A half-hour into Dreamcatcher, I couldn’t figure out where the story was going. A full hour into it, I couldn’t believe where it went. Dreamcatcher is like three or four movies with undeveloped plots, all strung together into one monumental mess.

The story starts off with an intriguing premise: four friends share psychic gifts, seemingly able to tell what happened, or what will happen. You might think that from there it will turn into a supernatural thriller, and if it had we’d all be better off. But no, oh no, it goes far beyond that. Dreamcatcher hints that it may go in a multitude of directions, but ends up turning into, of all things, a monster movie that’s so amazingly bad you’ll first wonder how the story (or stories, rather) ever sprang past being just a bad idea to being a full-fledged feature film. After that, you’ll wonder how they attracted the multitude of stars that are humiliated in this heap of trash. Dreamcatcher is that bad. I’m willing to bet that Morgan Freeman, Tom Sizemore, Jason Lee, and Thomas Jane -- all respectable actors with other notable films to their credit -- are ducking for cover right now and are hoping this film will be seen by few and forgotten by many. Then there’s director Lawrence Kasdan. This is the same man who made Body Heat, The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist, and Grand Canyon. Oh, how far they have fallen.

If films like Dreamcatcher serve any purpose, it’s to be a benchmark for just how bad a movie can be. In that vein it succeeds admirably, even topping Kevin Costner’s The Postman for sheer stupidity. And, surprisingly, despite how awful it is, I don’t really regret seeing it. After all, at the end of the year we shall have something to pick as the year’s worst.

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