Pellington's -The Mothman Prophecies -2002-FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH WRITE OFF

Friday the Thirteenth, long before any movie made reference to any horrific story, has always been associated with bad luck, things strange and unexplained, and paranormal phenomenon. From one point of view, it is the stuff of superstition, ignorance and fear. From another point of view it just another mystery which no one has yet been able to explain. Those of us who are rational (and I proudly admit that I have been disbarred from that group) assume that there is a rational, believable explanation for everything, we just haven’t found it yet. I believe something else. That stuff happens that we can’t explain is the best explanation.

**

The Mothman Prophecies, directed by Pellington (Arlington Road) is an interesting work that is based on some documented events in the late sixties in West Virginia. It is more specifically based on a novel by the same name by John Keel. The word “novel” automatically puts this story in the realm of FICTION. But that there were circumstances that triggered the writing, there should be no doubt.

For any thriller at any time , it is rare that a movie can create such tension without in fact revealing anything. Of course I am not convinced that it wasn’t in the movie somewhere. I will probably watch it a few more times before I give up, dreaming of red eyes in the darkness. Pellington does manage to keep it interesting, and ambiguous without making it look like a mistake.

There are several interpretations for the events in the movie, all as mysterious as the Mothman myths and sittings themselves, as my extensive Internet meanderings began to prove. And there are several explanations for the appearances of the giant man sized winged “Mothman”, most offered in the movie by various characters. The movie , I understand , although I haven’t head the book, combines two characters in the person of John Klein. The author of the novel was actually sent by his newspaper to research the unexplained sittings of the Mothman as part of a story on UFO sittings, he did not suddenly find himself there in the middle of the night confronted by a local yahoo with a shotgun.

The character of Gordon Smallwood played with finesse by Will Patton, most closely resembles a real person , a guy named Woody Derenberger, whose sightings went a bit further, and included an abduction, as well as close encounters with the creepy character of ‘Ingrid Cold.’ The movie more or less eliminated the UFO angle from the overall picture, as well as several MIB sittings, complete with odd men dressed in ill fitting clothes, who asked odd questions and stole pens, and other souvenirs from various places. It also avoided talking about farm and pet mutilations and disappearances.

The several explanations for the Mothman are in a nutshell, these: 1. They are frequently sighted before a tragic event of impending doom, usually of large proportions 2. They are sent to warn or prevent 3. They are evil, intending to hurt..although there isn’t anything documented about death from insects 4. They are manifestations of spirits of those who have passed away. 5. They are angels, supernatural quasi religious observers. 6. They are aliens from another planet, or MIB, 7 They are super-evolved beings that exist here on this planet hidden from man 8. They are the result of chemical poisoning 9. They are part of a pre-existing curse (The Cornstalk Curse) on the region 10. They are natural phenomenon, a species of bird that is yet undiscovered. . For reference material on these possibilities, see below**. But beware of all the links that lead you back to Sony Pictures Internet on this movie, because it does make you wonder whether publicity is creating the myth, after all.




The most impressive aspect of this movie was the visual style. Some of the shots were stunning, and the lights, repetition of images, and the use of the aerial perspective (as though we were up there with the critter 'hisself') were just so well done, that I am still spinning. I have watched this movie twice, and I see new things every time,

The score and the sound effects create a pounding tension that makes you twitch when you experience it. While part of me (the rational party) kept saying...aw go on! Nobody believes that crapola,” the real me sat there in breathless anticipation , fearing the unknown, and expecting it every minute until the very last of the film, which actually is sort of a let down.

The failing of this film is in the writing of the dialog for the characters. Even though the performances still manage to give surprising depth to these personalities, they never seem to have much to say . Pictures can indeed tell a story, but in this case some meaningful dialog would have helped. The screenplay, I could say fails on other levels as well, but I don’t think that is the case. It actually did drive the action forward, in that unknown journey into darkness which turns out to be the increasing obsession of the protagonist of the story,.In the end it is indistinguishable from madness-or is it?

THE PLOT

The movie starts in the early sixties with John Klein, a reporter for the Washington Post, and his wife Mary house hunting. She is beautiful, he is handsome, they are ecstatic. But on the way home, his wife is driving and swerves to avoid something, hitting her head and becoming unconscious. When she wakes up, “something is wrong”, and it turns out she has a rare brain tumor, She undergoes therapy, and surgery (all with her hair intact) but dies anyway. The words John will remember are “I want you to be happy”. As he gathers her things, he sees some bizarre drawings.

An orderly stands framed in the doorway .“She knew. She was drawing angels”.

John goes on about his business for the next two years, and is following up on a pre-election interview with a Virginia governor. As he is driving from DC to Virginia when he suddenly finds himself outside the town of Point Pleasant West Virginia, on the Ohio River, with his car stopped dead, for no apparent reason. And as the images that pass through his semi consciousness about the accident, the drawings and various images reassert themselves, the first guy he meets a seemingly whacko cracker with a shotgun, Gordon Smallwood. John becomes acutely aware that “something is wrong here”. And he is sucked in completely.

He meets a policewoman who shows him some sightings and reports, and the experience becomes at once more intense, terrifying and confusing. We as the audience, take that trip with John. You’ll have to see for yourself where it will end. We, as the audience, will always be looking now for those two red eyes in the darkness.

THE CAST

Richard Gere as John Klein. The hero, who goes from being a tough skeptic to an obsessed whacko in the span of this movie’s running, and helps the ambiguity about the phenomenon deliberately created in this movie. It has been awhile since I liked Gere in a movie, but I thought he was pretty impressive in this one. Perhaps it is just that I am more impressed by vulnerability than I am by sophistication.

David Eigenberg as Ed Fleischman-This guy is the fire chief, and has been receiving phone calls that sound like howling on a regular basis. His dead pan relating of these facts actually lends credibility to the sightings, and we don’t much care about his personal life.

