Dreamcatcher
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: March 21, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
35
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
15
Negative:
16
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
I think you can say that almost everyone watching this will be spellbound, whether they're stupefied by its insanity, more conventionally compelled by the various horrors in store or a combination of both. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
A crazed symphony of the supernatural. The elements don't hang together, but Kasdan delivers real scares, and real hoots, in the midst of the mayhem and madness. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
Dreamcatcher is a lark probably best enjoyed by 12-year-olds -- or anyone still able to get in touch with their inner 12-year-old. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
If Dreamcatcher ultimately feels like an unwieldy pastiche, at least it's never boring. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Most novels can't be encapsulated well enough in a conventional two-hour movie format, and Dreamcatcher may be one of them -- a miniseries gone wrong. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
Like nightmares, horror movies pull us down with them. And so the film keeps us in thrall for every one of its 134 minutes. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The longer it takes for the eldritch glop to hit the fan, in fact, the less true the movie may be to King. For better and for worse, Dreamcatcher is true to King. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
All in all -- well, there is no all in all. There are just parts. Some fit, some don't. Some are cool, some aren't. It's the craziest thing you ever saw. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Simultaneously jokey and scary, sentimental and ruthless, tediously everyday and grotesquely out of the ordinary. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverAndy Klein
Condensing, paring and shorthanding the story elements can be daunting, and, despite the efforts of Kasdan and Goldman, two masters at wrangling unwieldy source material into shape, there is some awkwardness and confusion in the result. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Mildly entertaining for a while; think "Stand by Me" meets "Alien," with a soupçon of "Starship Troopers" tossed in. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Too bad Dreamcatcher amounts to a pastiche of better films like the original "The Thing" and both versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." It ransacks the audience's memory warehouse. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Then the aliens show up, chased by Morgan Freeman as a nut-job Army colonel, and the movie degenerates into a sorry, silly, gory, punishingly overlong creature feature. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
It would take a filmmaker of truly astonishing versatility to harmonize all these disparate tones...But there are moments in Dreamcatcher when Kasdan gives you the giggles and the creeps at the same time, and that’s not easy to do. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
It falls back on straightforward horror tactics, executed competently but without flair. It takes liberties with the second half of the book, including one big change that will leave fans of the novel growling with disbelief and disapproval. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
An uneasy mix that's too long, too confusing and too undramatically paced to be consistently gripping, and so blatantly panders to teenagers. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The nightmare is that the live guys in this Dreamcatcher lose the battle the minute the mechanical worm turns. Read full review
40
Film ThreatDavid Grove
A really illogical and silly movie. Read full review
40
Film ThreatKevin Carr
Much of Dreamcatcher just doesn’t make sense. Read full review
40
SalonCharles Taylor
A pretty good example of how the studios have taken over the junk that used to be left to the exploitation hacks. The hacks here have millions to work with and the end result isn't nearly as much fun as a cheap, gross horror movie can be. Read full review
40
TimeRichard Corliss
Kasdan has been a serious filmmaker, so he gives the goofiness a smart look and some pertinent metaphors about Americans wrongfully detained. But the aim is no higher than the impulse of old schlockmeisters like Roger Corman and Ed Wood: to get the audience to scream. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Sprawling, gooey and profoundly juvenile, this derivative thriller piles on the cheese: aliens, male bonding, psychoanalytic gobbledygook, childhood secrets, military black ops, gross-out special effects, explosions, bodily function humor and a retarded boy with special powers. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Isn't worth the time, money, or effort. For Stephen King aficionados, it's just the latest cinematic nightmare. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
How could director Lawrence Kasdan and writer William Goldman be responsible for a film that goes so awesomely wrong? Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Dreamcatcher has no business being this bad. Read full review
33
Portland OregonianKim Morgan
So often out of control that it becomes absurd and exasperating. Read full review
30
VarietyDavid Rooney
Overlong and unwieldy grab-bag of vintage monster-movie elements starts intriguingly as a snowbound deep-woods chiller, but gradually dissolves into a mess of other-worldly invasion and military counter-offensive. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
This horror-free horror flick sent me wandering through my own memory warehouse, where, at every turn, I bumped into images from similar -- and mostly superior -- entertainments.
30
SlateDavid Edelstein
It's a mystery how such a hodgepodge, at once incoherent and overfamiliar, could have come together on screen. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Both character and metaphor have gone to the dogs, leaving a slew of fart and burp jokes and laying bare Dreamcatcher's driving purpose, which is to make multiplexes full of little boys yuk it up, then gross them out, creep them out. Read full review
25
USA TodayClaudia Puig
A moviegoer's nightmare. The story is incoherent, inane and interminable. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Could hardly be called a success -- it's rather a likable disaster. Read full review
20
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Perhaps due to the talent of everyone involved, Dreamcatcher moves with an oddly exhilarating awfulness that sets it apart from more run-of-the-mill horror films, which lack the imagination and budget to be so thoroughly misconceived. Read full review
20
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
For most of the running time I was mainly confused, as well as mildly nauseated by the gross-out details of a tale that tends to be more slimy than scary. Read full review
20
Village VoiceLaura Sinagra
If hopeless literalist Kasdan could have decided on a tone this could have been a gynophobe's "Independence Day." Read full review
10
The New YorkerDavid Denby
In the end, Dreamcatcher is an abominable-worm picture. The movie is also an unholy mess, a miserably organized and redundant collection of arbitrary scares and thrills without a unifying visual or poetic idea. [31 March 2003, p. 106]
10
The New York TimesDana Stevens
As five or six bad movies squished together, it almost seems like a bargain. Read full review
0
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
So much is going on, and so many bizarre and seemingly random subplots collide in Dreamcatcher, that the film feels like some crazy patchwork quilt sewn by a schizophrenic seamstress. It’s not only confusing, but dull, as well. Read full review
More From This Movie

35 Critic Reviews

5.1 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL