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| | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 84707
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| Our Price: $7.99 |
| Used Price: $3.97 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Described by director Mark Pellington as "a psychological mystery with naturally surreal overtones," The Mothman Prophecies begins like an ambitious episode of The X-Files. Richard Gere brings adequate torment, portent, and ambiguity to his role as a Washington Post reporter and grieving widower plagued by a mysterious, unseen urban legend known as the Mothman. Pellington develops subtle doom and gloom that's as effective as the paranoid streak he brought to Arlington Road. As the Mothman terrifies a West Virginia town, he remains an enigma, glimpsed almost subliminally. This--along with a magnificently creepy soundtrack--amplifies the movie's surreal overtones while keeping everything else (unsettling phone calls, prophesied disasters, suggestions of the afterlife) completely unexplained. With Laura Linney and Debra Messing in underdeveloped roles, The Mothman Prophecies feels a bit underdeveloped itself (and ends in desperate need of Mulder and Scully). But if you like your weirdness open-ended, this moody thriller's worth a look. --Jeff Shannon
The Mothman Prophecies Reviews:
Is Mothman Real if You Can't Touch Him? 
2009-12-22 - Usually not a fan of Sci-Fi, I was very pleased with this film in it's entirety. An age-old story set in today's world. Well made visuals and the music was a great compliment to the storyline. I enjoyed Richard Gere, but I hoped there would be more of Debra Messing and some more girth to Laura Linney's character.
I never jumped out of my seat screaming in horror, but I never left the room either. Maybe a scream or two would have gotten another star.
Ding Dong! Death calling! 
2009-12-08 - When this movie came out, I instantly knew they took the excellent, seminal Keel book, crumpled it up, and threw it in a corner of the room. The trailer alone captured none of the feel or items of the book. Seeing Richard Gere flagged it as a film trying desperately trying to claw at viewers attending movies to see familiar faces with expectations of romantic interest... and that's kind of what this film is: a romance, slice-o-life, drama, holiday, supernatural suspense story.
And, yes, it is as muddled as my description. It just tries to hard to be something which it shouldn't be. This was a film that either was translated perfectly from a very lack luster script, or it was an idea with a hundred hands influencing the making. I can't imagine a skilled script writer piecing this together from the book. The film was probably a real holiday fruitcake shoved full of little fruity bits of story and pap philosophy provided by a cartload of studio fruitcakes bent on influencing something and making it their own.
Final analysis: yawn.
Good points: it ends.
Bad points: none, aside from pacing and lack of story.
This could have been a 50 minute made for TV movie. Too much time was spent on pauses which, while necessary in proper context usually left out of many "suspense" films these days, were just over drawn and close to pointless. How could someone have read the book, which is filled with UFOs, cryptids, Men in Black, Government conspiracies, poltergeists, cattle mutilations, strange aliens, strange dopple gangers, weird psychotropic effects and expreiences, paranoia, strange and vaporous entities calling and visiting people, predictions of doom, and then a moment of disaster, and come away with a 2 hour film about a barely tangible thread about an angel of death? The book was written in a setting so rich and the story of John Keel's investigation is so crazy and amazing that a person would have to be fairly ignorant to not pull out so much of the underlying themes and obvious visuals to make a memorable movie.
If you love romantic suspense films that allow you to have sex in the middle without missing any plot when you return to viewing, this is the one to see!
If you want a film rich with intense and interesting events boiling over to seat searing finish making you reflect on life and how to live it, skip it.
Very disappointing. 
2009-11-28 - I had read the book The Mothman Prophecies before seeing the film, and was looking forward to a spine-tingling thriller. What I saw was a watered-down romance with almost none of the spookiness that characterized the novel.
The novel contained numerous scenes that would have made for excellent film - late-night encounters in abandoned military bunkers, lovers' lanes, and other remote areas, where the Mothman is seen in all his preternatural horror. Basically none of that ends up in the film, nor - except for one brief, ambiguous flash - do we ever see Mothman. Nor do we see or hear much the various "men-in-black" individuals who feature prominently in the book.
The movie would have been better if it were based on the real-life expereinces of John Keel, and told from his perspective, rather than from that of a made-up Washington Post journalist (Richard Gere) with no background in paranormal research.
Keel's book started out with a 3:00 am scene where he - returning from a paranormal conference, in the middle of a driving rainstorm - wanders from house to house in rural West Virginia trying to get someone to let him use a phone so he can call a tow truck for his disabled car. A voice-over of this experience, in which Keel skillfully describes how legends are born, would have made a strikingly visual, and eerie, introduction to the Mothman story. I can visualize it, but the film-makers couldn't. Read the book for sure, but you're taking your chances with this disappointing film.
Creepy, enigmatic and dark 
2009-10-25 - I First saw this film in the theater, it is a very well crafted and atmospheric film. It diverges wildly from the book of the same name, but still has its merits. The acting is excellent, the story line is a little hard to follow, but this movie is more about creating mood and it excels in that. The DVD quality is just the best. I personally have been creeped out by mothman since childhood while reading about the phenomenon in a sci fi comic book while on a twilight road trip in West Virginia. The movie elicits the same level of creepiness. Highly recomended. See if you can catch a cloaked ET like entity in one of the hotel scenes reflected in a mirror.
You Might Want To Carry Lots Of Mothballs In Your Pocket!...
2009-09-04 - I avoided THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES for years due to my aversion to anything involving Richard Gere. I finally watched it after a trustworthy friend told me how good it was. Well, Gere or no Gere, TMP is excellent. The Mothman is a mysterious entity (Alien? ghost? Angel? Demon??) that haunts the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. We are only shown glimpses or blurred images of the creature. This actually helps to keep the mood at a constant level of creepiness and building dread. We're never 100% certain about what we're witnessing, just like the main characters themselves. Gere is believably shaken in his role. He is a man suffering from great loss, driven by the need to know WHY. His journey into paranormal terror, mystery, and madness is cold and unsettling. The answers he seeks lead him into a dark world of shadows and portents. A displaced, alternate reality, superimposed over the mundane. He ultimately realizes that his quest has drawn him into something far beyond his understanding. Something bleak and disturbing. Something like impending doom, caught for a second in his peripheral vision. Watch this one, and you'll swear that you see it too...
