Review by C. Lochlyn Carter

The Mothman Prophecies is a very well crafted, stylistic psychological thriller that performs excellently, however might be misleading to film-goers around the country. When I first saw the trailers for "Mothman" I expected it to be a quasi-monster movie, but the film goes for more than that.. Much more.
John Klein (Richard Gere) plays a reporter for a Washington-based media outlet who is deeply in love with his wife Mary (Debra Messing) until a car horrible accident injures and later kills her (with the help of a rare type of brain tumor). But Mary saw something before the accident, something she tries desperately to tell her husband, but cannot. Rather she scribes down her vision in cryptic, eerie sketches. The sketches depict a winged creature (one looked like Ghostface from Scream, actually).
Two years later, John finds himself driving on a West Virginia road in the middle of the morning. Not knowing where he's going or how long he's been driving, he knocks on the door of a nearby house to call for help. The owner of the house, Gordon (Will Patton), pulls a shotgun on John and threatens to kill him. Apparently John has been knock-knock-knocking on his door for the past three nights, but we know that John hasn't.
Enter Connie Parker (Laura Linney), a local Sgt. in Point Pleasant. From the get-go she suspects something is up. We later find out that more and more people have been seeing these "Mothmen" around town - even 'respectable, church-goin' folk!' A few eerie sequences involving testimonials from town-folk follow, which were really well acted and quite chilling. They talk of an eight-foot man with red glowing lights and static-laced phone calls. Connie and John filter through the facts and try to get to the bottom of this Scooby mystery. Things take a turn for the "what the fuck?" when John's wife begins appearing. John is desperate to decode the clues, but pays for it with his sanity.
What I loved most about this movie was its visuals. It was like a sup'd up episode of The X-Files (I know, I know, that's what everyone is saying but it's true). Pellington slides in some of the most exquisite close-ups I've seen captured on celluloid. The CGI (rarely seen) is seamless and the visuals never seem out of place or forced. The opening title sequence is a perfect example of the genius insight behind the cinematography. The movie itself was quite long, but the pace never really slowed too much, which was enjoyable. I did feel like the ending was tacked on, just because it built up to a certain point and once it reached that point it kept going. This was in conjunction with John's character arch. Those who have seen it and read the fine lines will know what I'm talking about. Musically the movie isn't your typical thriller. It's not derived, as one might think. It's surreal, beat-influenced, always fitting yet surprisingly not predictable. The rest of the soundtrack consists of exquisite sounds. A feast for the ears.

Richard Gere and Laura Linney together again. What a sight. They play off each other perfectly, even though Linney is rarely seen out of her tough-to-chew cop exterior. Nice accent! Their chemistry works to the film's advantage (they worked together on Primal Fear, remember?), but not to the point where it's diluted by a love angle. Maybe that's why everyone makes the X-Files comparison.. It's like Mulder and Scully. Of course, here, we see Gere travelling down a path that leads to insanity. He is drawn in by the connection of these Mothmen to his dead wife. It's truly fascinating and Gere doesn't let us down here at all. Will Patton had me convinced the whole way through. His more emotional scenes left me feeling awkward, just as they should have. Alan Bates is introduced quite late and we initially seem him as bitter. An experienced actor he is, he lets us sink down and empathize with him as his role plays out. Overall, no complaints on the acting end. Everyone spit out above par performances for a movie of this "supposed" stature.
Pellington definitely has my attention now. Arlington Road was entertaining, but not without its flaws. Here we have a now-experienced man at the helm of a film, which is an excellent opening to a fresh year of films.
So what are the Mothmen? Not scary saskwatches, that's for damn sure. Oddly enough, they never really invoked any fear in me to begin with. Their mythical, but not terrifying. I'll let the movie do the rest of the explaining (they do it quite well, too!). We don't see them because we cannot see them. Nevertheless, this movie has performed very well and has reached my expectations. It's less of the Mimic rip-off that one would think. It's too bad that it will disappoint those who "want" a Mimic rip-off, which is undoubtedly a lot of people. I can't help but wonder if the Mothmen are trying to contact me right now. Hmm. |||

Gere's 'Mothman' to be filmed here
Pittsburgh Region to pose as W.Va. for 12 weeks

By Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Silver-haired actor Richard Gere will star in a movie version of "The Mothman Prophecies," scheduled to shoot in Pittsburgh and the surrounding region for a dozen weeks starting in late January.
Richard S. Wright, an executive with the company producing the picture, calls it "a cinematic cousin, if you will, of films such as 'The Sixth Sense.' It's a very intelligent, very well-written script. ... We really have high hopes for this film."
Based on the 1975 real-life book "The Mothman Prophecies" by John A. Keel, it will be directed by Mark Pellington. His most notable film was "Arlington Road," a smart thriller with Jeff Bridges.

- The look of the terrain -

Wright describes "Mothman" this way: "It's about a Washington reporter who, through mysterious circumstances, ends up in a small town in West Virginia where all sorts of strange, unexplained occurrences are happening. He starts to piece together that all these occurrences are somehow connected and he has to figure out how."
The book, which deals with events in the late 1960s, includes mention of psychic visions, UFOs and a birdlike creature known as Mothman. The flapping figure's appearance apparently coincides with the deadly collapse of a bridge, making one of Western Pennsylvania's trademark spans key to the project. Wright, who works for Lakeshore Entertainment in Los Angeles, said, "Once the draft was into its current state, Richard Gere loved it and signed on. It's a fictionalization of a true series of events that actually did happen in West Virginia some years back."
It's too soon to say when the movie, which could be re-titled, would arrive in theaters, but next fall would be the earliest. Wright said that even though the story deals with the paranormal, "it plays very much like a suspense thriller."

- The look of the terrain -

While "Mothman" could have followed many of its film brethren north, Wright said Pittsburgh was a better fit.
"We considered shooting in Canada, which -- quite honestly -- is less expensive, but the look of Pittsburgh really matched what we were looking for in West Virginia. We basically scaled down the movie so we could shoot it here. He said Pellington found the region's hilly terrain especially appealing."The director really fell in love with the look of the terrain; it's very three-dimensional, with long sight lines and it makes the town in its own way very photogenic," Wright said.

Book review from the amazon.com website

"The Mothman Prophecies," by John Keel
Paperback - 275 pages (October 1, 1991)
Illuminet Press; ISBN: 0962653438

Fascinating true account of the paranormal, August 30, 2000
Reviewer: Chris Pittman from Franklin MA USA

I have read over 200 books on UFOs and for many reasons, this is my favorite. Keel is an honest investigator who was fortunate to be involved in the strange, spooky events he writes about. Taken along with his first book, Operation Trojan Horse, this slim volume says more about the true nature of the UFO phenomenon than almost any other book written since.
I was initially doubtful of the validity of Keel's claims, as some other reviewers are. However, I had the luck of meeting a man mentioned in the book who accompanied Keel on his investigations. This person, whom I trust and sincerely believe to be honest, flatly stated that everything in the book was true, that he had been there, spoke to the witnesses, and eventually became involved in the phenomena, as did Keel. The fact is, these things happened. In fact, Keel left some of the strangest evidence out of the book.
Mothman Prophecies is a fascinating true story, and I recommend it to anyone who has a real desire to know the truth about UFOs and the paranormal.