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Review of Dreamcatcher (James Newton Howard)

2003 Varèse

2017 Varèse

2019 Varèse

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you are loyal to James Newton Howard's sense for tense, ambient suspense in a heavily electronic realm, unnerving textures yielding to dissonant orchestral crashes after every few minutes of stewing, synthetic atmosphere.

Avoid it... on the original 2003 album if you are expecting to hear a satisfyingly representative presentation of the score's music, for several highlights were not available on album until Varèse Sarabande's extensive, 2-CD expansion of the score in 2017.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Dreamcatcher: (James Newton Howard) A story of courage and desperation, the Stephen King best-selling novel "Dreamcatcher" was translated onto the big screen in 2003 by acclaimed screenwriter and director Lawrence Kasdan. The premise of concept is one supernatural power and the inner strength of the human soul, with the usual amount of gratuitous King gore thrown in for cheap thrills. Unfortunately, the film also involves a few very tired concepts involving an alien takeover of humanity, with the nasty visitors gestating in humans and in some cases controlling them. Being a suspense film set in a remote location, with little chance for help and an evil military to boot, the mood of Dreamcatcher for its protagonists isn't one of much jubilation. The overall adaptation is among the worst of a King novel ever to exist, which is saying something given Kasdan's prowess and the fact that most of these cinematic versions of King's stories are plain awful to begin with. The involvement of James Newton Howard on the project would allow the versatile composer to expand upon his increasingly popular ventures into the areas of horror and suspense at the time, and it marked his fifth film with the director. Howard, whose score for The Sixth Sense raised eyebrows with its subtle effectiveness, won the hearts of many listeners with his more traditional horror music for Signs in 2002. For Dreamcatcher, Howard would be able to employ the same basic orchestral and electronic ideas from those previous scores but strip them down to their exposed foundation, allowing the loneliness and helplessness of the film's primary characters to embed themselves into the stark music for the production. The ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony performing for Dreamcatcher is of decent size, though power and depth are not the goals of Howard's work here. The composer has remarked that this assignment ranks amongst his most electronic and ambient for the genre, functioning intentionally as an element of sound design in many sequences during the film.

The subtleties of solo instrumentation are the key to Dreamcatcher's success, and to that end, Howard achieves a level of paranoia and alienation in his music that enthusiasts of his other horror endeavors will be able to appreciate. Interestingly, given the Native American history of the dreamcatcher as a symbol, as well as inspiration for the art for the film, there is no corresponding ethnicity to this score. (The story is set in King's favorite location of Maine.) In fact, the main detriment of Howard's approach to Dreamcatcher is the extremely generic tone of its character when compared to his other scores in the genre. The majority of the music for Dreamcatcher is tense, riveting ambience, punctuated by occasional, typical orchestral hits and sharp blasts. Howard manages to do this without allowing his work to fit snugly into a horror score stereotype by incorporating a wide range of electronic rhythms and somewhat interesting sounds that enforce the thrill of the moment with a touch of the supernatural. Especially evident in the marginal primary keyboarded theme for the picture, these electronics serve to represent the young, contemporary men in the tale, the military involvement, and, of course, the spine-tingling environment that results when there isn't another sound in the film. These electronic elements may not have pizzazz, nor will they alone float the score. Only Howard's watertight tension, always prevalent in the orchestra (and usually the strings), causes the electronic loops to gain their edge. Several extremely difficult crescendos of dissonance are employed throughout the work to accomplish the task of fright, and the lack of accessible tonality in the vast majority of less extroverted cues defines the score as a troubled one. The score is short on thematic resonance, the aforementioned, keyboarded motif only substantively heard in the first two cues (chronologically), in "Boys Find Josie," "It's Over," and closing out the "End Credits." It's a nicely alluring idea but nothing to sustain the entire score. Howard shies away from the use of any other theme, instead opting for a two-note motif to represent the grander, fully orchestral moments of realization in the film. In the cues "The Weasel," "The Debate," and "Curtis and Own Battle," this motif is performed in full.

