Stephen King is a rich guy. That’s all I can say. Whatever crap he writes, somebody’s there to make a movie out of it. “Dreamcatcher” is a movie about four guys about to save the world from a terrible extraterrestrial invasion.

They’re childhood friends, and, like all Stephen King characters, they’re stuck in Maine. I say that because in wintertime, this isn’t the best place to be to save the world. The guys end up in one of those isolated cabins during a major blizzard and that’s where they must make their stand.

The nasty aliens have landed and they mostly take the form of big ugly worms with gigantic teeth. They hop inside of people, gestate and then pop out the poop hole. Yep, you got that right. It’s not pretty. It’s a bad version of “Alien”, but at least in that movie, they came out of the belly. They’re led by a big one who has the ability to take over a whole human – think “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. In fact, a lot of this horror movie is derivative, but the bloody stuff was holding my attention.

The other angle here is the connection between the four guys and stopping the big monster. Twenty years ago, they saved a mentally disabled kid from a group of bullies and from that kid apparently acquired telepathic powers. I won’t ruin the reasons for that, but, if you hang in there, they will get to it. What I will tell you is that it’s pretty silly (resembling “Stand By Me”)and is typical for Stephen King, who likes to tap into our childhood memories of not fitting in or our nightmares of boogey men. I like it when I read it, it just never seems to work out when it’s translated to the big screen.

A waste in this movie is Morgan Freeman, playing a secret government guy charged with cleaning up these alien invasions. I thought he was spoofing us, spouting odd paranoid comments with a straight face when I thought he should really be laughing. He’s been at this for over twenty five years and, of course, American citizens are none the wiser. That itself is pretty funny, but this movie is not going for laughs.

“Dreamcatchers” starts and finishes horribly, but does have a decent middle as the alien creatures are popping out of people’s butts. But things get too silly for me - the lead alien who takes over one of the guys bodies has a snooty British accent(he’s actually called Mr. Gray, I kid you not) and that was a horrible idea. I can only give this movie a “3.0” on the scale.