either. Sorry, bro. But if we're keeping it a buck, how weak does your game have to be to still find a way to fumble a baddie when you can literally read her mind, bro? Like the answers to the test are right in front of your face and you still scared her off. Like, come on now, dog. That's insane, bro. But it's okay, P. You know who will never turn you down for a date?

Pamela Henderson. meanwhile jonesy is getting ready to leave campus and head home for the night when he gets a call from beaver beaver tells jonesy to be careful but he's not sure what exactly poses the danger jonesy starts walking home and as he waits at a busy intersection he appears to hear someone speak because his head kind of tilts up and he starts looking around and he asked the guy standing next to him did you say something or what'd you say and the guy's like i didn't say anything bro but then jonesy seems to recognize someone or something across the street he proceeds to walk into traffic and gets absolutely demolished by a car but bro if this movie had a 68 million dollar budget i can tell you what they did not spend very much of that money on and that is the special effects because holy shit the cgi in this scene specifically and the movie in general is just really really bad and even allowing some grace for the fact that this movie is now 23 years old still it aged horribly like milk in a car on a hot summer's day type of shit like it's bad bro but hey this isn't last season so i'm not gonna rate it on its special effects quality however if i were to do so it would definitely get a one anyway

An ambulance rushes Jonesy to the hospital, but he flatlines and has to be revived. And while he's in this in -between state of life and death, he sees a vision of some kid who appears to have special needs telling him to watch out for Mr. Gray. We then get a little time skip as we move six months later and Jonesy, Beaver, Henry, and Pete pull up to a cabin in the woods for their annual bros hunting trip. And Jonesy is walking with a very noticeable limp. And low key, this shit is hella inconsiderate, bro.

Like, your dog just got hit six months ago by a car. in traffic maybe even multiple cars because this was a busy ass intersection bro and dude flatlined had to be revived he clearly hasn't recovered all the way or if he has then his body is clearly permanently damaged and your response to that is to take him out into the woods to walk on this uneven terrain in the middle of winter when it's cold as shit so like not only are his bones like just hurting and aching from general movements but now the cold is adding an extra layer to that you have the uneven ground what if he falls and hurts himself again or makes things worse but then ironically they are like trying to protect him like Jonesy goes to lift some luggage and Beaver says hey no don't do that and then he then Jonesy's trying to like chop up some firewood or haul some firewood into the house and Henry's like hey no don't do that bro I got it.

If y 'all are so cognizant of his physical limitations right now when it comes to simple tasks such as bringing in luggage or bringing in firewood I ask again why the fuck did you choose to go to the woods bro? But while they're gathering the firewood, Jonesy tells Henry that on the night he got hit by the car, he saw their friend Duditz on the other side of the road asking for help while everyone around him just walked on by and ignored him. Duditz then motioned Jonesy to come over to him and that's why he went into the street to get wrecked by the car.

Now Duditz, now we know he was the kid in Jonesy's ambulance vision warning him about watching out for Mr. Gray. Jonesy tells Henry that Duditz loves all four of the bros and he would die before he ever hurt them. So in that case, why would he call him into the street to get wrecked? But the guys all head inside the cabin and they're sitting around the table drinking and shooting the shit when Beaver shares some random movie trivia that Jonesy says he's filing away in his memory warehouse. And Beaver's like, what the fuck is that?

And Pete tells them that they all have one. It's just this thing that's in their head. It's this metaphysical place that Jonesy imagines as a giant multi -floored library where he stores all of his memories and everything he's ever known. And he burns what he doesn't have use for or room to keep anymore. And he also has a place for secret memories, including a special section on the third level for Duditz specifically. But who exactly is Duditz? Well, cue up the flashback. So we journey 20 years back to their hometown in Derry and the gang are walking to an abandoned building in hopes of confirming a rumor.

Allegedly, there's a photo of their school's homecoming queen's punani tacked to the wall inside one of the offices. Outside, they find a kid's shirt and lunchbox on the ground. And they pick it up. It's a Scooby -Doo lunchbox. And it has a note saying that this lunchbox belongs to Douglas Cavell. If he's lost, please bring him back to this address. And they hear screaming coming from around the corner. And as they go to investigate, they see a bloodied kid in his underwear being bullied by a few older high school kids.

And they're trying to make him eat dog shit. And the kid who's holding the dog shit is like wearing a glove, right? I had to rewind and pause it just to check this. I was wondering if he was just out here bare handing a dog turd, but no, he had a glove on, which begs the question, how premeditated was this? Like, did this dude specifically pack up a bag with a glove and a dog turd from home and just like carried it around with him in hopes of finding someone to bully on this day? Who does that? That's some weird ass shit, bro.

