The Mothman Prophecies

Rating:
Summary: A great psychological thriller
Review: Based on the writings of John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies, is a surprisingly good psychological thriller. The film begins with Washington Post reporter John Klein (Richard Gere) and his wife Mary (Debra Messing) being involved in a strange accident while driving home one evening. Standing in the road before them is huge winged figure that swopes over the car. Before her death, Klein's wife begins drawing picture of red-eyed man-like being. Several years later, Klein finds himself in a small West Virginia town called Point Pleasant. Having no idea how he got there, Klein begins questioning locals, only to discover people in the area are seeing and hearing strange things. Klein himself is drawn into the events, which include sightings of unexplained lights and prophetic phone calls about impending disasters around the world. In the middle of all the unease and quiet weirdness is the now infamous figure the press dubbed Mothman-a creature witnesses describe as looking very much like the thing Klein's wife drew before her death.

All in all, this movie has a lot to offer. The acting is good. Richard Gere is very competent as reporter John Klein, and Messing puts on a very convincing preformance. Luara Linnely's part as the local sherrif is a nice touch to the film. Alan Bates is impressive as Alexander Leek (note that Leek is Keel spelled backwards). As for the film itself: superb. The part where Gere and Messings start having sex in a closet randomly while house hunting seems a little out of place in the film and doesn't make much sense (did the director just throw that in to make the film seem a tad streamy? If so, he failed). Then again, not much in this film does make sense, at least as far as the Mothman is concerned. Lots of Keel's original hypothetic ideas about the Mothman are brought to light by Leek. Very little is seen of the creature. Beyond these short comings, the film is very enjoyable. Each scene is well shot. The visual quality of the film coupled with the dark, symphonic soundtrack really gives The Mothman Prophecies the mysterious feel it needed. For those of you living near Point Pleasant or any rural town in the East, there is something about this movie and its setting that is likely to make you look over your shoulder when you go out at night. If you enjoy psychological thrillers and want a film that leaves you thinking, The Mothman Prophecies is your ticket.

Rating:
Summary: I'll See You In Time!
Review: Hollywood movies billed as "based on a true story" or "on actual events" rarely tell that story as it happened. "Based on a true story," means they got the idea from reality, gleaned a few facts to use as a framework for their story, and then went nuts with the make believe. The original events Mothman semi-depicts took place in the 1966 leading up to the Dec. 15, 1967 Silver Bridge collapse. This version is done as if it occurred today.

Mothman starts out with heavy foreshadowing surrounding the main character John Klein (Richard Gere), a reporter for the Washington Post. While John and his wife Mary (Debra Messing) are being shown a house a moth flits around a light in the dead of winter, on the way home she has a traumatic sighting of a mothman and crashes the car resulting in a head injury. When she comes too at the hospital and discovers her husband didn't see it too; she becomes convinced that something's wrong with her. A CAT scan reveals a moth shaped tumor. After his wife's death, he discovers his wife's drawings of a frightening black winged creature, a hospital employee described as an angel.

Two years later, John Klein heads to Richmond to interview a political candidate and inexplicably winds up in Point Pleasant, West Virginia where his car breaks down. Here he meets Gordon Smallwood (Will Patton) and Sgt. Connie Parker (Laura Linney). Through a chain of bizarre events, he becomes enmeshed in the mothman sightings finally meeting a man named Indred Cold over the telephone, ostensibly a mothman, who can read minds and drive people insane with his predictions. Klein (Gere) barely escapes the bug light.

There's a scene where Richard Gere goes back to the accident scene to have a look around. He discovers an odd shaped residue on the car; which foreshadows residue he finds on a tree in West Virginia. The driver's side window where Messing hit her head is still broken. Instead of falling after Messing comes to in the hospital, it falls after her death. This is after she's undergone surgery and chemotherapy, so we're talking a rather lengthy timeframe. It's an obvious bad cut that should have been caught before the movie was released.

Though I thought the West Virginia part of the movie was scary, the foreshadowing was ridiculous and the sloppy editing was irritating, the actors' performances don't really make up for it. I'm glad I only rented it.

