The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

What a waste of my time!!!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

As a Pittsburgher, this movie is somewhat important, as it was filmed here and in nearby Kittanning, PA. Which is somewhat humorous, as Point Pleasant, WV isn't far at all. They could have just filmed it there. There's a mothman statue, after all.A lot of the script was changed, as this movie is based on the work of John Keel, the paranormal researcher who wrote the book The Mothman Prophecies. Pellington rejected numerous screenplays that were literal takes on Keel's work, instead wanting to explore the psychological damage that UFO witnesses endure. In the book, Keel went into deepest, darkest West Virginia to interview folks who had seen the huge winged beast called the mothman. At the same time, he began receiving strange phone calls, reports of mutilated pets, visits from men in black (in fact, Keel coined the term!) and it all ends with the collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River.Whereas the movie posits that the collapse was never solved, experts determined that an eye-bar in the suspension chain caused its failure. And in reality, 46 people died, not 36.The movie is therefore fictionalized, sharing the story of Washington Post columnist John Klein (Richard Gere) and his wife Mary (Debra Messing) being involved in a car wreck that leads to her dying of a brain tumor. Before she passes, he finds a notebook filled with pictures of a strange beast.Between time distortions and loops, strange phone calls, visitations from his dead wife and premonitions, this film does a good job of conveying the terror and confusion that the paranormal can unleash.My theory has always been that nuclear waste near Point Pleasant unleashed holes in the time/space continuum and the mothman, a fifth-dimensional creature, was unleashed on our 3D space - bringing weirdness in its wake.There's a great shot at the end of this film, where the cars drift to the bottom of the river and holiday gifts float and headlights stretch out into nothing. It's probably the eeriest scene I've seen in awhile. According to IMDB, Gene Warren III and five other model-makers, plus two production assistants, spent three full months to fabricate every piece of the bridge set from scratch. He estimates 20,000 individual pieces of steel went into the construction, in order for the ultra-photo-realistic 1/6th scale model suspension bridge to support all the model vehicles and ultimately collapse like a full-scale steel bridge into the water. It really shows - this practical effect looks perfect.I usually don't enjoy big budget films, much less ones that take so many liberties with their source material, but this one always wins me over. It's worth a watch.

I've only written a couple of reviews in the 8 or so years I've been using IMDb. So, to me it means something. It also shows that it takes quite an event to make me want to write a review.One of my biggest pet peeves is lying. I don't like it when people do it to me; and it's even worse for some reason, when a filmmaker uses an event or book title to get me to see a movie. That's what happened here. The director thought it was a good idea to take events that happened in the 60's, and make them happen in the 2000's. Why? Who knows? Personally, I think it's laziness. But I can overlook that. The time period in which things happen means next to nothing to me. The changing of facts, including the text at the very end of the film "no definitive cause was ever found for..." - seriously? - like it somehow adds any weight to your movie to lie about an event that anyone can easily look up? Check out the article "silver bridge collapse" on Wikipedia. It's right there in the first couple of sentences. Think about that lie, for a moment. It's a flat-out lie about something that you can easily fact-check. The Mothman Prophesies was a book written by someone who was there, as it was happening in 1968-9. Regardless if the author's words were 100% gospel, there weren't people alive at the time raising a ruckus about how he misquoted them or misrepresented events. Which means for the most part, he was telling it like it was. The movie is almost the complete opposite. Other than the names of people and locations, there is almost nothing brought over from the book to the movie.So, is it a good movie? Kind of. But not really. Maybe if you're a 12 year old who will think everything is true when the movie says "based on actual events". But for me, just as a suspense-thriller or whatever you want to call it, this one was just OK. The plot was formulaic, the action scenes were flash-chaos-shakycam, and there were some stupid continuity errors like a modern phone with bell ringer, or characters wearing gloves and not wearing gloves in the same scene. Just sloppy. Which in the end makes one think - were there lawyers figuring out how much from the book they would have to include, to be able to give the movie the same name? Just meh. Glad I didn't pay to go see it.

1962 Paranormal researchers-writers; Ivan T. Sanderson, Gray Barker, James W. Mosley, John Keel claim: St Albans Charleston West Virginia 1960 played host to resident child (Richard) the Indian-Nation would term Shadow Eyes. He went onto become one of the most prominent child em-path's ever studied by Doctors within Parapsychology Science. 1967 the boy was one of the first to under under go conversion Electric Current Therapy. The child turned paranormal science upon its ear, sending many Doctors back to the drawing board." Alex Tanous, one of many who tested the child soon became entranced, and continued his studies on the child. To read more on this story, or too receive a copy of the 1950's Original Mothman death-list and the entire story concerning the Mothman Shadow Eyes Connection. Feel free to email. [email protected] Thank you.

I know I'm biased because The Mothman Prophecies is one of my all-time favorite books, but don't bother with this movie; read the book instead.The book is about John Keel's attempt to make sense of the strange happenings in Point Pleasant in late 1966 through 1967. The story is a fascinating mix of phenomena, crypto-zoological creatures, UFOs, Men in Black, paranormal activity, etc. Unfortunately you wouldn't know that if you just watch the movie. Seriously, it's like they literally took everything that was interesting and cut it out.Then they had to make it a love story, which was the book was not. It's like everything that I hate about Hollywood.It was also not set in the time period that it actually happened in, and with this material, it definitely makes a big difference.I'm still hoping that someday, someone will have the courage to make the real Mothman Prophecies film that deserves to be made. Until then, I'll just keep rereading my copy of the book.