Dreamcatcher (novel)

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MOD: Although this page is explicitly marked as being about the novel, tropes about the 2003 film have been added to it and to its subpages. The film needs to be broken out into its own page, especially given how much it varies from the novel.}}

Dreamcatcher

Original Title:	Cancer
Written by:	Stephen King
Central Theme:
Synopsis:
Genre(s):	Science fiction, Horror
First published:	February 20, 2001

Dreamcatcher is a novel written by Stephen King.

Gary Ambrose "Jonesy" Jones, Pete Moore, Joe "Beaver" Clarendon and Henry Devlin are for lifelong friends. As kids, they saved Douglas "Duddits" Cavell, a boy with Down syndrome, from a group of bullies.

As adults, they go on an annual hunting trip where they come across a delirious stranger talking about lights in the sky. It becomes revealed that he's infected by an alien parasite. The army arrives lead by the psychotic Colonel Abraham Kurtz who puts the area under quarantine. It Gets Worse.

Was made into a film directed by Lawrence Kasdan in 2003.

Tropes used in Dreamcatcher (novel) include:

• Adaptation Decay
• Adaptation Name Change: The film changes Kurtz to Curtis because of the Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness reference. King asked them to change it to a name that still sounded similar to Kurtz.
• Affably Evil: Mr. Gray
• Alien Invasion
• Anyone Can Die: Beaver and Pete both die in the first half of the story. By the end of the book, Jonesy and Henry are the only surviving characters.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Between Mr. Gray and Jonesy.
• Body Horror: The aliens are referred to as "shit-weasels". Guess where they come out of infected people.
• Cool Teacher: Jonesy. After hanging up on Henry, he has a student named David come into his office. David was caught cheating on an exam and put a huge risk to his scholarship. Jonesy, who who was using his powers, deduced that David came from a poor neighborhood and as a result, tears the exam up and tells David to do a Make-Up Essay. When Jonesy is run over, David sees his body, lamenting the possibility that Jonesy might die.
• Evil Brit: Mr. Gray speaks with a British accent in the film.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: The animals are seen fleeing in mass migration.
• Face Full of Alien Wingwong: Mr. Gray's head explodes, infecting Jonesy with hundreds of alien spores and transferring Mr. Gray's consciousness into him.
• Fartillery: One of the signs that you're infected with one of the shit-weasels.
• General Ripper: Kurtz.
• Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Duddits is of the Type C variety.
• Insult Backfire: Played straight and subverted in the same scene. Mr. Gray tries to make small talk with Jonesy while he is looking for Pete. When Jonesy called him out for killing Beaver, Mr. Gray apathetically dismissed it due to Beaver having nothing in his mind that was useful to him. Jonesy, naturally pissed, throws a Precision F-Strike at Mr. Gray. Instead of being offended, Mr. Gray is excited to hear the phrase, because he saw it in Jonesy's memory warehouse. However when Jonesy insults him again and mentions him by name, Mr. Gray gets serious and interrogates him.

Jonesy: FUCK YOU!! Mr. Gray: I know what that expression means. I studied the foul language section of your memory warehouse. Rather distasteful I must say. Jonesy: How about this Mr. Gray, eat shit and die. Mr. Gray: Why did you call me Mr. Gray. Did someone tell you about me? WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT ME!?

• Nice Guy: Henry, Beaver, Pete and Jonesy when they were kids. They were more than willing to stop bullies from brutally picking on Duddits, despite not knowing him personally. Special mention goes to Kid Beaver who manages to calm a still scared Duddits down by singing Blue Bayou. Once grown up Henry and Pete downgrade to Jerks with a Hearts of Gold.
  • Adult Jonesy still retains his nice guy attitude as a school teacher. He gives one of his students who he caught cheating on a test; a second chance to make it up to him, when he used his telepathy to find out the student, who was on scholarship has a poor upbringing. Said student was one of the witnesses to the horrific car accident that nearly killed Jonesy and is heartbroken when he thinks his teacher might die.
  • Adult Beaver while foul-mouthed and a womanized, is also a nice guy in his own way. If what Jonesy said to Mr. Gray was accurate, he'd never hurt a soul. Which made his death all the more tragic.
• Nobody Poops: Subverted horribly.
• Oh Crap: When Henry, Jonesy, Pete and Beaver first meet Duddits. They threaten to tell the Bullies what they did to him. They're unfazed at first, but then Pete prepares to run, telling Henry to give the word. The bullies are still unfazed until Jonesy mentions Pete's name. Prompting one of them to look shocked. It's implied that Pete is a fast runner. So fast, no one can catch him. So if he runs, everyone would know what they did.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Mr. Gray plans on infecting the entire world.
• One-Winged Angel: In the film both Mr. Gray and Duddits are able to transform into monstrous creatures a their 'final form'.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Mr. Gray to Jonesy.
• Race Lift: Kurtz is played by Morgan Freeman in the film.
• The Rainman: Duddits.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Mr. Gray loves BACON.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Henry and Pete become more cynical as adults than they were as kids.
  • Henry in a poor attempt to help one of his patients flat out tells him, to stop eating himself to death for guilt over his mother. Saying it alone is insensitive as it is, but the fact that he got the info using the gift of telepathy Duddits gave him. Something the patient, sorta catches onto. The result causes said patient to eat himself to death. To be fair on Henry's part, he was trying to help him with his power and even contemplated killing himself out of guilt on top of the guilt for not seeing Duddits again. This makes him come across as Innocently Insensitive. However he did nothing to stop the patient.
  • Pete as a child, was a Nice Guy. Upon meeting Duddits for the first time and seeing the danger he was in through bullies, Pete was willing to run on Henry's word, implying that he was fast enough to out run them and willing to do so to get to the nearest adult. When they go looking for Josie, a missing girl, Duddits entrusts Pete with the ability known as "The Line." in which he becomes a human dowsing rod finding what he wants to find. Nowadays he became a drunken sleazy Car Salesman, who uses the line to pick up women. He redeems himself in the end, by killing a shit-weasel and telling Mr. Gray to bite his bag refusing to reveal more about Duddits.
• Unexplained Accent: In the movie, Jonesy speaks with a British accent whenever Mr. Gray is controlling him for some strange reason.
• Vagina Dentata: The "shit-weasels" in the film.
• Vorpal Pillow: How Mr. Gray is killed.
• Water Source Tampering: Mr. Gray's plan of spreading the alien infection.
• Your Head Asplode: Mr. Gray's head explodes early on to infect Jonesy with his spores. Later on, Kurtz's head is blown off with a gun.