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Myths and ghost stories have been sources of late night entertainment and campfire storytelling since man first learned to tell a story. Everybody has grown up hearing and being curious about the existence of Bigfoot, or in the supposedly haunted house down Elm Street. These stories thrill and chill, but when they are tagged with a ´based upon real events´ description, the story is guaranteed to find a curious audience who wants to learn more about the unexplained and the spiritual world. "The Mothman Prophecies" took the lesser known story of the Mothman, placed Richard Gere in a lead role and with a $42 million budget, attempted to woo in large hordes of curious ticket holders. The film lacked box office muscle, perhaps due to the obscurity of the Mothman myth, or Gere´s fading appeal. None-the-less, the film and its story are now looking to find notoriety and success on DVD.
Part of the fun of the story is watching how the story unfolds and trying to discover exactly what is going on in Point Pleasant. Without divulging too much information, the premise of the story finds a big city reporter landing in a small West Virginia town that is the location of some odd occurrences and falling in love with the town´s attractive and single sheriff. Richard Gere is the reporter, John Klein. Laura Linney portrays sheriff Connie Parker. Klein loses his wife after a freak accident and a rare brain condition. Strangely, he winds up in Point Pleasant when his car undergoes a mechanical breakdown. At first, Connie places him under suspicion, but quickly becomes his partner in the quest to find out answers to the strange happenings in the quiet town of Point Pleasant.
Much of the plot of "The Mothman Prophecies" is formulaic and predictable. It doesn´t take long to realize where the relationship between John Klein and Connie Parker is heading. Other character, such as Gordon (Will Patton), become set pieces used solely for unveiling more of the mythos of the Mothman. They serve some minor purpose in the actual story but after doing some research on the actual events that occurred in Point Pleasant, it became clear that Gordon and a few other characters were quick and clever ways of combining different aspects of the Mothman stories and the numerous sightings that actually happened in Point Pleasant.
In the end, the story suffered when it tried to pace a love story into a movie that was designed to slowly unfold mysterious circumstances. The film became arduous and after seeing the great number of inaccuracies and artistic license taken, I am still not sure on what purpose the filmmakers had intended with "The Mothman Prophecies." I´m quite sure it was not intended to detail the true events of 1967. It is grossly inaccurate in those events. The final events are moved to occur around the Christmas holiday to set up a moment between the two principal actors and manipulate the audience into feeling a greater sense of sorrow. Is the film a horror movie? Too much is revealed for it to be of this genre, or to be a supernatural thriller. If it was intended to be a love story, it is quite weak in any tender moments between Linney and Gere. "The Mothman Prophecies" just seems to plod along with no true purpose in life.
"The Mothman Prophecies" begins by informing its audience "This story is based on events which occurred in Point Pleasant, West Virginia." Living merely a couple of hours away from the geographical background to the film, my interest was instantly captured and I was quite eager to learn of what happened in a neighboring state. I had seen trailers for the film, but beyond that, I had no idea of what the story was about and the validity of the facts it was to present to me. When the credits started to roll, my first thought was to surf the Information Highway and either dispel or reinforce what I had seen. Though many of what is presented in the film represents more ´Mothman´ mythology than the transpired events of Point Pleasant, I was inspired enough at the effort made by the story to tell of what happened to learn more. The film is mildly entertaining and a good starting point to learn about one of the more interesting American ghost stories.
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[release]10256[/release]