The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
Starring Richard Gere, David Eigenberg & Bob Tracey
Directed by Mark Pellington
Written by John A. Keel & Richard Hatem

 

“The Mothman Prophecies” offers that it is based on true events and it does a very credible job of relating the odd and eerie occurrences that took place in Point Pleasant, VA. Events testified to by credible eyewitnesses prior to the collapsed bridge tragedy that took over 30 lives. The town has recovered enough from the event to have created their own personal folk lore surrounding the Mothman, much like Roswell, New Mexico and the UFO phenomenon. They actually have a huge statue of the Mothman on display along with a festival devoted to him.

The movie is taken from a novel written by John Keel which explored the unexplained phenomenon of the Mothman, a strange abnormally large moth like creature that seems to appear before horrific events. The book delved into the UFO aspects of the ongoing mystery but the movie focuses more on the personal experiences and life changing effects on those who witness an appearance of the Mothman.

I was not certain what to expect when I first saw “The Mothman Prophecies”. To be honest, I was just really curious about the whole story. That there is this terrifying creature that appears before catastrophic events with no viable explanation or rationale was of great interest to me. After all I grew up with the Jersey Devil. I was prepared for anything, almost like putting on a Syfy channel original movie. Could be crap, could be crappier.

Instead I found a movie that was decidedly better than expected. John Klein (Richard Gere) and his wife Mary(Debra Messing) seem to have life exactly as they want it. A successful, happy couple about to purchase their first home they are struck by tragedy. One night, while driving home, Mary seems to have a seizure after seeing a large moth shaped creature with glowing red eyes fly at the windshield. While she is in the hospital they discover she has an extremely rare brain tumor which causes John to dismiss her cryptic drawings of a winged dark figure and her last haunting statement. “You didn’t see it, did you?”

After her death John finds himself compelled to discover just what “it” is. He is obsessed with finding out what happened to his wife, unable to accept the medical explanation of a brain tumor. He is especially agitated after he studies her sketchbook from the hospital with all of its renditions of the winged creature. One night after heading towards D.C for work, he winds up in the town of Point Pleasant, Virginia although he has no idea how he arrived there, apparently having driven 400 miles in two hours. Upon arriving in town, he immediately discovers that the Mothman is there and soon things begin to take a dark and unusual turn. One by one, the citizens are witness to Mothman sightings especially one in particular who claims to have conversations with someone named Indred Cold. A frightening entity who has a peculiar ability to see things beyond human comprehension. John finds help in the local sheriff, Connie Mills (Laura Linney) who although skeptical of any unearthly explanation finds she cannot dismiss the creepy events going on in town. Convinced that somehow the answer to his wife’s death lies with the Mothman, John keeps digging. He finally uncovers a man who is an expert on the Mothman, who advises John to just walk away. He reveals to John that these creatures may be beings from some other place that have come here with an unknown purpose that is beyond human ability to understand. John cannot shake the feeling that something horrific is about to happen to the town of Point Pleasant and so, disregarding the warnings of the man, he heads back to town. Upon arriving back in town he will find out that the Mothman’s reputation as a harbinger of death and destruction is all too accurate.

The flow and inherent style of this movie was at times dreamlike, or more precisely, a nightmare. There was no gore, no graphic violence but the disturbing images of the Mothman, along with the slow pacing and at times elongated plot development are haunting. You are lured into a state of confusion and increasing paranoia much as John Klein is. Richard Gere, as John, is really understated, letting the story and his character develop with a subtle shift of emotions that don’t overshadow the overall mood of the movie. This is a character driven movie but it does not fall entirely short of creepy effects, both with the camera shots as well as outright drama. Scenes come at you sometimes deliberately blurred, other times they are creatively distorted in order to create a disturbing effect of a reality flush with fear and the unknown.

We are never given a clear shot of the Mothman or Indred Cold, but rather are confined to a vision of them lifted from the minds of those who were eyewitnesses. It leaves the viewer with shadowy perceptions and unanswered questions. Why is the Mothman here? Who exactly is Indred Cold? And most frighteningly of all, are they merely messengers with warnings or rather, the unseen architects of these catastrophes?

The movie at times does meander, as if the director or writers’ lingered too long on which direction to take but, overall, it does not significantly detract from enjoying the plot and subsequent frights. Not a film with big fists of effects, rather more like short jabs to our fear and curiosity. These events, while actually occurring in real life, have been altered it to fit the compressed span of a movie and ratchet tension up. There is still enough accuracy to peak the interest. The acting is sharp and effective and works well with the plot. There is a muted soundtrack, noises take on more significance than music which helps keep the mood dark and disturbing.

What was truly interesting about the movie is the deliberate message that not all answers are available to us and even if they were, finding them may be more dangerous than anything else. The advice to John to just “walk away” was a jolt of reality. Most movies want to lead the viewers to a neat answer or a clear solution. They urge us “to cross over into the light” when it would perhaps be more prudent to remain in the dark. Ignorance can be a useful tool in a universe that holds more mysteries than answers. There is no answer at the end of this movie, no unwrapped present of truth to comfort us. Merely the knowledge that as Shakespear once intoned, “…there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”