There are a handful of action and fantasy cues in Dreamcatcher, but they are not as impressively rendered as one would hope. Only the discovery cue "Jonesy and Gray Debate" contains a magnificent moment of awe existing at the same level as in Howard's majestic Atlantis: The Lost Empire and several subsequent, fantasy-oriented projects. In "Mr. Gray Go Away," a less tonally pleasing burst from the orchestra is tainted by dissonant brass effects. The straight action portions, leading up to the climactic "Duddits and Mr. Gray," are typically brief and rely upon pounding percussion and brass hits for their common thrills. Fans of the composer will find merit in these passages, but, in the end, Dreamcatcher is an underwhelming experience. It best represents the sound design ambience of a subdued suspense and horror score, potentially causing its listening experience on album to be difficult for the light-hearted. The original 2003 product was long ridiculed because it was missing some of the score's obvious highlights, and this situation came about because Varèse Sarabande didn't have access to major cues from the latter half of the film when condensing the 96-minute recording down to 40 minutes for the desired release date. Themselves long bothered by the situation, the label finally rectified the Dreamcatcher presentation in 2017 when the score was one of four released together in "The Stephen King Collection," a $90 set of 1,500 copies that also contained Firestarter, The Stand, and TV's The Shining. Spread over two CDs in that set, the Dreamcatcher portion finally supplies the additional action cues demanded by fans, though they are not really barn burners in quality. It also features the "End Credits" cue with Howard's obnoxiously heavy but still interesting electronica rhythms at the outset. Varèse offered the same contents on a standalone 2-CD set of 1,000 copies in 2019. While a marginally effective score, Howard's work transfers onto any album much like others in its genre have done before; if you can appreciate the delicate care taken in the use of the ambient electronics and tolerate the usual orchestral thrashing during ten minutes of the score, then Dreamcatcher may be a target of interest. For others, this score is a clear reminder that effective and interesting horror scores don't typically translate into readily engaging listening experiences out of context.  **

TRACK LISTINGS:

2003 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 39:41

• 1. Main Title (2:46) • 2. Finding Rick (1:48) • 3. Animal Exodus (3:45) • 4. Becky Bleeds (1:15) • 5. The Weasel (5:43) • 6. The Debate (4:11) • 7. Henry Returns to the Cabin (4:22) • 8. What are You Up To? (2:09) • 9. Henry Meets Owen (2:51) • 10. 1-800-Henry (2:08) • 11. Curtis and Owen Battle (2:55) • 12. Duddits Warns Henry (3:27) • 13. Pete and Trish (2:14)

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2017/2019 Varèse Sets:
Total Time: 95:59

CD1: (49:52) • 1. Main Titles (2:47) • 2. Finding The Keys/Be Careful (2:15) • 3. Accident/To the Cabin (2:03) • 4. Gathering Wood/Remembering Duddits (1:01) • 5. Memory Warehouse (0:35) • 6. Toasting Duddit (0:53) • 7. Saving Duddits (2:56) • 8. Finding Rick (1:50) • 9. Animal Exodus (3:43) • 10. The Bathroom/What Is It? (3:55) • 11. Weasel Kills Beaver (5:43) • 12. Military Moves In (1:06) • 13. Scout's Honor (2:43) • 14. Becky Bleeds (1:14) • 15. Weasel Attacks Pete (3:32) • 16. Jonesy and Gray Debate (5:00) • 17. Henry Returns to the Cabin (4:20) • 18. Boys Find Josie (4:19)

CD2: (46:07) • 1. I'm That Monster (3:50) • 2. Gray Kills Pete/Trucker (2:37) • 3. Jonesy Gets Files (2:10) • 4. Soldiers Find Henry (2:27) • 5. Reading Curtis' Mind (0:45) • 6. Henry Tells Owen (2:49) • 7. Owen Rescues Henry (1:08) • 8. Jonesy Calls Henry (2:06) • 9. Picking Up Duddits (2:54) • 10. Killing Trooper (1:06) • 11. Duddits Tells Story (3:27) • 12. Curtis Takes Chopper (3:18) • 13. Curtis and Owen Battle (2:55) • 14. Owen Dead (2:06) • 15. Mr. Gray Go Away (3:35) • 16. Duddits and Mr. Gray (2:40) • 17. It's Over (0:37) • 18. End Credits (5:37)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert of the 2003 album includes a list of performers but no extra information about the score or film. That of the 2017 and 2019 sets contains additional notation about both.

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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Dreamcatcher are Copyright © 2003, 2017, 2019, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/30/03 and last updated 9/2/20.