Dreamcatcher (novel)

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.
Canon Welding - Takes place in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, the site of previous King novels IT and Insomnia. At one point a character comes across a memorial written by the Loser's Club from IT. Scrawled on in graffiti is "PENNYWISE LIVES.
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.
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.
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.
Shout-Out - Kurtz is named after the character Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness. Lampshaded with a comment that it's probably not his real name and probably something that he decided to call himself.

Perlmutter had read Heart of Darkness, had seen Apocalypse Now, and had on many occasions thought that the name Kurtz was simply a little too convenient. He would have bet a hundred dollars (a great sum for a non-wagering artistic fellow such as himself) that it wasn’t the boss’s real name-that the boss’s real name was Arthur Holsapple or Dagwood Elgart, maybe even Paddy Maloney. Kurtz? Unlikely. It was almost surely an affectation, as much a prop as George Patton’s pearl-handled .45.

- The government nickname for the alien fungus is "The Ripley" after Sigourney Weaver's character from the Alien movies.
  - Jonesy is also the name of Ripley's cat from Alien.
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.