The scariest thing about watching movies like The Mothman Prophecies is that they’re based on true events...which is why you tend to feel injustice is done to those events if the film is about as scary as your little sister’s barbie doll (actually..that’s quite scary...)
To reveal anymore of the plot other than the fact that it’s true is to ruin even the slightest amount of suspense that you might be feeling whilst watching it.
The film starts off eerily enough with the sudden death of Richard Gere’s character’s wife and from then on it has it’s highs and lows leading to a somewhat unsatisfying feeling when it ends.
Essentially the look of the film is right, and the scribbled drawings of the victims are chillingly appropriate and spooky. The editing is fast and choppy, there’s enough camera movement to disorient you when needed.
But then isn’t that what everyone does these days in dark kind of movies....Stigmata and all the rest of em, except they’re done better.
But the main fault of the film lies in the fact that when one makes a film based on a true event, one needs to be aware of the medium chosen.
Maybe it’s not always necessary to add too much fiction to an essentially good story but one needs to be aware of the fact that an audience is still expecting to be entertained in the same way as a fictional film might, or else they would have watched a documentary. And although the film had the glossy look that might keep an audience watching, it lacked the pacing and suspense to keep you rivoted and ready to jump.
Laura Linney’s performance was really very good, and her expressions alone gave her character far more depth than one suspects might have been in the screenplay. Yet her interaction with Gere’s character still makes one feel like it should have been pushed a little more.
Infact, The Mothman Prophecies SHOULD have been made as a documentary..it might have had alot more impact. Because you keep feeling that there’s not enough to hold it together as a film but as a chillingly narrated documentary it could have had twice the effect. That or another director and screenplay writer. It did start off well, but then lapsed into a mere series of events with a fancy dressing ontop.
If interested in the story it might be worth a watch, but then, you can always read about it.
But perhaps your motive in watching it is not be scared, in which case you may not be as disappointed as I was.
Some advice to those renting the dvd with special features:
There is some obscure music video for an artist who recorded a track for the film, directed by the film’s director.don’t watch it. OR
watch it in total disbelief...you will lose the little respect you might have had for the film.
It’s one of those typically flash-of-light-quick-cut-I-Love-MTV kind of videos with pointless text flying around as if you’re a kid learning to read on Sesame Street.
It pretty much reduces the fear factor to watching Ozzy Osbourne bite the head off a bat.