Rating:
Summary: Suspend your disbelief.
Review: The best advice I can give to anyone who has never seen this film about these strange, supernatural events, is to suspend your disbelief. I'm an Agnostic, so I'm sort of in the middle when it comes to unexplained phenomenons. I'm both skeptical and willing to accept that there are things in this universe that will be forever unexplained. I've actually had a bonafide experience with precognition, so I suppose I'm less skeptical than others. This story deals with sightings of an Angel of Death type figure that appears and tells certain individuals of catastophic events before they happen. For what it's worth, I have a slight understanding of the strangeness that one feels when something revealed the day before comes to pass soonafter. I'll relate my own story for credibility. I went to bed knowing that I was going to the dog track the following afternoon. That night I had a dream about a sequence of numbers 1-3-8, 3-1-8, 8-1-3, and so on. But in my dream the numbers appeared in no certain order. You can guess what happened at the track the very next day. It happened in the very first race. There are three judges at the bottom of the race form who predict which dogs will come in and in what order, and they all picked 1-3-8 in varying sequences. I thought, "What the hell, I'll bet on a trifecta. There's no way I'm gonna win, anyway. That would be too bizarre." Being uncertain of the sequence, I boxed the trifecta, which means the dogs can come in any order and I win. They came in, and I won over 50$. That may not be life or death, but it made me look at the world a little differently afterwards. Wow, listen to me ramble. Richard Gere is very good here, and Laura Linney pitches in here and there with another solid performance. The ending is both eerie and expensive. I know where half the budget went. My primary complaint with the film is that the sound is up and down. I frequently had to turn the volume up as the actors whispered or their voices were drowned in the score. The score needed to be more in the background when the actors spoke, and the sound man should have been fired. Some of the dialogue sounds like mumbling, or midway through speaking, background noise washes out key words and I was left wondering what was said. For hard-bitten skeptics this movie is nothing more than a glorified X-files. For those who live and breath the supernatural this should be a geniune experience. As for myself, it was interesting and entertaining, even though the events leading up to the tragedy feel unexplained.

Rating:
Summary: Be sure to watch this at night in a dark room...
Review: This is without a doubt my favorite movie of all time. If you're going to watch this, you may want to be sure of a few things. First of all, it helps to have an open mind and an imagination. It is definitely not a movie for nonbelievers of the paranormal. Second, this creepy thriller is best watched at night in a dark room with a friend. If you choose to watch it alone, you may want to shut the window curtains for fear of seeing two red eyes staring at you. And finally, search through your memory to try and remember if you've had any sort of strange paranormal encounter in the past; the results may surprise you.

Rating:
Summary: "IN THE END, IT ALL CAME DOWN TO ONE SIMPLE QUESTION."
Review: I adore thrillers. I've watched them for years. MOTHMAN PROPHECIES is not one of those letdown thrillers that you watch once and set aside. It is Unforgettable and a must see.

Richard Gere plays John Klien, the Washington Post reporter who is blissfully married to Mary, played by Debra Messing. They are househunting together. After "checking for adequate closet space" they decide to take a nice, spacious house. Everything appears perfect but within an instant this changes. The movie grips you and never lets go from here. Mysteriously, John ends up in Point Pleasant, a small, quiet town in West Virginia, where, as Sargeant Connie Mills (Finney) informs him, "A lot of strange things have been happening lately." Well, I won't give away anything but must say that strange things continue to happen and get stranger, creepier and scarier!

MOTHMAN PROPHECIES has an terrific cast: especially Gere, Finney, (remember them in Primal Fear? The chemistry is here as well;) Messing, Will Patton as Gordon and my very favorite character, Mr. Leek, marvelously portrayed by Alan Bates. The editing and transitions are impeccable, the sound effects exquistite which make the most of the the many moods, especially the scary ones! Each scene is well shot/done and the movie is paced so as to build the suspense and keep the viewer watching with non blinking eyes. MOTHMAN PROPHECIES is sure to be a movie you won't forget and that will stimulate your mind and entertain you.

You can find out the answer to the title quote in an engrossing conversation between John Klein and former professor of Physics, Mr. Leer. As well as the answer to John Klein's question to Mr. Leer after he shared his experience with MOTHMAN: "Didn't you NEED to know?"

MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, I repeat, is a must see. I rarely ever keep thrillers in my collection but this one is staying. Truly, MOTHMAN PROPHECIES is in a class by itself. I rate it a 9/10.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing!
Review: Whatever goal authors of this movie were trying to achieve (and I am not sure what this movie was intended to be) they failed in all aspects of it. Although the movie was advertised as sci-fi it has nothing to do with it (just mention of some alien form doesn't make a movie sci-fi). If it's supposed to be a 'psychological thriller' the psycology part requires at least some logical completion and this movie full of huge holes in the plot. As of thriller, contrary to what was written in some reviews, I found it very boring and almost totaly lacking any suspense. There is no really space for actors to play and Richard Gere pretty much just plays so familiar himself.

Rating:
Summary: A great cut-down modernized Hollywood version of the book.
Review: This is a cut-down modernized Hollywood version of John A. Keel's famous UFO story and what a wonderful and rich role for Gere who should maybe experiment more in movies that deal with the realms of the unknown! Also the director, Mark Pellington, is very good and deserves more projects like this one.

A much respected reporter for the 'Washington Post' - John Klein (Richard Gere) is about to have his life turned upside down when his wife dies in an automobile accident that seems to have been caused by a mysterious flying creature which he never did see himself. The plot takes Gere to the Ohio/West Virginia border where he meets with the local residents who all seem to be having their troubles with strange lights, weird phone calls and a bird like creature which they call the Mothman. Klein investigates the mystery at the cost of his own sanity and career.

The film is very scary but lacks the pace and fiber that made the John A. Keel's book an awe inspiring read. There are no Men In Black, UFO's, alien impregnated women, phone tapings or a clear resolution to some of the character's fate. In fact only about 10% of the book is actually reproduced in the film. The other 90% seems to have been plucked from an episode of the `X-files'... but what a good episode it is! This is a film that has high production values. The lighting, camerawork, sound and editing are always on top form which is something that prevents the movie from disappearing into the ranks of science fiction B-movie hokum. `The Mothman Prophecies' looks simply `weirdly' gorgeous.

There is not enough Mothman revealed to the viewer but country folk Gordon Smallwood (the well cast and superbly acted Will Patton) creates a much needed conduit into the effects that the Mothman has on the people of Point Pleasant and this is what the film is really all about - The consequences that the supernatural can have on the psyche of a small backward town's population. Although the ending is Mothman free it certainly does jolt the emotions and evokes a sort of belittling sympathy for the human beings of this planet.

Watch this film and then go read the book for a much better look at really went on. All in all, the film is a spine-chilling riveting stuff and well worth repeated viewing even though it never truly escapes its `X-Files' feeling.

Rating:
Summary: The Mothman sees, the Mothman knows...you.
Review: When I read reviews, it seems to me that the movie critics always start off with the possitive and leave the negative stuff for last. This is not always good because as readers, we now have bad stuff fresh in our memory instead of what we really should focus on - yeah you guessed it, the good stuff!
Well I'm no movie critic; I'm a movie lover. I'll start with the bad stuff, which isn't much.
Richard Gere is a good actor. Although he has certainly aged with dignity, he looks kinda old to be matched up with the beautiful Debra Messing, who plays his wife. He doesn't look half as young as in that picture on the cover - probably taken in his "Pretty Woman" age. Or maybe Debra Messing is too young to be matched up with Gere...(...), this was just my first impression when I saw the two.
And to continue bitching, I really wish we could've had a least one more encounter with the Mothman in person before the movie ended. I wanted to see the entity just a little bit more.

(...)
The story of this movie is vaguely based on supposedly real events, if you didn't know that already. This could easily be just another marketing trick, but regardless of the Mothman being real or not, this movie is VERY real and it's scary as hell.
The Mothman is probably one of most eerie creatures ever created for the movies. He fits right in there with villains like Sadako (of Jap. Ringu trilogy) who seem more like forces of Nature rather than actual entities. This Mothman seems so naturally, innately evil, as he completely destroys the life of every victim he makes contact with. Intentionally or unintentionally, he plays with our senses and emotions, throwing us into a mind corroding half reality.
Whatever the Mothman is, whether he is a ufo, an alien from a ufo, a demon, a ghost, or a banshee, he so totally non-mixable with the physical laws of our "human" reality. He is just "wrong"! Wrong like Oil & Water or 1+1=3.
Simply an abomination, and that is what makes this movie so frightening.

