Years ago, studios liked to get their B-movie monsters together for fast-paced fun, yielding such memorable titles as "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" and "Dracula vs. Frankenstein." "Dreamcatcher," created out of one of Stephen King's lengthy creep-show novels, is an A-movie version of this commercial idea. It's "Alien" meets "E.T.," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Outbreak," with a bit of mental telepathy and a bathroom scene worthy of "Dumb & Dumber" thrown in for good measure.

The movie, written by William Goldman, King's longtime cinematic interpreter, and director Lawrence Kasdan, knows not to take itself too seriously. The gross-out effects come with plenty of humor and silliness. Nevertheless, this monster mash will go down best with young males. Others may well ask how much red gunk, evil creatures and deadly rashes can any movie contain without imploding from FX overkill. A solid opening weekend should lead to above-average grosses.

The movie gets off to something of a false start by seeming to revolve around mental telepathy. This ability connects four men, friends since childhood. Yet these powers prove more of a burden than an asset. When Henry (Thomas Jane) uses his gift as a psychiatrist, he disturbs his patients so badly that he himself contemplates suicide. When Pete (Timothy Olyphant) uses his gift to impress women, it creeps them out, causing him to turn to alcohol for solace.

Beaver's (Jason Lee) clairvoyance is so vague he can warn Jonesy (Damian Lewis) to take care but cannot see where the danger lies. Consequently, Jonesy is hit by a car crossing a street and nearly dies.

All four got their powers from a fifth friend, a mentally retarded boy named Duddits whom they befriended 20 years earlier in their small Maine town. For reasons the film never explains, they have failed to stay in touch with Duddits. When they do get together annually, it's only the four men in a hunting cabin deep in the woods.

Here, in the woods, the movie veers sharply into horror. By the second day, a blizzard has hit, cell phones are dead, animals flee an alien force, a contagious disease is spreading, and a slithery, toothy worm is attacking their bodies. Don't you hate weekend getaways like that?

First a lost hiker wanders into their compound. A red rash scars his face and his stomach churns with horrific noises and flatulence. In the movie's grossest and funniest set piece, the hunter goes to the bathroom and within moments is a bloody corpse. In the toilet bowl lurks a hideous creature that Beaver tries to contain by sitting on the toilet seat while Jonesy searches for duct tape.

Meanwhile, Henry and Pete crash their four-wheeler trying to avoid an afflicted woman in the snowy wilderness. Henry goes for help while Pete sets up camp and gets drunk. Out of the woman comes another predatory worm to confront Pete.

Military forces enter the forest, now under quarantine. These are an elite unit, commanded by Morgan Freeman's Col. Curtis, that has battled space aliens for 25 years without the media or citizenry getting wind of an alien invasion. Curtis, who is quite insane, and his second in command, Underhill (Tom Sizemore), intend to slaughter everyone found within the quarantined area.

Then an alien invades Jonesy's body so it can direct his physical actions, but it is never completely in control of his mind. Eventually, the survivors realize that only their old friend Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg) can save them.

It's a struggle for Kasdan to keep so many elements from overwhelming his movie. Too many things happen at once, and concepts that may work in a novel transfer awkwardly to the screen. For instance, to represent the two entities that occupy Jonesy's body, production designer Jon Hutman had to create a "memory warehouse," a multistory circular library set to epitomize the section of Jonesy's mind where he can hide from "Mr. Gray" and secret away his most valuable information. Lewis, a British actor, then uses his own British accent and his character's American accent to create the two personalities. This works to some degree but is never completely successful.

The actors try to stick to solid character work as best they can, but the effects overtake them. "Dreamcatcher" is simply all over the place, at once a movie about a plague, an alien invasion, a perfect storm, a terrible worm, a body snatcher, a mad colonel and an idiot savant. However, as a metaphor for the paranoia afflicting present-day American society, as everyone worries about biological terrorism and our own military adventures, "Dreamcatcher" plugs right into the zeitgeist.