What happened to like swirlies and, you know, giving kids wedgies or atomic wedgies? Why are we trying to make them eat dog shit? But Pete recognizes the main bully as their school's starting quarterback and they threaten to snitch on him. And the bullies buck up and they're like, hey, you want to snitch? We'll kill you first or some shit like that. And Henry hypes Pete up. He's like, yo. You can try, bro. But this is Pete Moore right here. He's the fastest motherfucker on the planet. All we have to do is get in your way and he'll run away to snitch and you'll never catch him.

And what follows has to be one of the cringiest scenes in modern cinematic history as they square off against this group of bullies. Like, holy shit. Here are some lines from this scene verbatim. Number one, you better watch it. okay super threatening sure yeah if a bully if a bully told that to me if a bully told me you better watch it i'll be like bitch who are you how are you bullying anybody you sound like a fucking chump bro number two pete can fly all right pete boy got some wheels on him he can he can fly number three I can't catch that little dick.

Here's a bully coming to terms with his own diminishing athletic ability. He's already peaked in high school and now he's realizing that he can't catch this quote unquote little dick. Next. He's going straight to. I can't even say this one. He's going straight to his house to tell his mother what you did. Oh, shit, bro. Like, that is crazy. You're going to tell someone's mommy on them. Wow. And then finally from Beaver. And Beaver is the smallest kid here by a wide margin. But he's trying to buck up and act like he wants to fight these kids.

And so he says, come on, you dickweeds. Bro, I have no clue what a dickweed is. I have literally never heard that insult hurled at anyone outside of this movie. If someone called me a dickweed, I wouldn't even know how to respond or react. I would just stand there in confusion. So I guess that's one way to defuse a bullying situation. Just call them a name they've never heard before and run away while they're pondering what that means. But quarterback Willie decides that the juice is not worth the squeeze, so he and his lackeys all slink away, leaving Beaver, Pete, Henry, and Jonesy to console this kid who's crying and beat the fuck up on the ground.

And he seems to be inconsolable until Beaver begins singing to him, and this calms him down immediately. And this kid is Douglas, but he pronounces his name like Duditz. So they call him Duditz. And I wonder if this movie had been released in like the 2020s, how long would it have taken for it to be canceled? Because Duditz clearly has mental challenges. He has special needs. So his name is Douglas, but he cannot pronounce it as such. He can only say Duditz. So for the kid to then take that as his name.

and keep that shit for him for like the next 20 years bro that's that's great that's crazy but hey it could be worse you know they could have called him dickweed anyway back in present day beaver and jonesy are out hunting in the woods when jonesy spots another hunter who's stumbling around looking all dazed and disoriented And being the good dude that he is, Jonesy goes up to this guy and is like, hey, buddy, do you need some help? And this hunter tells Jonesy that his name is Rick and that he's been lost in the woods since the day before.

So Jonesy brings him back to the cabin to nurse him back to health. Gives him soup, gives him some blankets. And as a show of gratitude. Rick rips a big ass belch right in Jonesy's face. And apparently it smelled like straight ass based on Jonesy's reaction. And Rick says, oh, oops, I've been doing that all night because he ate some berries in the dark and they must have upset his stomach. Let's unpack that for a second. Now, I am by no means a. botanist or a horticulturist or whatever term or phrase you want to use but i don't think that many if any berries are going to grow in the woods in the dead of winter while covered in snow so to stumble upon some berries in the dark makes me think that those probably weren't berries But speaking of eating, Pete and Henry are not at the cabin because they went to the store for supplies.

And so now that they're driving back, Henry tells Pete that he saw a picture in the paper of the patient Barry from the opening scene. It's his obituary. Barry has eaten himself to death. And I think it's interesting that the only times food is mentioned in this film is in a negative light. Whether it's Barry eating himself to death or Rick eating those berries in the woods. Oh, and that's a Barry and Barry connection. Interesting. And I think there's a direct correlation between this negative view of food and the fact that Stephen King was hospitalized for three weeks and on Oxy to manage his pain after being hit by the car.

So one of the side effects of Oxy is reduced appetite. So if we make the assumption that Stephen King wasn't able to eat very much while he was hospitalized or didn't have a desire to eat, at least, then the character of Barry, who has a compulsion to overeat, could be a direct reflection of King's desires or, you know, wishing that he could be eating something and not just feeling like shit. Other side effects of taking Oxy can include unusual breath odors and constipation. So if Barry's overeating kind of symbolizes King's fantasy of wishing he could just gorge himself but is unable to, then Rick's predicament could represent Stephen King's reality.

But Beaver returns to the cabin and meets Rick and he introduces himself as Joe. Beaver is just his nickname because he compulsively chews on toothpicks all the time. But bro, this man Rick is going through it. His guts are bubbling hard. He's belching and just ripping ass all while sweaty as fuck. I know it smells crazy in there. Oh my god. I can't even imagine, bro. But Jonesy has been taking peeks at Rick's body while he's doing all this weird ass shit. And when he first arrived, his chest looks swollen.