Like director Mark Pellington states, it's a struggle between art and commerce. I don't know how well this movie made it with the box office but in my book, art and commerce equals quality and thus go together inseparably. The shots throughout the movie are truly tasteful. There is thought behind every shot and every transition. You feel the presence of the Mothman in the form of his glowing red eyes, manifesting themselves as paired red lights that come naturally with urban surroundings. The forgotten backlights of parked cars, road maintenance stop signs, even a pair of red light decorated Christmas trees just to name a few examples. Truly ingenious!
Two other important components that make this movie great are the score and sounds. The constant music pad greatly adds to the feeling of unease, very "Twin Peaks". It becomes almost unbearable with the disturbing Mothman encounters. The sound design match the visual design perfectly, sending cold shivers down your spine as well as making you jump in your seat. You do NOT want the phone to ring while you watch this movie alone, like I did - and which also happened several times!

That's enough praising for the actual movie.

This DVD as a product is a lot better than average. Two discs packed with extra features like documentaries and deleted scenes! Who could ask for more, right? The picture and sound is as should be expected. The animated menus fit like a glove, sporting those eerie drawings and the priceless sound pad from the movie.
And yes, His staring eyes are ever present in every menu.

So there you have it. Another great DVD.
Now I have raised your expectations so much that you'll probably be disappointed once you've bought it. To lower those expectations a bit and to compensate, I say...
This DVD sucks, don't buy it..!
There...now you're good to go.

Rating:
Summary: A very good movie but not true to book
Review: I liked this movie. It was neat crisp very well acted a 'scary' movie of the unseen terror mode. It had a eerie sense of foreboding from the opening credits and it had a great ending. But it would have been better, in some ways, if it had not been titled as it was. The basic plot line of the movie is nothing , and I do mean nothing,like the book. In some ways it would be better to know nothing about John Keel or his book before seeing this because if you do and you go see this expecting that type of movie, you are bound to be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Although I have to admit that as a stand-alone thriller this movie works sufficiently, and deserves it`s three stars, I have to at the same time express my enormous disappointment in the poor pragmatism of this production. As a dedicated fan of cryptozoology, I was expecting something much more authentic and educative, as the movie story claimed to be based on reallife facts and occurances. However, already in the beginning one can sense that something is wrong - "Mothman prophecies" is rather not based on a true story, as it only BORROWS a small part of the plot from it! In addition, this movie was obviously intended for Geere in the first place, as he is simply "here, there, everywhere" on the screen throughout the whole 1,5 hours it takes. Especially annoying are all those steady close-ups on Geere`s facial expressions, his emotions, charisma "look how cool I am stuff" etc. The Mothman depictions are wrong and the creature is always shown in the dark for only a few seconds, wich is extremely annoying. Also, this movie has a great deal of historical flaws and a bit boring way of threatening it`s subject. Here are some of them:

1. "Mothman was sighted many times after the Chernobyl accident".
Mothman-sightings /as such/ were never reported in connection with this particular accident in 1986.

2. Mothman was depicted in a strikingly wrong way, looking more like a thin, diabolic gorgoyle. Out of hundreds of reports, this creature DID NOT had any facial detailes, except for it`s huge, red-glowing eyes. It had neither mouth, teeth (!) nor any nose.

3. Mothman did never talked to anyone.

4. The use of internet and the mention of the Chernobyl accident shows clearly that the events should take place in modern times, although we do all know it happened all the way back in 1966-67. A collapsing bridge in Point Pleasants in 2002 looks hereby completely ridiculous.

5. The plot has it that Mothman was a spirit, and it had many apearances, depending on how the people wanted to see it; it could be a human to some, a monster, or a ghost to others. Yet Mothman appeared more or less in a same way for hundreds of those who saw him, and he was obviously NOT a spirit!

6. The claim that Mothman left particular moth-like signs burned into the trees or vehicles on the places it was sighted, and that some of the people who saw it developed extremely rare brain-tumors, is totally false.

7. Also, the fact that Mothman was seen as a spirit with a strong connection to the main character of the movie, makes it`s characteristic sightings for totally casual people obsolete, and boring.

All in all a very disappointing scene from an authentical point of view, and I do hope sincerely that a new, much more realistic, creepy and entertaining movie about Mothman would be realeased in the near future.