With Mothman sightings currently being reported in Chicago, I decided to revisit 2002’s The Mothman Prophecies last night. My initial viewing of director Mark Pellington’s film was probably eight or nine years ago and my appreciation for it has only grown over time. Though it’s ostensibly based on true events, there are obvious fictionalizations present before even considering the supernatural elements. However, the veracity of the story has absolutely zero to do with its effectiveness to thrill and entertain.
After the tragic death of his wife, Mary (Debra Messing at the height of her Will & Grace fame), respected Washington Post journalist John Klein (everyman Richard Gere) finds himself beset by mysterious circumstances in sleepy Point Pleasant, West Virginia. He stumbles into the situation when he’s accosted by Gordon Smallwood (salt of the earth Will Patton). Officer Connie Mills (warm and witty Laura Linney) defuses the situation and eventually relays the rash of strange occurrences plaguing the town. Most involve sightings of a flying humanoid creature. Klein connects the situation to some troubling elements surrounding his wife’s death and becomes obsessed. Gordon seemingly begins receiving predictions from the creature, which calls itself Indrid Cold. When they come true and when Klein himself begins to be targeted by the creature’s ambiguous attentions, the typically rational writer has to grapple with the possibility that they’re dealing with a being that’s outside of our understanding. Alan Bates also has a significant supporting role as an expert on the supernatural and who has a personal connection to the Mothman.
Performances are all pretty naturalistic and believable. Patton gets the most showy role as the slightly disturbed factory worker, with Gere and Linney performing more nuanced heavy lifting. I haven’t read John Keel’s sourcebook, but Richard Hatem’s script is a fine piece of work. Lingering on Klein’s grief and wrapping it in the supernatural mystery elements adds to the pronounced realism, cloaking the impossible in a decided humanity. Additionally, the folklore is filtered through a modern, almost sci-fi, approach. Much use is made of phones, electromagnetic impulses, scientific impossibilities, and the motivations of advanced beings. Notably, Indrid Cold is posited as a sort of extra-dimensional entity, a type of being much less cinematically explored than ghosts or alien, which adds to the film’s distinctive appeal. The piece never goes full-on creature feature horror flick, instead opting to use select genre shards and dropping them into a psychological thriller milieu. This is another of the many unique flavors the film provides.
Pellington cultivates an eerie atmosphere, though while not exactly suffocating, it nevertheless blankets the film in a light glaze of dread. The film’s not flashy, but it does have a stylish presentation bordering on almost surrealist moments. Transitions involving television static, blurred out of focus lights, and clever match cuts assist in creating an uneasy tone. Fred Murphy’s thoughtfully composed camerawork furthers that effort as well. Filled with disorientating closeups, stalking handheld sequences, swooping aerial and crane photography, and voyeuristic high angle shots, the lensing works hand in hand with Brian Berdan’s editing to make the film look not only slickly classy, but also to imbue the visuals with otherworldly presence. The location shooting also brings a tactile authenticity to the proceedings with Pittsburgh and rural Pennsylvania doubling for Chicago and rural West Virginia. The small-town backdrop, in particular, brings a lived-in quality. The overall effort is a chilly one, with characters acknowledging the wintery setting. Electronic composers tomandandy provide the perfect complement to the film’s visual and tonal sensibilities with an atmospheric and dissonant score. Their collaboration (titled “Half Light”) with minimalist indy rockers Low that plays over the closing credits is a cool and catchy track.
Most of the film’s 119-minute runtime is focused on slow-burn tension and teasing out creepy revelations. The film’s climax explodes into chaos, though, in a nicely staged set-piece. Without giving anything away, the relatively large-scale destruction on display is captured in-camera with real breaking glass, twisted metal, and shattered concrete. The finale brings home the hopelessness and inevitability our characters face, keying in on the subtext of fate or determinism invoked by Indrid Cold’s prophetic utterances of “I’ll see you in time.” The mayhem is cathartic while retaining its human impact, wrapping up the narrative in a way that’s inconclusive but not unsatisfying.
I love Mark Pellington’s The Mothman Prophecies. It features a creature with an interesting and unique mythology, a stylish presentation, and some genuinely hair-raising moments (the bit where Klein converses with Indrid Cold on the phone is excellent). I’d forgotten that the story takes place around Christmas, making it a seasonally appropriate watch, too. I don’t think it’s unfair to label the movie as a bit of a hidden gem and I highly recommend it for fans of modern folklore, unexplainable phenomena, and atmospheric thrillers.
Michael Cavender