Now that swelling has somehow migrated down to his belly. Big red flag there. And Jonesy suggests that Rick go and lie down for a nap. I wonder whose bed. I wonder whose bed he sent him to. like imagine if you're peter henry and you return to the cabin and just see some random dudes sleeping in your bed while farting all over the all over your pillow and shit like that would be insane but as jonesy and beaver get rick situated in bed they turn to leave the room and we the audience see rick's belly move like something is inside of it yikes Meanwhile there's a blizzard starting up outside and Pete and Henry are still trying to make their way back to the cabin.

Completely unaware that once they walk through those doors they're going to be at high risk of contracting pink eye because of all the doo -doo particles floating around. Henry has to gun the truck to get up this increasingly snowy hill and when he does he sees that there's a hunter sitting down right in the middle of the road. so he swerves to avoid pancaking this person and he and pete crash into a fallen tree flipping the car like five times but they're both relatively okay pete's leg got a little bit messed up but nothing's broken Pete and Henry walk over to confront the hunter and they notice that she seems to be in a pretty similar condition as Rick.

She belches and it smells like ass plus there's this weird red mark on her neck and she tells them that she has to find Rick. As soon as Henry saw that red mark though the doctor in him kicked in and he was like hey fuck that and he backed up immediately. Back at the cabin, Jonesy and Beaver are sitting at the table just thinking about all this weird stuff that's going on. And Rick has a red mark on the side of his face as well that's gotten bigger since his arrival. And while Jonesy is talking about all of this, Beaver is eating like big globs of peanut butter out of the jar with his finger, which was fucking disgusting, bro.

I have a problem with like communal food. That shit grosses me out. Potlucks and like buffets and shit that just sits out that anyone can just get in and touch on and breathe on and cough on. I cannot stand any of those kind of functions. Pass. Hard pass. Beaver and Jonesy start to hear this commotion and they look outside the window and they see that there's a mass exodus of literally every woodland creature. They're all just walking in the same direction, prey and predator alike, away from something deeper in the woods.

And you can tell this is like an older movie, pre -social media takeoff, pre -influencer culture, because nobody took out a cell phone to start filming all this shit. It was very refreshing to see. And Jonesy notices that as these animals are running away, some of them have some red stuff on their fur that looks pretty similar to the red shit on Rick's face. Helicopters then fly in from the same direction the animals were coming from, and they tell Jonesy and Beaver that the area is under temporary, temporary, I'm hunting wabbits, temporary quarantine.

These dudes are definitely military, and here's where we get our first glimpse of Morgan Freeman, aka Colonel Curtis, in one of the choppers. Jonesy and Beaver are trying to flag them down to get them to fly Rick out of here and get him some medical attention, but they're like, nah, fuck that, and fly off. So, they go back inside the cabin, feeling weird and not liking the whole thing with the mass exodus. Well, things get even weirder. when they notice a trail of blood leading from the bedroom where Rick was to the bathroom.

They knock on the bathroom door and ask if he's okay. My guess is probably not, considering the 10 foot long trail of blood that he left behind. But Rick, always the optimist, says, hey, I'm just a little sick, fellas. Just need to make a little room. My boy, what kind of shit are you dropping that causes you to leave a trail of blood? There is literally blood spilling out of your asshole. They see it in the bed. The bed is soaked with booty hole blood. The floor is covered in it. And all you need to do is just make a little bit of room.

Okay. The bathroom door is locked and Jonesy and Beaver are like, okay, like we have to get in here. So they break it down and they come slipping and sliding straight into a bloodbath. There's blood smeared all over the place. There's like this like weird red kind of like fungus looking shit. And Rick is sitting motionless on the toilet with half of his face covered in that weird red fungus. And they hear something plop into the toilet. Rick is unresponsive when Jonesy calls to him and Beaver's like, bro, like, no, he just took a big ass shit.

Like I heard it plop down and clink in there. And Jonesy's like, I don't know, bro. Something seems weird here. So Beaver goes over and he pushes Rick and Rick tumbles over and his asshole is just like completely blown out, son. So Beaver goes to peek into the toilet and Jonesy being the smart one of the two is like, yo, hold on now. And he closes the lid right as something bangs into it. And then Beaver sits on the lid to hold it down. So now they're just like, yo, what the fuck is going on here?

Beaver is stressing, bro. So he takes out and opens his jar of toothpicks. But when he does so, whatever's in the toilet hits the lid again and causes him to spill the toothpicks all over the bloody floor. Jonesy comes up with a plan for them to switch places so that Beaver can run out to the shed. and grab tape to wrap around the toilet to keep the lid shut. But Beaver says, nah, just in case the toilet thing escapes somehow, Jonesy probably wouldn't be able to fight it off with his bad hip. So Jonesy leaves and Beaver sits here on toilet lid duty.

