Review – The Mothman Prophesies

It’s been many a year since I saw a movie in a theater and almost fell asleep. But were it not for the repeated, annoying use of loud noises and bright, flashing lights to interrupt the tedium, this stinker would have put me out cold. And for a horror movie, that’s an especially bad thing. This Richard Gere vehicle is based loosely on the Mothman incident that took place in West Virginia back in the 1960’s, when residents of the sleepy little town of Point Pleasant began claiming that they’d seen a big, roughly humanoid thing with giant, dark wings flitting about the countryside and terrifying everyone in its path. The background – coupled with some creepy-looking Mothman drawings early in the movie – suggested that the production at least had potential, at least enough to keep me in my seat despite the heavy-duty wife death in the first 20 minutes. Sadly, from there the story swiftly devolves into extended clots of go-nowhere dialogue and other wastes of celluloid punctuated by Moth-appearances typically heralded by audiovisual racket. Further, the bulk of the plot becomes one of those is-our-hero-crazy-or-are-mysterious-beings-really-trying-to-warn-him-about-something deals. After a couple of hours of sheer boredom mixed with occasional sensory abuse, it’s really hard to care one way or the other. Wish I’d skipped it