My daughter, Little Miss, had recently picked up a film on DVD called The Mothman Prophecies, and, of course, has wanted to watch it with me and my Bonnie Bride. This is a supernatural thriller revolving around John Klein (Richard Gere) and a series of events that he is involved in that begins with the death of his wife at the beginning of the film, and then two years later finds himself inexplicably in the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. There, Klein’s life is interwined with numerous residents, including a local police officer, Connie (Laura Linney), and Gordon (Will Patton).
Mothman promo - IMDB
It is, as a mentioned, a supernatural thriller about an entity referred to locally as The Mothman (queue theme song...Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-Mothman!), and various weird things that some of the local townsfolk, including Gordon and Connie, have experienced, including premonitions of what may be coming down in the future for them, including near-death experiences.
The Mothman - IMDB
Little Miss is fascinated by supernatural stories, and had learned about the Mothman from various other sources. This film is based on the 1975 book by John Keel, with some liberties taken related to the timing of the events, originally asserted to take place in the 1960s, not during the open years of the 21 ST Century, including the collapse of Silver Bridge (it collapsed in the late ‘60s) and claims the reason for the bridge failure has never been explained. Well, maybe not in 1975 when Keel’s book was published, but by the time this film was made engineers certainly did know the cause of the structural failure.
Aside from some of the historical and factual inaccuracies, and taking this as a film of entertainment, it is a pretty darn good film. It kept us all interested in seeing where things were going to go, and how it would end. That makes it a good movie...we wanted to keep watching it.
The cast did a good job, including Gere (sorry, never been much on his films, I think I have seen three prior to this) and the rest of the cast were all people I am unfamiliar with, although my Bonnie Bride did recognize a few of them, including Linney. Production values were solid, and kept a good pace as it moved through the story. At times you could almost feel the intensity of wierdness that was being projected onto and by the characters, including Klein dealing with strange phone calls.
Strangely, Little Miss insists that The Mothman Prophecies is a Christmas movie because the events take place duing the Christmas Holiday season, culminating on Christmas Eve. Yeah, just like Die Hard is a Christmas movie (in that case, so is The Ghost and the Darkness).
If you are into supernatural thrillers that at least attempts to give you the creeps, then The Mothman Prophecies is well worth watching. Take it as a piece of entertainment, though, and not as a dramatization of actual supernatural events. And yes, I can see myself watching it again sometime in the future. Even now, I can hear Little Miss saying “Daddy, let’s watch Mothman!”. Probably when December rolls around.
Thanks for stopping by.