And he's looking around the bathroom and he spots two clean toothpicks that are falling on one floor tile without blood or that red fungus on it. And this motherfucker repeatedly leans over trying to grab them. And every single time he shifts his weight and lifts up a little bit, this fucking thing in the toilet hits the lid and threatens to escape. Yet his compulsion is so strong that he keeps trying over and over and over again. Well, eventually he leans too far and out pops what Stephen King describes in the novel as a shit weasel.

It looks like some big ass worm with eyes on the side of its head and this long vertical mouth lined with these razor sharp teeth. To put it bluntly, this thing is ugly as fuck and the CGI being so poor doesn't do it any favors either, but it attacks Beaver. It ends up biting off his fingers and is trying to bite off his face when Jonesy runs in. The shit weasel turns his attention to Jonesy and Beaver seeing what's about to happen decides to make that noble sacrifice. He grabs onto the weasel and tells Jonesy to run away and shut the door and Jonesy just stands there shitting his pants and does neither thing.

This time the weasel is successful in biting off Beaver's face while Jonesy watches. It then lunges at him and now Jonesy decides it's the time to close the door. And as he struggles to keep the weasel from opening it, because apparently it understands how door handles work, the handle ends up breaking off and the door slowly swings open. This was actually a decently tense scene until the awful CGI once again ruined everything, but... A shadow falls upon Jonesy and as he slowly turns around and looks up at something that towers over him the shit weasel slithers between his feet and ends up perched upon the shoulder of some big headass alien.

And as the alien and Jonesy kind of stare at each other the alien then pops and becomes like a bunch of red spores that Jonesy inhales. But it looks like those berries that Rick ate in the dark weren't berries after all, but instead eggs of some alien ass worm. Pretty awkward. But dog, I don't know which one is worse. Like if we look at the alien franchise, right? And having the alien burst out of your chest, well, getting infested. To begin with, you have the facehugger that just like comes down your throat.

That's pretty bad, but at least bursting through your chest, I would imagine would be more of an instantaneous death than having a space worm eat its way out of your asshole. That just seems long, drawn out, and excruciating. But you do save yourself of having the alien jizz dump down your throat. So I probably would choose that avenue if I was forced to. But obviously, neither situation is ideal. But I think these shit weasels are supposed to symbolize, like, literal shit. Like, if the oxy pills are supposed to represent the, like, the egg.

Right. Like the egg is the vector through which these weasels get introduced. So the egg or the pill then leads to constipation or incubation in the movie and eventually leads to a giant ass worm ripping its way out of your booty hole, which if you're constipated, you might feel like you would rather have that happen. then just sit in your stomach all impacted and shit. So yeah, I think while Stephen King was high as a kite on these pills, he was thinking, man, I wish I could take a massive shit right now.

But what if that shit had eyes and razor sharp teeth? But again, I know it just smelled crazy in there, bro. That, oh my God, I can't. I can't even think about that. It makes me like want to gag. Anyway, the choppers end up flying back to their base camp. So at this military camp, these soldiers are rounding up people with the red fungus growing on them. And they dub it Ripley after Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien. And Colonel Curtis is given the lay of the land to a second in command, Owen, played by Tom Sizemore.

And they are getting ready to launch Operation Blue Boy. And Owen has been made Blue Boy leader. So the Blue Boy group is the special unit that only goes after extraterrestrials. And Curtis has headed this unit for the past 25 years. But this Operation Blue Boy is going to be his final one. After this, he's going to retire and hand the reins over to Owen. But at the moment, their plan is to eradicate all infected animals and detain infected civilians until they learn more information. Apparently, there are about 100 aliens who appear to crash land here because they haven't previously appeared in this wooded kind of terrain or in cold weather locations.

But Curtis knows the aliens will try to get out of their quarantine and spread the infection. He says they've never visited a world they wouldn't rather own. Hmm. On one hand, this definitely describes like the biological imperative of parasites, right? Just take over as much as possible and see what happens. Have fun from there. But also we got to keep in mind the time at which this movie was released. It came out in 2003, right in the heat of the war on terror. So there could be some political statements or political ideologies attached to this dialogue as well.

So they've never visited a world they wouldn't rather own. This sounds like imperialism to me. And the fact that Bush went in trying to get that oil, allegedly, would also seem to fall under, you know, this kind of thinking. Owen then tells Curtis that their higher -ups feel differently about destroying the Ripley and they argue that the fungus doesn't take root in all victims and that some people simply get over it. They also theorize that the shit weasels only grow in a small percentage of the exposed population, but Curtis does not want to hear any of that shit.

