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 he Mothman Prophecies is based on a novel of the
same name by John A. Keel, a real-life journalist who supposedly wrote about
“true events” that occurred in the small town of Point Pleasant, West
Virginia in 1966. Depending on your perspective concerning UFOs and other
strange unexplained “phenomenon” (i.e. are you a skeptic or a believer?),
you’ll either think Keel is “full of it” or you’ll be relieved someone
finally “found evidence” for what you always believed to be true. I’m
somewhere in-between myself.
Richard Gere plays John Klein (not Keel, but Klein –
huh?), a successful Washington Times reporter happily married to the pretty Mary
(Debra Messing). The couple has just purchased a new house and is on their way
home when they get into a car accident, caused by something Mary claims she saw.
Flash-forward to two years later, with John, a widow for the last 2 years, still
refusing to even entertain the thought of dating again. When John takes a trip
out of town, he finds himself in the small town of Point Pleasant and has
absolutely no idea how he got there.
It turns out Point Pleasant has become a
hotbed of strange events, sightings, and what appears to be prophetic messages,
all involving a “Mothman”-like creature that appears to only certain people
and in the most mysterious ways. Pretty soon John and local cop Connie (Laura
Linney) are being drawn into the web as they themselves are “contacted.” As
John gets deeper and deeper into the mystery, will he learn the truth…or find
his destruction…?
The Mothman Prophecies is one of the creepiest and
atmospheric films I’ve seen in a long, long time. For sheer goosebumps, it
ranks up there with The Sixth Sense. But whereas M. Night Shyamalan built
The Sixth Sense
on slow reveals and offscreen scares, Mothman goes the
opposite route. Director Mark Pellington’s shot compositions go from slow
longshots to cropped close-ups to quick flashcuts revealing images and scenes
that refuses to show us everything. Pellington employs just the right amount of
quick cuts and long takes at all the right times, so that Mothman never
seems motionless, but at the same time never unfocused. It’s truly
inspirational filmmaking.
The acting corp. is led by practicing Buddhist Richard
Gere, who is actually not all that believable as a Washington Times journalist.
Gere still has that “pep” in his walk that made him a star in American
Gigolo, but regardless he seems grossly out of place in this role. Not that
it matters much, since the subject matter and Pellington’s smooth and quick
cameras are the actual stars of the film. Helping to inject some believability
is Laura Linney (Connie), who displays the right amount of small-town charm and
feminine vulnerability, all while packing heat. Laura’s many scenes with Gere
show (with believability) their characters’ burgeoning friendship and the
beginnings of a romance, although the movie never forces the issue. The two
doesn’t even act on their feelings until the very end, and even then it’s a
tentative move built on need.
Debra Messing has a small cameo in the beginning as
Gere’s wife, and Messing proves to be quite a good actress, displaying a wide
range of emotions that belies her cameo status. The rest of the cast includes
the always affable Will Patton as Gordon, the small-town redneck who is quickly
losing his mind and worst of all, seems to know it more than anyone else. Alan
Bates is also very good as Leek, a writer of the paranormal who was once like
Klein, and who Klein threatens to become if he isn’t careful. Leek’s brief
conversations with Klein are very interesting and leave you thinking. I wished
there were more scenes between the two men.
The credit for Mothman’s effectiveness as a creepy
and atmospheric thriller goes to Pellington and cinematographer Fred Murphy and
whoever edited the film. The movie moves in such a quick, brisk fashion, all
interspersed with slow, elongated scenes. Hard to accomplish, but true.
Pellington manages to tread the delicate balance between “too much” and
“too little”, giving us “just right.” Even though we never see the
“Mothman,” Murphy’s camera gives the impression that the Mothman is
everywhere, anywhere, and nowhere.
Despite all of its great assets and effective scares, Mothman
is strangely an empty film. Perhaps it’s the nature of adapting a nonfiction
book, but Mothman has no real revelation or grand epiphany, nothing that
would “tie up” all of the movie’s many mysteries. Sure, there’s a very
exciting and elaborate ending sequence that bears out a lot of the mysterious
prophecies, but what then? The film, probably so faithful to its original source
material, that it takes no liberties by supplying an ultimate “answer.”
The Mothman Prophecies is a very effective and scary
film, but unfortunately that’s all it is. It can overwhelm you with its mood
and atmosphere, and there are plenty of scenes that will elicit some “bad
vibes” while watching it (and afterwards while thinking about it.) Rather the
“Mothman” is real or not, his – or is it its? – story made a heck
of a good film.
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