Release: October 11, 2016
Film: Dreamcatcher
Tagline: Aliens are popping out the back door. This looks like a job for Scooby Doo!
This review contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Tamara threatens to "Brexit" out of his alien-possessed body, which was played by Matthew "Film Brain" Buck, who's British, which also serves as a further allusion to the alien-possessed Jonesy's inexplicable British accent.
- Aliens Among Us: Subverted. The review ends with Chester apparently revealing himself as an alien to defeat two other aliens posing as Malcolm and Tamara. Then shortly after the Critic rationalizes what happened, the real Chester appears and clarifies that the Chester the Critic saw was just an alien disguised as him.
- Call-Back: After Henry was immediately outed as a psychic at the very beginning of the film, an exasperated Critic admits he's running out of ideas as to how to poke fun of Stephen King's Cliché Storm, showing such past efforts as a drinking game (It), a board game (The Tommyknockers), the Troperaisers (Maximum Overdrive), and a Twilight Zone parody (The Langoliers).
- The Cameo: Bryan Porter and Awesome Comics cast member Aiyanna Wade appear for Nostalgia-Ween 2016's Gravity Falls-inspired opening theme, while Film Brain guests on the sketch parts as a pair of aliens with British accents who have taken over Malcolm and Tamara's bodies.
- Card-Carrying Villain: The Critic's opinion on Duddits' bullies.
- Gag Censor: King's face, and later a picture of hotdog buns, is placed over the dead Rick's butt from which an alien emerged.
- A Glass of Chianti: The review opens with the Critic sniffing a glass of wine full of such typical Stephen King movie elements as anti-religious commentary, Card-Carrying Villains, and Narm.
- Ham and Cheese: The Critic's feelings on possessed Jonesy, immediately inducting him into the "Hall of Fame of Over the Top Stephen King Villains" alongside Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Craig Toomey, Isaac Chroner and Wanda June.
- Hypocritical Humor: The Critic rants over being not as comfortable as King with Running Gags, which is then followed by screenshots of many of his own past jokes, such as the literal Elephant in the Living Room, the Chuck Norris title card, M. Bison's "Of course!" line, Casper's "Timing!" line, and the Bat Credit Card.
- Mood Dissonance: The "Stephen King Time!" title card is always introduced in a cheerful manner, hardly befitting such an expert at horror literature as King.
- Narm: Three cases.
- The Critic claims he cannot take the alien threat seriously when Curtis labels them "shit weasels".
- Rick's constant burping and farting (a sign that he's infected with the alien) is seen as less scary than it is unintentionally funny.
- His biggest pick with the film is the constant Scooby-Doo references, which he parodies with his own lines:Critic!Jonesy: "Whoa! Meet George Jetson! Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats! DuckTales, whoo-hoo! (discovers that Rick is dead and mutilated) Ohh, Tiny Toon Adventures!"
- Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: The appearance of this trope through the character of Duddits is taken to task by Chester, who as a bum with mental problems has a very good reason to call the trope offensive.
- Potty Failure: Parodied. Malcolm and Tamara do it and Malcolm announces it dead seriously.
- Self-Deprecation: Malcolm, Tamara and Chester took turns calling out the Critic (the latter two being played by Doug Walker) for how he wrote them.
- Shout-Out:
- Nostalgia-Ween 2016's opening theme is a shot-for-shot recreation of that of Gravity Falls, featuring Doug as Stan, Malcolm as Dipper, Tamara as Mabel, Bryan as Soos, and Aiyanna as Wendy.
- Stephen King's Cliché Storm is satirized in this episode through a game of Jeopardy! with the Critic hosting Malcolm, Tamara and Chester A. Bum.
- Rick's introduction has the Critic dubbing into him Elmer Fudd's "I'm hunting wabbits" line.
- Jonesy's nonsensical Catch Phrases is followed with the scene of Rick saying "Wubba lubba dub dub! Rikki-tikki-tavi, beyotch!" to Snowball.
- The animals fleeing a military helicopter is compared to an Alaskan version of The Lion King (1994).
- Possessed Jonesy gaining ominous sound effects for the most mundane actions (such as turning his neck and putting on his hood) gives ways to comparisons with a diabolical Michael Winslow, alluding to his role as a radio operator in Spaceballs, while his British accent created comparisons with a drunken Simon Pegg and an evil Eric Idle.
- Signature Style: The Critic notes director Lawrence Kasdan's fetish for snow, comparing it to a pair of Star Wars films he had a hand in, The Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens.
- So Bad, It's Good: The Critic's verdict of the film, as well as all bad Stephen King films in general. As much as he feels bad ripping into such works, he nevertheless feels they are having so much fun at being so bad that in the end everyone's happy.
- Subverted Catchphrase: "I'm the Nostalgia Critic and... happy flushing."
- Take That!: The Critic jokes that the sight of Beaver drinking is exactly what his actor Jason Lee does after every Alvin and the Chipmunks shooting. Also, at the scene where Beaver panics as he was trying to contain the alien in the toilet, the Critic dubs these lines onto the latter:Critic!Alien: (in a Chipmunk voice) "Come on, Dave! Think of all the genres we can do with pun titles! A rap musical called 'Chip-Hop'! A religious film called 'Holy Chip'! And, of course, the Halloween special, 'Scared Chipless'! We're coming for you, Dave! The chip must flow! The chip must flow!"
- Verbal Backpedaling: After his Hypocritical Humor moment was called out, the Critic rewords his discomfort over reusing old script elements to being "for the most part".
- Wacky Sound Effect: The Critic plays these over the scene where Jonesy gets run over.