He wants to eradicate anything exposed to the Ripley. human or not and make sure it has no chance of spreading here is where i think that theme of isolation and loneliness comes back into play so curtis he's a little bit crazy let's let's get that out the way after 25 years of hunting down aliens and just having to lie to all of his closest friends family loved ones whomever about what it is that he actually does having to lie about the existence of these extraterrestrial beings that he knows are very much real that could probably lead to a feeling of loneliness and isolation and then on top of that to then have his second in command the person that he feels is closest to him at least professionally as well as all of his higher ups not being supportive of his plan to contain this infection or reduce the risk of it, you know, getting out of quarantine and taking over the world.

I think this causes him to have a little bit of a me against the world kind of mentality. And this is why I say he's a little bit cray cray, because if you feel like it's you against the world because people. won't support the fact that you want to wipe out innocent lives and civilians then yeah i think they kind of have a point bro you gotta you gotta chill out a little bit but to really drive home just how unhinged curtis is he calls one of his blue boy soldiers into his command trailer and he's interrogating him about how this soldier who like works at a checkpoint let a couple of people through without really checking them and the guy's like nah like i checked them they're clear of the rickley whatever so curtis is like okay hold your hand up and swear that that's the truth and the dude does that well curtis thinks he's lying so he shoots him shoots him in the hand and like blows half that shit off and And then he gives that pistol that he just used to blow a dude's hand off with to Owen as a gift.

Like, congratulations on your impending promotion to taking over this unit. Here's a gun that I just maimed somebody with. And side note, Morgan Freeman is definitely like the biggest bright spot in this movie. He carries this shit, dog. Like, he plays unhinged. really well so that was that was cool to see reminded me of like denzel in training day like you don't typically see you know these kind of what's the word i'm looking for they have like a certain aura around them right they're just like sophisticated classy elevated dudes so to see morgan freeman step outside of that and play this menacing character You know, demonstrating that range.

I thought that was pretty cool. But back at the car crash site, Pete, Henry and the hunter post up and build a fire. They're nine miles from the cabin. So Henry says he'll walk it and bring back the snowmobile to come get Pete and the hunter. And she has a swollen, moving belly and is ripping ass like crazy. So we know what's about to happen here. Right before they crashed, Pete had opened up a six -pack and was in the process of downing a beer and Henry had kind of looked at him a little bit sideways because it was early as fuck.

And Pete was like, well, you know, it's five o 'clock somewhere. So it's heavily implied. I don't think they actually say it explicitly, but it's heavily implied that Pete is an alcoholic. So when Henry leaves and starts his walking journey, Pete goes back to the red car and grabs the booze. And when he returns, the hunter is laying on the ground as if asleep. Now, Pete's kind of waxing poetically to himself about how this lady has been dropping bombs and shit. And he is killing these beers. There are just bottles littered around him.

The camera pans behind the hunter and we see that her booty hole is also blown out like good old Rick and there's a bloody trail leading away from it into the snow but Pete is oblivious and also hammered. So drunk ass Pete is talking to this sleeping hunter about how Duditz gave the group their psychic abilities. His theory is that Duditz is an alien who came here to prepare them for something. He's talking about this while the shit weasel slowly circles him using the snow banks as cover. He gets up to go take a piss right where the weasel is lurking and it lunges at him.

It latches onto his dick and he has to like hump the fire to get it off. Then it lunges at him again and wraps around his neck and face and he has to use a piece of wood that he grabbed from the fire as a torch. and burn this thing off of his face and he burns his face in the process as well and it's one thing for all this to happen but bro can you imagine this happening while you were completely plastered that is insane and while pete is trying to navigate having his dick chewed on having his face burned and also probably having the spins from being wasted Jonesy pulls up on him on a snowmobile.

But it's not really Jonesy. Jonesy has been possessed by the alien, Mr. Gray. And he had taken that snowmobile and passed Henry along the way, actually. But Henry was able to sense the danger telepathically and realizes that that wasn't actually Jonesy. So he hides off on the side of the road as Mr. Gray speeds by. And Jonesy's consciousness is still in there. He's hiding out. in his memory warehouse and Mr. Gray has access to the warehouse but not to the room where Jonesy keeps his secret files and that's where Jonesy's consciousness is hiding out.

Pete can also sense that Jonesy is not really Jonesy so Mr. Gray chokes him telekinetically but Jonesy gets him to stop that by telling Pete to tell Mr. Gray what he wants to know. So Pete does his little finger trick in the air and this little wavy kind of bubbly trail pops up from his finger pointing the way to where Mr. Gray wants to go. And he makes Pete come along and be his navigator. And Jonesy is watching everything from inside his locked room in his mind as Mr. Gray tries to get inside.

So he's just a passenger in his own body. That feeling of isolation, of loneliness, of relative... that powerlessness that feeling of your body not being able to do what you wanted to do not being able to control it the way you used to all things that i think reflect stephen king's state while he lied up in that hospital bed and the fact that jonesy was hit by a car and broke his hip we can really see those parallels there Henry finishes making his miraculous nine mile trek through the middle of a blizzard back to the cabin and discovers that the Ripley has completely overrun the place.

