The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Mark Pellington

Writers (WGA):

John A. Keel (novel)
Richard Hatem (screenplay)

Release Date:

25 January 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

What do you see?

Plot:

A reporter is drawn to a small West Virginia town to investigate a series of strange events, including psychic visions and the appearance of bizarre entities.

Plot Keywords:

Mothman | Psychic | Small Town | Reporter | Car Accident

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Richard Gere	...	John Klein
David Eigenberg	...	Ed Fleischman
Bob Tracey	...	Cyrus Bills
Ron Emanuel	...	Washington Post Reporter
Debra Messing	...	Mary Klein
Tom Stoviak	...	Brian
Yvonne Erickson	...	Dr. McElroy
Scott Nunnally	...	Orderly
Harris Mackenzie	...	TV Journalist
Will Patton	...	Gordon Smallwood
Lucinda Jenney	...	Denise Smallwood
Laura Linney	...	Connie Mills
Tom Tully	...	Motel Manager
Zachary Mott	...	Otto (as Billy Mott)
Ann McDonough	...	Lucy Griffin

Also Known As:

Mothman (USA) (working title)
The Mothman (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for terror, some sexuality and language.

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Malaysia:U | South Korea:15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Denmark:15 | Finland:K-11 | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIA | Hungary:16 | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:M | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Philippines:PG-13 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:16 (canton of the Grisons) | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | Canada:AA (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Bentleyville, Pennsylvania, USA

Company:

Lakeshore Entertainment

Trivia:

Michael Gambon, John Hurt, David Suchet and Charles Dance were all possibles for Leek (Alan Bates).

Goofs:

Factual errors: At the end, a title card announces that the cause of the Silver Bridge collapse has never been determined. In reality, the reason for the disaster was determined after several years of detective work: metal fatigue in one of the eyebar chains that held up the bridge, caused by a hairline fracture. When the real Silver Bridge collapsed, the towers fell as well as the span. In the movie, the towers remain standing.

Quotes:

[first lines]
John Klein: Jesus!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Gilmore Girls: Norman Mailer, I'm Pregnant! (#5.6)" (2004)

Soundtrack:

300 Percent Density

History Revised

In 1966-67 a series of weird, supposedly supernatural, events occurred in or near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Much of what happened centered on local residents' purported encounters with UFOs; confrontations with "men-in-black"; phone calls from entities whose voices sounded electronic (or metallic); and sightings of a winged, semi-human creature that came to be known as "mothman". A few locals also were made privy to future predictions (prophecies), some of which in fact did materialize, but others didn't. One of the alleged predictions was a December, 1967 disaster that did occur, and which this film dramatizes.

Available literature suggests a high probability that some, though by no means all, of the Point Pleasant events were the resulting activities of a practical joker, a prankster, by the name of "Barker" (who died in the 1980s). Other events appear to have been too bizarre and too widespread to be attributed to a lone carnival barker (pun intended).

"The Mothman Prophecies" is not a very good factual account of the Point Pleasant events. Indeed, the film's setting is the present, not the 1960s, a fact which the film slyly evades. The filmmakers evidently decided to use part of the historical record, and then dramatize it, in a way that would have cinematic appeal to today's audiences.

And so, the film aims to be a supernatural thriller, a suspenseful study in the theme of what is real vs. what is not real. There's lots of dark atmosphere with offbeat, gyrating camera shots, ominous music, and dialogue to match. The overall effect is one wherein unseen forces are lurking in the shadows.

For some viewers, this supernatural tone thus provides intense escapist entertainment. For me, the hocus-pocus factor was too high, and the film exuded a sense of forced melodrama. Further, the film did not lead to any satisfactory resolution. What it did lead to was a nicely staged reenactment of the real life December, 1967 disaster.

Maybe someday someone will make a documentary about the men-in-black element of the Point Pleasant events. If the underlying research is honest and thorough, the resulting film could illuminate a 1960s drama that, while not supernatural in nature, had, and still has, implications that are as scary as they are real.