THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES (2002)

August 12, 2025

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES (2002)

DIRECTED by Mark Pellington

SCREENPLAY by Richard Hatem based on the book "The Mothman Prophecies" by John Keel

STARRING - Richard Gere as John Klein, Laura Kinney as Connie Mills, Will Patton as Gordon Smallwood, Debra Messing as Mary Klein, Lucinda Jenney as Denise Smallwood, Bill Laing as Indrid Cold, Mark Pellington as voice of Indrid Cold/The Barman.

PLOT - John Klein is a happily married journalist until one fateful day when his wife Mary is injured in a car crash after seemingly hallucinating a humanoid moth flying towards the car. The hallucination is revealed to be due to an inoperable brain tumour from which Mary eventually dies.

Several years later, a still grieving John gets lost whilst driving in the countryside and ends up breaking down in the strange small town of Point Pleasant.

The people of Point Pleasant are being menaced by a strange human/moth hybrid that bears a resemblance to the creature that Mary supposedly hallucinated.

It soon becomes obvious that strange forces are abroad in the small town. The Mothman is here and disaster is predicted to follow in it's wake...

PERFORMANCES - Richard Gere plays the role of John Klein who is to all intents and purposes a fictionalised version of the original author of "The Mothman Prophecies" book - John Keel.

The book version is about Keel's investigation into the UFO and Mothman sightings that took place in the town of Point Pleasant in the early 1960's and the weird encounters he and other townsfolk had with various sinister "Men In Black" type characters who Keel believed may have been aliens themselves. The book (as does the film) ends with the collapse of the Silver Bridge on the town's outskirts, which resulted in the deaths of 46 local people. Keel always maintained that the Mothman was some kind of harbinger of doom as it disappeared shortly after the tragedy.

In the book Keel comes over as slightly hard-nosed (he recounts the events in a pulpy Raymond Chandler-esque style). He's also seen to be pretty radical in his way of thinking. Not so his onscreen avatar as played by Gere.

I'm going to come out and say it - I've never really rated Gere that much. He's by no means a bad actor, he's just a bit bland. Part of this is because (this movie aside) he's never really appeared in any films that I've been particularly interested in watching. The other aspect of this is that he's just really, really Hollywood (with a capital H), meaning that he's a dependable choice for any role but the fact that he's such a safe bet means that he always comes over as being a bit dull. Personally I think this film needed someone a bit quirkier than Gere to carry it - Nicolas Cage in full on manic mode or Kyle McLachlan in quasi Agent Cooper mode would have been far better fits for Keel/Klein.

But, it's Gere we've got, so he's the one we have to talk about. To be fair to him he does play the role competently enough, but it's almost like he knows that he's miscast. Gere's Klein is in the process of mourning his dead wife but he never seems that engaged in the story, even when his wife dies in the prologue the character of Klein just seems to be barely registering what's going on. Now you could argue that he's numb with grief, but this basic bewildered listlessness seems to be the character's default setting - even when Klein's glimpsing sightings of a giant humanoid moth or getting menacing phone calls from the Men in Black he just seems slightly bewildered as opposed to being "HOLY SHIT !!!! I'VE JUST SEEN A HUMAN SIZED MOTH CREATURE !!!!!" like you would obviously be if this where to happen to you in real life.

Another thing which gets me about Klein in this movie is the backstory about the dead wife. It's completely unnecessary. Keel in real life (and in the book) never married, the whole backstory just bogs the character down and makes him completely morose for no reason. It adds NOTHING to the story.

To make matters worse, as soon as Laura Kinney appears onscreen (who gives a really nice but somewhat under used performance) as town Sheriff Connie Mills you just KNOW that Klein and her are going to end up falling in love. The real life Sheriff of Point Pleasant at the time of the Mothman case was a middle aged man, but this film just HAD to make the Sheriff a hot blonde lady, presumably so that Klein could have a love interest and his character could go on a "healing journey" or some such nonsense. It's extremely unneeded to the plot and is just so toe-curlingly cheesy. Typical mainstream Hollywood nonsense.

SFX - You'd think in a movie that's based on a book about mass UFO sightings and the appearance of a strange space mutant/cryptid, that you'd get some pretty decent monster effects right ?