He sees something kind of like pulsing and he puts his face right next to it. So I guess all that doctor caution has now gone out the window. And he discovers Beaver's corpse and sheds a few tears. Then he has a vision of Jonesy getting possessed. But the icing on top of this shitty cake is that Henry finds that shit weasel from before, Rick's shit weasel, on the bed laying a clutch of eggs, bro. Fuck that. That is absolutely unhinged. Hell no. Hell no, but Henry, when he had walked into the cabin, he'd picked up his hunting rifle from behind the door so he has that on him and he's able to shoot and kill the shit weasel.

He then grabs some lighter fluid to torch the eggs and discovers a second clutch behind the pillow on the bed that had already hatched and these little worms come swarming at him. But he manages to stomp some and torch them and burn the whole cabin down. Worst bros trip ever. But then the blue boy strike operation gets underway. Curtis and Owen, they chopper to the crash site of the alien ship. And as they approach, the aliens speak to them telepathically in these helpless voices, essentially begging for mercy, saying there's no infection.

Please don't hurt them, etc. But these boys said, fuck it. And they go bombs away. They're dropping mad missiles. They have machine guns. They're lighting these aliens up. But a few of them manage to evade all the bullets and missiles and engage the self -destruct feature on their mothership. And that takes out all the remaining aliens as well as a few of the choppers. And if Curtis is lying before about wanting to own everything. possibly refer to imperialism and or the war on terror i think this scene right here removes any doubt whatsoever like we have literal suicide bombers hiding behind the innocent voices of what sounds like women and children saying please don't hurt us the fact that these bomber aliens can hide out amongst their less hostile counterparts brings us back to curtis's position the fact that he thinks Everyone infected with Ripley must be eliminated because he can't risk it spreading outside of the containment zone.

And as he states this to Owen, Owen is hesitant. He cites studies that show a strong possibility of recovery for victims. At least half of the subjects showed signs of recovery. But Curtis's point is how can you tell which half will recover? What if someone shows signs of recovery but is still infectious? and spreads it to their family and beyond. His biggest fear is that an alien hitchhiker will be able to break containment, aka exactly what Mr. Gray is trying to accomplish. And Mance is trying hard.

He is really locked in. When he first took over Jonesy's body, I think he was kind of awestruck a little bit with this whole sensation and whatnot. So his personality was kind of... Kind of chill, kind of happy -go -lucky, but that has all flipped. Pete is not being very cooperative when it comes to navigating Mr. Gray to where he wants to go, so Mr. Gray responds by morphing into his alien form and eating Pete, biting him in half. Pete tells him to bite his sack, and Mr. Gray says, okay, I'll bite your sack, and a whole lot more.

And yeah, R .I .P. Pete. Mr. Gray ends up reaching the main road and he flags down a truck that's heading for Blue Base. And this truck driver has a German Shepherd with him. Well, Mr. Gray kills the soldier and in the back are a bunch of corpses of aliens and infected animals. And Mr. Gray encourages the dog to eat these things. And it does. After Curtis and Owen finish their discussion about wiping out these innocent civilians, Owen exits the command trailer and walks by the detainment area. And who does he see standing there?

Henry. Henry had been picked up earlier while trying to leave the quarantine zone. And when he sees Owen coming, Henry immediately launches into a telepathic guilt trip. He's like, hey, what would your wife and kid think about what you're doing out here, bro? And he calls them by their names. He's like, hey, don't you carry a picture of your dead daddy in your wallet all the time? What was that motto that he had about saving people's lives? And Henry knows Owen has been thinking about calling the big general that oversees Curtis in this whole operation to put a stop to all this shit.

So he's like, yeah, bro, go ahead and do that. Call General Matheson. But also. that hitchhiker you're so worried about there is one out there and he's got my best friend in the whole wide world owen doesn't take much convincing he already was feeling like curtis was off his rocker especially after he shot off old dude's hand but definitely now that he's talking about wiping out all these innocent people so he does put in the call to general matheson who sends his troops in to relieve Curtis of command.

So they roll in and they squash the blue unit's operation as Owen busts Henry out of detainment and they drive off. And Curtis witnesses this and he's like, all right, Owen, you want to play it like that? Bet. And little sidebar, in the actual Dreamcatcher novel, Curtis's character is actually Colonel Kurtz, not Curtis. They changed it in the movie for some reason. But if an insane colonel named Kurtz sounds familiar to you, that may be because that is awfully similar to the plot of Apocalypse Now.

So it seems like Stephen King drew some inspiration from there. But as Henry and Owen are on the road, Owen pulls out his pistol, the one that he got as a gift from Curtis. And Henry is like, oh, wow, cool pistol, bro. Can I see that? And Owen hands it over. But first he pops out the clip. And Henry's like, man, if only there was some way to make contact with Jonesy. And as he said that, the pistol begins to ring. So Henry is talking on his pistol phone to Jonesy from his little hidden office in his memory warehouse.

