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Review by Susan Granger
2 stars out of 4
Think of it as an eerie feature-length "X-Files"/"Twilight Zone" episode
- this supernatural tale of a seven-foot tall, red-eyed, winged apparition who
foretells doom and destruction. Here's the background: in his 1975
cult-thriller, John A. Keel claimed he experienced various paranormal events in
tiny Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1966-67 while writing about UFOs for
Playboy magazine so screenwriter Richard Hatem has adapted his story for the
screen. Richard Gere plays John Klein, an intrepid Washington Post political
reporter whose wife (Debra Messing) drew mysterious sketches of a moth-like
monster she said she'd seen just before her death from a rare brain tumor. Two
years later, when he's driving to Richmond, Virginia, Klein somehow winds up in
Point Pleasant, where his car breaks down in the middle of the night on a lonely
country road. When he knocks on the door of a nearby house, he encounters a
paranoid redneck (Will Patton) who aims a gun at him and accuses him of
harassment. Soon a local cop (Laura Linney) appears on the scene and she tells
Klein something strange is going on. Good, church-going people are experiencing
creepy, inexplicable things, including demonic voices from beyond that warn of
imminent disaster on the Ohio River, and a spooked scientist (Alan Bates)
relates his experiences. None of this makes much sense but director Mark
Pellington ("Arlington Road") uses extreme close-ups to maintain the tension and
suspense. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Mothman Prophecies" is an
ominous 5. So what's the truth behind the tale? Several credible witnesses claim
to have seen this creature and the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River collapsed
in 1967, apparently of metal fatigue. And according to Keel, the Mothman
manifestations continue.
Copyright © 2002 Susan Granger
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