The Mothman Prophecies
review by Joe Swanberg

Give me a break. I guess things are scarier when they are out of focus. At least that's what director Mark Pellington must think. I couldn't help but laugh at the rediculous camera angles and visual effects used in this lame, psychological crap-fest.

After films like The Silence of the Lambs and What Lies Beneath, it takes more than a few quick scares to make me appreciate a thriller. In order for me to be thrilled I need to care about the characters, be taken in by the story, and most importantly, not know what's coming next. Mothman fails on all of these levels.

The only character that I had the slightest sympathy for was the female sheriff of a doomed West Virginia town, played by Laura Linney. Richard Gere did nothing but mope around for two hours while various other standard characters came in and out of the film. If you are unfortunate enough to see this film, try not to laugh at the character of Alexander Leek, the supernatural expert who was a university professor until he started hearing voices. Of course nobody believed him until it was too late. He gets to tell Richard Gere exactly what he's dealing with, and why he should just leave it alone. Believe me, it was painful.

But the fun doesn't stop there. Just in case you are four years old, the film holds your hand and walks you through the entire story. The phone rings, Richard Gere rips it out of the wall, it starts ringing again. Creepy right? Well it might be if there weren't four shots of the torn phone cord, just to make sure you know it's something supernatural making it ring, and not the fact that it's still plugged into the wall. Now repeat this scenario 20 times and you have The Mothman Prophecies. Yes. It's that bad.

Now the ads keep proclaiming that this film is based on actual events, which i can only assume means that the bridge collapsing at the end of the film really happened. Now, a bridge full of cars giving out on Christmas eve and killing 36 people could be the basis for an extremely scary and sad scene, but the people involved with Mothman found some way to turn it into a rediculous action sequence full of quick cuts and repeating shots of bolts snapping and cement cracking. After films like Titanic and The Sweet Hereafter did such amazing jobs portraying terrible dissasters, it's hard to watch something so sad be turned into cinematic garbage.

What Lies Beneath was criticized for it's obvious Hitchcock rip-offs (or homages, depending on how you look at it), but at least it was intense and scary. Maybe Mark Pellington could benefit from watching more Hitchcock and less Idle Hands. He needs to change something. The Mothman Prophecies was a poor excuse for entertainment and I feel used.

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