And Jonesy tells him that Mr. Gray is trying to get to Massachusetts, but Henry should first head to Derry to go get duddits because for some reason, Mr. Gray is afraid of him. Owen wonders how Jonesy can even still be alive after having his body taken over by Mr. Gray. And Henry posits that Jonesy is somehow immune to the Ripley's effects because technically he died. His heart stopped twice after he got hit by that car. And he has a realization set in that Dudit saw all this coming from the jump.

We get a flashback to when they're kids again and the boys and Duditz are looking for a missing girl named Josie. Henry's like, we have to save the girl. And Duditz is like, you mean save the world? And he's like, no, save the girl. And then Duditz is like, oh, from Mr. Gray? And they're like, bro, what are you talking about right now? But now, 20 years later, he's like, oh, shit. Duditz can see the future, bro. He knew what was going to happen. Crazy. But while they're getting ready to go look for Josie, they all stand around in a circle with Duditz in the middle and they focus on Josie finding her, just thinking about her.

And Duditz seems to grant them their telepathic powers during this little circle session. Henry also recollects how Jonesy had told him that Duditz was the one that called him into the street the night that he got hit by the car. Essentially, Dennis has been planning this from the very beginning. He wanted Jonesy to die and be revived, serving as the perfect kind of host vessel for Mr. Gray because he would be immune to being taken over completely and they would be able to track Mr. Gray's whereabouts and his motives from there.

Which, if we're being honest, is kind of fucked up. You know what I mean? Hey, I know you guys saved me from being bullied and like being forced to eat a piece of dog shit. So as thanks, I'm going to lure you into the street to be hit by a car, have your hip broken and shattered into many pieces to the point that you can never walk normally again. But don't worry. It's all for the greater good, which is allowing you to be taken over by an alien. Watching as your body is utilized to eat one of your best friends after seeing your other best friend get killed by a shit weasel.

And then having to witness as your body is used to kill a soldier and feed a dog parasitic alien intestines to, what, attempt to destroy the world? With friends like these, who needs enemies? But Henry and Owen pull up to Duditz's house, and his mom is already standing on the porch waiting for them, saying, Duditz, New Year is coming, and he's already packed up, ready to go. And this is when we see Duditz for the first time, or adult Duditz for the first time, who's played by Donnie Wahlberg. And bro is not...

And he's not looking the best. He has leukemia. So his mom packs up his Scooby Doo lunchbox with his medications and the boys hit the road. What an absolutely absurd setup. So you have a an AWOL military guy riding around with a depressed doctor and in the backseat is a mentally challenged. terminally ill dude with the Scooby -Doo lunchbox and you have to shoot him up with cancer meds while you're riding around trying to save the world from an alien invasion? And to add a little bit more fun to the party, while they're getting ready to roll out, it's revealed to the audience that Owen's pistol secretly contains a tracking chip.

That Curtis boy, he really is paranoid, huh? Although does it qualify as paranoia if your fears turn out to be proven correct? Anyway, back at the military base, General Matheson pulls up to Curtis's command trailer and is like, hey, time to step down, buddy. And Curtis is like, all right, man, it's gonna be like an hour to wrap up some things here. And then, you know, I will retire and we can move on. And Matheson's like, OK, that's fine. But. I don't know why he would believe this man because he clearly has never demonstrated any signs of cooperation before.

So why would he start now? So Curtis just steals a chopper armed with a machine gun on his nose and flies off heading to Owen's location. Meanwhile, Duditz has super telepathy and he's able to deduce or obtain Mr. Gray's master plan. He wants to go to the reservoir that supplies all the drinking water for Boston and release shit weasel babies into it. And all it would take is one single worm to get into that water supply to doom the entire world. Mr. Gray is already pretty far ahead of these guys, especially since they had to stop in Derry to go pick up dudits.

And his shit weasel is being grown in the dog that he made eat those alien remains. So that dog's guts are bubbling, boy. Things aren't looking good. But don't worry, when your face was such impossible odds, there's always plot armor to the rescue. And Mr. Gray's truck blows a tire, so he has to wait for another car to show up before continuing on his way, which buys the guy some time to catch up. After arriving at the reservoir, Mr. Gray is trying to pry open the manhole cover to the water supply, but he's having trouble getting leverage because of Jonesy's damaged hip.

