Spooky is as spooky does in this new supernatural thriller from former video director Pellington starring Gere as a Washington Post reporter caught up in all manner of events beyond his control. At 53, he is, if anything, even easier on the eyes than in his American Gigolo days, and although I’ve never fully fallen sway to the Gere mystique, The Mothman Prophecies makes up for a load of rubbish he’s cast our way in the past (Dr. T and the Women in particular).
As John Klein, Gere seems to have it all as the film begins: a radiant wife (Messing), a new home, a great job, and the studly chops to get it on in the none-too-spacious closet of his new abode. That all comes crashing to an end when, on the way back from purchasing the new house, the pair have a car accident that leads to the revelation of an inoperable brain tumor in his wife’s noggin. In short order she’s scribbling eerie sketches of a humanoid figure in her bedside address book, looking haunted, and, soon thereafter, dead. “It’s like you’re driving along one day,” says Klein, “and the universe points its finger at you and says, `There you are. I’ve been looking for you!’”
That’s about as accurate and concise a summation of the randomness of tragedy as you’re likely to find here, but it’s accurate despite its flip portents.
Cut to two years later and Klein is still grieving, shucking off the possibility of dating and throwing himself into his work. When a late-night drive lands him 400 miles off his assumed destination to the little town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, he becomes convinced that his wife’s bizarre pre-death behavior and the strange sightings of a shadowy, moth-like figure in the small town are somehow linked. When he becomes the recipient of a series of bizarre phone calls and visitations, he becomes downright paranoid, and works with local sheriff Linney to unravel the mystery before it unravels him. Gere wears his grief like a tatty overcoat in this film and it fits him to a T. Reticent and shellshocked by loss, he’s a shadow moving through a tenebrous landscape of self-doubt and odd fancy. The film’s central question — is the grief over Klein’s loss driving him mad, or are weird doings actually going on here? — is stretched to the breaking point by film’s end.
To be honest, though, it doesn’t matter. As a director, Pellington favors harsh optical trickery in lieu of solid story; there’s more Adobe After Effects 101 tomfoolery in The Mothman Prophecies than in a dozen MTV music videos, and while they aid and abet the film’s overall mood of pistoning claustrophobia, they do little to further the actual plot machinations, of which, frankly, there are precious few. More of a two-hour mood piece than a straight horror film, Pellington tries to get by on style and ends up boring the audience with long stretches of Rod Serling-esque quietude that cry out for the divine intervention of Mulder and Sculley. High marks go to a very effective score by the duo of Tomandandy and Will Patton as the neighborhood freakout, but they’re not enough to power this decidedly snail-paced and ultimately dull creepy-crawl.
This article appears in February 1 • 2002.