Dreamcatcher feels like a Stephen King adaptation. In fact, it feels like five Stephen King adaptations. Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan packs most of the film's source novel, which has enough material for two miniseries, into one of the most narratively dense films in memory. There's the Shining-style telepathic bond between the four protagonists — Pete Moore (Timothy Olyphant), Henry Devlin (Thomas Jane), Joe "Beaver" Clarendon (Jason Lee), and Gary "Jonesy" Jones (Damian Lewis) — the childhood origins of which are shown via Stand By Me-like flashbacks. Toss in a Tommyknockers-esque alien invasion, crazy weather a la Storm of the Century, and the possibility of a global plague straight out of The Stand, and Dreamcatcher's narrative kettle is bubbling to the point of boiling over.

To their credit, though, Kasdan and co-screenwriter William Goldman never let the story overheat. After a somewhat clumsy introduction, the four heroes decide to escape the daily grind by going on their annual hunting trip to a remote Maine cabin. Instead they find themselves in a predicament straight out of The Thing, with body-snatching aliens infecting every mammal in the surrounding forest. The less fortunate of these animals (read: the human ones) also harbor a remora-like parasite, which devours the intestines of its hosts before laying eggs that beget more of the toothy tapeworms.

Once introduced into the general population, just one of these rapidly reproducing creatures could wipe out humanity. That's the nightmare scenario grizzled special-ops Colonel Abraham Kurtz (Morgan Freeman) fears most. Along with his supersecret "Blue Boy" troops, Kurtz has quarantined a large section of Maine backwoods, herding all the locals into an electrified holding pen. Along with Captain Owen Underhill (Tom Sizemore), Kurtz flies a squadron of Apache attack helicopters to the crash site of a giant bio-mechanical flying saucer — the source of the alien infestation — which they promptly vaporize in hail of missiles.

However a few aliens slip through this onslaught, and one eventually takes possession of Jonesy's body. However, the extraterrestrial didn't count on the telepathic abilities of his human host's companions, and soon Devlin is helping hunt down his former friend. Although rushed, this core story offers some compelling drama both internally (Jonesy fighting the alien influence inside his own mind) and externally (Devlin convincing skeptical soldiers with this ESP).

However, the rest of Dreamcatcher is as schlocky as they come. Playing like a Roger Corman movie with a $100 million budget, the film relies on abundant gore and BOO!-style scares. As in the legendary producer's B-movie classics.Humanoids from the Deep, Piranha, and every other example of the horror genre, the story is dependent on its heroes acting like idiots. For instance, when one character traps a remora-alien in a toilet by unwisely sitting on the seat cover, he then gets up to retrieve a toothpick off a gristle-caked bathroom floor. Faster than you can say "Interplanetary Darwin Award Winner," the poor sap, who heretofore was one of the smartest characters, is fleshed alive, a sight that sparks as many incredulous chuckles as cries of terror.

Dreamcatcher also contains a bevy of jokes that juxtapose gastrointestinal humor with sickening violence. A distasteful mismatch by any standard, they're downright shocking in a script penned by the writers of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. King's source novel also has a few inconsistencies — namely, if Jonesy and his friends are all psychic, how come they're working dead-end jobs instead of predicting the stock market or tracking down mass murderers?

Kasdan wisely doesn't dwell on these built-in flaws. Smart enough to realize he's helming a hybrid of popcorn-muncher and gross-out thriller, he keeps events moving along at a steady clip. He has to, given the amount of material he must cover in 136 minutes; scenes whip by so briskly, the players are most times reacting instead of acting. The one exception is Lewis; his character's alien possession leads to some engaging split-personality sequences. The native Briton does a better American accent than most American actors, and has the chops to carry prolonged scenes all by his lonesome, as he often did in Band of Brothers. It's just a matter of time until this talented thespian has a breakout film on this side of the pond. Sadly, despite all its bloody, guilty pleasures, Dreamcatcher isn't it.