Look at Duditz playing chess, not checkers, bro. Owen, Henry, and Deditz arrive not long after and Owen pulls out an SMG and tells the other two to wait in the car while he goes to finish business. He plans to merc Mr. Gray and Jonesy. Ah, but wait, Curtis has FOMO, so he pulls up in his chopper with its front mounted machine gun and opens fire on Owen. But bro, tell me why. Tell me why this motherfucker just stands still. stands still shooting back at the chopper like how about making yourself a more difficult target there buddy the chopper literally just shoots in a straight line so so owen ends up getting hit and then he runs out of ammo in the smg so he switches to the pistol that curtis gave him and he's able to shoot out the chopper's tail rotor causing it to crash and explode and then owen dies from his hella avoidable gunshot wound but a couple of things here one the irony that curtis was killed by his own weapon is incredibly rich but number two owen was kind of the only character that didn't really seem to have like any like glaring issues like the guys they had depression alcoholism you know a fucked up hip duditz has cancer and his mental challenges Owen was just kind of a regular dude he had a family he had a wife he enjoyed his job all that stuff and he wasn't like crazy like Kurtz he knew like right from wrong he had a a morality line that he wasn't going to cross and he still ended up dying in the snow all alone isolated feeling like everybody else did so if you want to take it like a like a bleak look at things it's like no matter what we all end up in the same position dead and alone

which is hella fucking dark bro but anyway back to cheerier topics like that whole alien invasion thing Mr. Gray manages to get the manhole cover off the water supply right as the dog's shit weasel is born. But Henry, now armed with Owen's reloaded SMG, shows up in the nick of time and starts shooting at it. But first, he misses every single shot. I mean, this dude could have thrown a rock into the ocean and somehow managed to miss all of the water. But don't worry, because the plot armor is here to bail him out yet again.

The weasel lunges at him and latches onto the barrel of the gun so then he's able to shoot it off that way. But one single egg rolls out of its carcass and hatches. But Henry and Jonesy are in a standoff because Henry's not sure if he's actually talking to Jonesy or if it's Mr. Grey just impersonating Jonesy. So he's kind of absorbing and trying to come to terms with the fact that he may have to kill his best friend in the entire world. And I got some vibes here that were a little bit more than platonic.

I have a theory that at least some amount of Henry's depression can be attributed to the fact that he harbors unrequited love for Jonesy. But he's not willing to give up on his boo yet. So he gives him the classic tell me something only we would know quiz. And Jonesy is about to give the correct answer when Duditz makes his heroic entrance and finishes a sentence for him, followed by, Hello, Mr. Gray. This causes Mr. Gray to exit Jonesy's body and reveal himself in his full, monstrous, true form.

He's basically a giant shitweasel with legs. And Mr. Gray stabs his tail through Duditz's chest and goes to kill Henry next. But his tail is stuck and Duditz isn't dead. Manz then turns into some different kind of alien and grows a tail of his own and stabs Mr. Gray through the back of his dome. Why do all these aliens have all these like sharp tails, bro? I don't know. Anyway, he does some other alien shit that causes like a membrane or something to like envelop both of them before self -destructing, which in turn kills Mr. Gray.

As Henry and Jonesy exchange those, wow, we barely made it, bro, looks at each other, the little baby worm that hatched from the egg is about to jump into the open manhole until Jonesy stomps on it right at the last second and they smirk at each other. Roll credits. So yay for friendship. It saved the world. All it took was sacrificing 60 % of the friend group. And I think even Mr. Gray, was dealing with these feelings of isolation too so with this alien ship crash landing on earth and only a hundred of them being there it's not made clear if this was just like a scouting party or if this was like the last remnants of this alien civilization and they were coming to earth to take over it and repopulate their ranks if the latter case is true or what's accurate then that would make Mr. Gray, he would have been the last survivor of his entire species once their ship self -destructed.

So for him, his goal was just trying to reproduce as many of his beings as possible. So in that regard, you know, I'm not saying he's like a sympathetic figure or a tragic figure, but there is, I think, at least... a semblance of understanding when it comes to not wanting to be the only one of your kind in existence. And I could also better understand why Stephen King doesn't like this book very much. If you look at it through a certain lens, it can seem very dark. And if he did write this in a dark place, which seems pretty likely, being hospitalized in excruciating pain for three weeks, Um, then yeah, you, one may not want to revisit that point of their life.

So it makes sense to me, but I enjoyed the book when I first read it. I haven't read it since then. Uh, probably should give it a reread. I like to kind of keep things like in a little time capsule just so I can always cherish that particular moment. I feel like if I were to reread it today, I might not like it as much. So yeah, we'll see. But that's all for me. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Terrorific on your favorite podcast listening platform. But if you are feeling extra generous, if you were to rate and review on Spotify and Apple specifically, I would greatly appreciate it as those two platforms tend to drive the most as far as growth goes and exposure.

So that would be nice for more people to know about Terrorific. But hey, you know. I appreciate you listening and spending the last hour and change with your boy. But I'm out of here. I'll see you in two weeks for the next Stephen King adaptation. But in the meantime, remember, always keep it spooky.

Dreamcatcher Analysis & Recap: Poop Goes the Weasel

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