Predictably dull

>> The Mothman Prophecies takes a boring stab at the creeps


by MATTHEW HAYS

There’s nothing better than a good solid dose of the creeps at the movies. Think Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Halloween or The Parallax View even (creepiness and politics—bonus).

And with The Mothman Prophecies, director Mark Pellington was handed a fantastic scenario to work with. Based on a ’75 book about an incident that occurred in ’67, the film involves a Washington Post reporter who begins to experience all sorts of weirdness after his wife dies, incidents that should up the creeps factor. Gere finds himself mysteriously hundreds of miles away from home, in West Virginia. How did he get here? One resident of the town claims to have seen Gere in these parts before, stalking people—but Gere swears he’s never been there before. Gere decides to stay on and try and figure out these various mysteries. He’s helped by Laura Linney, who plays a dutiful small-town cop.

Gere, as it turns out, is having premonitions. And this mysterious moth force is phoning him and clearly indicating that he knows every detail of Gere’s life, including what’s running through his mind at any given moment. Gere is left puzzled and frustrated, knowing only that he knows something horrible is going to happen, but can’t predict precisely what it will be.
With these ingredients, Mothman should have been really, truly creepy. But it just isn’t. It wears its based-on-a-true-story label up front, and that usually counts for something, but the film gets mighty repetitive. Instead of building suspense, I felt like the screenplay was on some kind of loop, with phone calls, weird premonitions and the like repeating themselves. Get to the point! (The film does pack a nice final action sequence, but it’s not quite enough to save the movie.)

Gere himself is a competent actor (if not a brilliant one). I like to see him in films, but better ones than this. The main mystery to me is why he’d say yes to Mothman. Couldn’t he have seen this coming? :

The Mothman Prophecies opens Friday, Jan. 24