A KING-SIZE NIGHTMARE.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

HAVE YOU ever wanted to see a movie about a bloody plague? Or a sinister alien invasion? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you crossed ``Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' with ``Alien''? Or ``Stand by Me'' with ``The Stand''?

Filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan obviously has pondered these questions and with his interminable monster mishmash, ``Dreamcatcher,'' he gives you all these movies - and more. The latest bloated Stephen King book to be made into a bad movie, ``Dreamcatcher'' is a compendium of King's little shop of horrors. Kasdan and co-screenwriter William Goldman clearly had no idea how to turn King's lengthy book into one coherent movie, so they decided to make several incoherent ones, hoping something will stick.

Kasdan is best-known for writing and directing navel-gazers like ``The Big Chill'' and ``Grand Canyon,'' although he does have some experience as a writer working on popcorn movies like ``Raiders of the Lost Ark'' and a couple of the ``Star Wars'' flicks. But that was a long time ago in a movie galaxy far, far away from a disaster like this, and the now oh-so-earnest Kasdan seems to have forgotten how to connect with what is essentially supposed to be fun, B-movie material.

``Dreamcatcher'' begins as a character study of four guys in their 30s who have possessed a psychic ability since childhood - a gift, I might add, that they've really put to poor use. Through flashback (cue the Ben E. King song) we see they acquired their powers from a strange boy named Duddits, a boy whose memory is celebrated, although, oddly, they never visit him these days even though he lives an hour away.

On a hunting trip in the Maine woods (the movie was shot in British Columbia), the friends find themselves in the middle of some really bad stuff. Their first tip that something is wrong comes from looking out the cabin window and seeing all the forest animals fleeing due south. Tip No. 2: A menacing army colonel (played by Morgan Freeman in a wild bit of miscasting), peering out of an army helicopter, while a lackey in a Hazmat suit bellows: ``You are in a quarantined area! This situation will be resolved in 24 to 48 hours!''

And, sure enough, it is; and yes, sitting in the theater, it feels like it takes place in real time. Once the monsters are out of the bag, Kasdan shows little skill in handling the film's gruesome scenes of terror and gore. And the longer the movie plays, the more convoluted it becomes, climaxing in a drawn-out jumble of a finale that has no less than four separate story lines vying for supremacy. (And, folks, there are no winners.)

I suppose one could draw some parallels between the movie's infectious plague and the looming threat of biological warfare, but ``Dreamcatcher'' is too dumb to entertain any such ideas. This marks Goldman's third try at a King novel (``Misery'' and ``Hearts in Atlantis'' came before) and the returns are diminishing. The screenwriter fired off a bitter diatribe against director Martin Scorsese's work recently, which reminds one of the old proverb about seeing the speck in your neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in your own. And with ``Dreamcatcher,'' Goldman has timber the size of a giant sequoia.

DREAMCATCHER - One and one half stars

(R: violence, gore, language)

Starring: Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Sizemore, Donnie Wahlberg.

Director: Lawrence Kasdan.

Running time: 2 hr. 14 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: The latest bloated Stephen King book to be made into a bad movie, ``Dreamcatcher'' is a compendium of King's little shop of horrors.

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Photo:

Out in the Maine wilderness, Thomas Jane, left, and Donnie Wahlberg could be in over their heads in ``Dreamcatcher.''