WRONG !!!

Wrong, wrong, WRONG. To say that the UFO'S play a massive role in the book (in fact they appear in the book about 90 percent more than the actual Mothman himself even though the book's named after him) they barely even get a mention here. There's the odd throwaway line about there having been sightings in the past, but we never even get to see so much as hide nor hair of the UFOs.

So, clearly the Mothman himself is going to be the main star ? Again - Wrong. Except for Mary's vision of him in the prologue (which even then is only a brief glimpse) and a later split second cameo just before the bridge disaster, the rest of the time the creature's barely there. It's presence is hinted at via sound effects and camera angles. To be fair it works well in ramping up the tension and adding to the creepy atmosphere but I WANTED TO SEE THE MOTHMAN FOR CRYING OUT LOUD !!!! It's my favourite cryptid and I'd have loved to see him realised effectively on-screen. A lost opportunity methinks.

Another missed opportunity is the depiction of Indrid Cold. In the book, Cold is one of several "Men in Black" who turn up and generally play mind games with Keel and other witnesses to throw them off the trail of the UFOs. Cold is described as looking human but there's something just "off" about his appearance, the biggest thing being that he has a permanent unnaturally wide fixed grin which serves to unnerve people.

Once again, this character could have made a great visual - a sinister looking thin man with a thousand yard stare and a Joker style rictus grin. Instead we get this...

A blurry out of focus silhouette of a man. Again, another lost opportunity for a memorable and chilling character to appear on-screen.

One aspect which doesn't disappoint is the depiction of the bridge collapse. The effects team go full on "Hollywood disaster movie" here and it's extremely well done and effective.

Which brings us to...

VIOLENCE - Obviously the bridge disaster is the big set piece of the movie, during the course of the scene 36 members of the public die in the accident (in the real life disaster it was 46 people who lost their lives, don't ask me why they decided to change the death toll).

As I said, it's a very good scene which is only ruined when Connie falls into the water during the accident and Klein goes into full on "Hollywood action hero" mode and dives into the water and rescues her. This comes over as being not only cheesy as hell but also a bit disrespectful to the real life victims of the disaster, they didn't have a fading heartthrob Hollywood megastar to save them, they just died horribly at Christmas time...

Then, just to compound this - as the film ends we get a title card that says that after the bridge collapse the Mothman was never sighted again and that there's never been any explanation as to why the bridge fell. All well and good and makes for a nice spooky coda... Except for the fact that THEY KNOW DAMN WELL WHY THE BRIDGE COLLAPSED !!!! It was old and structurally unsound and on the night of the tragedy the bridge was filled to over it's capacity with cars and trucks due to it being the pre-Christmas rush, also faulty traffic lights in the town caused further traffic to be diverted onto the bridge thus increasing it's already overstrained load. It's HISTORICAL FACT !

As credulous as the original book is - it's even mentioned several times in the final chapter as being the cause. It was nothing remotely supernatural that caused the calamity, so why did the producers feel the need to add this misleading bit of text ? For dramatic effect - that's why. This all goes to show that multi million dollar Hollywood films can sometimes be every bit as trashy and exploitative as low budget "exploitation" movies. Sometimes even more so...

Oh - and one character freezes to death from exposure one night when the Mothman lures him into the wilderness (another thing that never happened, but at least this one isn't offensive to families of real life disaster victims, so we'll let it pass).

RATING - This film could have been so great - it's based on a intriguing real life mystery, it's got an enjoyably creepy atmosphere and it's generally well acted and directed.

BUT - there's a lot wrong with it. A miscast lead, a pointless backstory, a lack of monsters (even though it's a story about a monster), changing the story's setting to a modern day setting (rather than the 1960's when the actual events took place - WHY did they do this ? Did they think early 21st century audiences wouldn't take to a movie with a 60's setting ?) and some questionable examples of Hollywood cheese all go to shoot this movie firmly in the foot.

It's entertaining enough to watch but you can't help but find yourself thinking just how better it could have been. A prime example of Hollywood executives sucking the life out of a decent story to make it more palatable for a mainstream audience.

3 creepy cryptids out of 5. Disappointing.

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