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‘Prophecies’ promises, does not produce
 Harold John Behling
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There must be an instructional handbook in publication for making an ominous thriller. If there is, I wouldn’t doubt that Mark Pellington has read it a thousand times.
His “based-on-actual-events” paranormal thriller “The Mothman Prophecies” is saturated in desolate imagery, abnormal camera setups and mood defining music.
The question is: Is an ominous mood enough to sell a movie to the audience? I would say no. Although stylish and successfully creepy, “The Mothman Prophecies” falls flat on its face, suffering from a flawed screenplay and one-dimensional acting.
“Mothman” takes place in the rural West Virginian community of Point Pleasant. News man John Klein (Richard Gere) is mysteriously drawn to the quiet town and becomes involved with the investigation of mysterious “moth men,” whom he believes have something to do with his wife’s death two years earlier.
The “moth men” contact people in the community with cryptic warnings of fatal disasters in the near future. They communicate through brief telephone calls that are at first frightening, but quickly become irritating.
In one such scene, Gere makes the mysterious creature prove itself repeatedly by asking it questions about his hotel room and himself (which hardly seems necessary with the evidence given up to this point).
Also, appearances by his dead wife don’t seem to really have anything to do with the mysterious phone calls.
The individual encounters seem disjointed, awkwardly placed and repetitious as Gere reacts to each in the same way, with his favorite mask of terror and disbelief.
Supporting roles played by Laura Linney as sympathetic police officer Connie Parker, and Will Patton as Gordon, another man touched by the prophecies, help a little bit to fill the emptiness of the plot. But ultimately they only reflect the focus back onto Gere, who fails to carry this film between its infrequent scares and scattered events.
The prophecy I received from this movie came within the first 20 minutes. This was when a fellow audience member sitting a few rows back from me fell asleep and decided to lend his guttural snoring to the sound track. At first I was pretty unhappy with this gentleman but soon afterwards I found myself wanting to join him.
Pellington’s thriller doesn’t have the edge required to retain the audience’s attention and suffers from Gere’s one-dimensional acting and a dull script.
Harold John Behling can be reached at: [email protected]
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