Review of The Mothman Prophecies (2002) by Bryan W — 17 Nov 2010

It's a shame that there's a shortage of creepy films that delve into the horror genre without utilizing endless amounts of gore and jump scares, but as this film will show you, there's a shortage of people who know how to do it right.

One of the most important things about any horror film is tone, and the makers here pretty much nail it, only to bungle the tempo with uneven writing and piss-poor editing decisions. It's as if the writer, director, and editor either forgot how to do a standard scene transition or thought that dissolves were inherently 'scary'; needless to say, moving from one scene to the next with zooms, wipes, dissolves, distortions, and graphic matches gets old after about the fourth time you see one.

This failure also extends somewhat to the filmmaker's lack of reservation when it comes to unveiling the 'creepy' sequences; it's clear here early on that someone wanted to avoid showing the eponymous Mothman, and with good cause. However, though they realize that no special effect could measure up to our expectations, each scene referencing a past event is smashed together with a recreation of that event, giving us a low-budget visual reference of bright lights and camera filters. It seems that everyone would have been better off if the focus had been whether or not the characters were crazy, and denying the audience access to their events would have made this less clear and possibly more terrifying.

Of course, they don't bungle everything. One of the most effecting shots in the film is a product of subtlety; Gere's character is on the phone in his hotel room denying that he made a phone call which we are lead to believe he didn't make. As he talks on the phone, his partial reflection in a mirror does not match up with his own body movements, and when he slams the door upon which the mirror is hung in frustration, we get a half-second view of something else in his apartment. It's the kind of terrifying moment that is ruined by having a DVD player so you can rewind and confirm that you saw something. In addition to this, the last fifteen minutes of the film are absolutely perfect.

Director Pellington has undeniable talent here, channeling a more kinetic Adrian Lyne, but he definitely needs to get the Uwe Boll out of his system before he tries another horror film.