Laura Linney-as Connie Mills the implied second romantic interest in this flick, and the way Klein gathers his information on Mothman sightings is actually done cleverly, through her. Her dialog is sparse, but always delivered well, and she is at least as believable as the Mothman.

Bob Tracey as Cyrus Bills at the post-small part.

Ron Emanuel as Washington Post Reporter-he acts as the rational element trying to connect with Klein as he seems to unravel. His character as the distant, and thus uninvolved, skeptic is an important one.

Debra Messing-as Mary Klein-as the long suffering almost saintlike object of John Klein’s yearning, she is indeed an impressive character who says very little, but says it well.

Tom Stoviak as Real Estate agent. Strange enough to make you wonder afterward.

Yvonne Erickson as Dr. McElroy-I don’t remember her saying anything.

Scott Nunnally as the orderly-or was he the first manifestation of the Mothman seen by Klein, or was he a symbol of the madness that was to come?

Harris Mackenzie as TV Journalist-sorry draw a blank here

Will Patton as Gordon Smallwood. This is by far the most interesting and finely drawn character in this movie, and as such his disintegration shows the devastating quality of the experience of the actual folks who experienced events in Point Pleasant West Virginia. This was an exceptional, even stellar, performance.

Lucinda Jenny as Denise Smallwood. Another excellent if one dimensional portrayal of the fear that is generated by the unexplained in the people that are trying to cope with what appears as madness all around them.

Ann McDonough as Lucy Griffin-another Mothman sighting is reported, and she does it well, at once lending credibility to the creature, and also giving us some idea of the randomness of the sightings.

Alan Bates as John Leek, or the real "John Keel". The use of this character for exposition, and a gentle nudging as how our hero will end up, is actually pretty clever. Just when we think Leek has offered Klein a semi-plausible explanation for the Mothman phenomena, from a well researched point of view, there is more than a hint of madness that shows when Leek's eyes glaze over. Full credit to the director and the screenwriter for the idea, and Bates for the excellent performance!

FINAL RECOMMENDATION

I like movies that are interesting enough to make you look a little deeper. And if they scare me a little that is an added bonus. I was impressed with this flick, even though I honestly did not want to be. You can believe what you want to believe. As for me, I’m getting out those mothballs....



My thanks to the host of this write-off who MADE me go in search of a scary movie for Friday the thirteenth, a day that has always had bad luck associated with it...except in one case, on the day my brother was born, March 13, 1948. He always told me it was a Friday. (See Jim, I DO love you, in spite of what I did to your comic books)




These are the other brave participants in this write off, and I urge you to go read their far more interesting entries.

AliventiAsylum
artbyjude (skip this one)
brandon_m
d_fienberg
lambchops
matt2050
Mike_Bracken
Mom2TyZick
peterbryan
Rbradford
sampo24
shadow8
tbthorn
Vormancian
xxxxer

If you don’t believe me, check out Mom2TyZick’s Profile page.



**REFERENCES TO CHECK

A Standard Search for 'The Mothman' will yield about a million results, but you should probably do the search yourself and choose what you want to read. There are some references to West Virginia, building on legend to enhance tourist trade, some vaguely supportive of weirdness generally, a few that don’t believe anything, and more that will lead you back to the studio site for the movie.

Some of the literature written about this phenomena , to date are these:

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, John Keel, TOR , 2002, ISBN 0765341972

MOTHMAN AND OTHER CURIOUS ENCOUNTERS , Loren Coleman, Paraview Press, ISBN 1193104434

OUR HAUNTED PLANET , John Keel, Galde Press, 1999, ISBN 1880090163

THE UNEXPLAINED , Jerome Clarke, Visible Inc, 1998 ISBN 1578590701



***OFF TOPIC ALERT***OFF TOPIC ALERT***OFF TOPIC ALERT***

My own limited experience. About three years ago, I drove from Biloxi Mississippi to Gallipolis Ohio for a job interview. I arrived alone, after a gruellling drive, to a town that was nearly deserted. It had rained, and apparently sane people were inside, half expecting a flood. I was driving, not oblivious to the rain, and watchful of the road surface, and feeling alone. I have never been afraid driving alone or at night, being as some of you have probably already guessed, not the brightest light on the tree. But as I got closer and closer to my destination, I started to get really creeped out. I felt that something, not God, but something evil, was watching, although I had no objective reason to think this. I had not heard anything about this prophecy thing , or if I had, had shuffled it somewhere into my subconscious years ago. I was living in New York, with no TV, and cut off from the rest of the world by my life, so there was no conscious reason for me to be creeped out, but I was. I always had the idea that something was wrong. I don’t get these feelings often, and when I do, they always seem to mean something.
The next morning I went to my interview, and botched it badly. I knew I couldn’t live here, or more likely, my soul knew that I couldn’t. Coincidence?

Then 2 years ago my daughter came up to visit with her two small children and we drove to the Outer banks. Driving home, we chose the less beaten path, down a two lane highway, that again started giving me that creeped out feeling. We talked about it, and my daughter told me of some of her husband’s interests, one of them being the Mothman. (Yeah sure, I thought). She described it in great detail, and it was as it was described here, and in the sightings that have been reported in various places in the world, in my recent internet search. That was an uneasy trip home, to say the least. Interesting that 14 miles from the house, we had a near miss when a truck failed to stop for a light. We came within a hair of being broadsided by a mack truck. The car rollicked from the passing of the 18 wheeler. I could not have stopped. That would have killed us all, so I followed the advice given by Starman in the movie so long ago (red means stop. Green means go. Yellow means go VERY fast). Well my head was flashing yellow! . I didn’t even remember it until this moment-lucky for us all! Now where DID I put those mothballs?