Picturenose

It only comes out at night…

We’re into the realms of ‘based on a true story’ again here but, in all fairness to director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road (1999)), whether or not you believe the ‘Mothman’ yarns is irrelevant - the film still emerges as rather more than merely exploitative ’spookiness’.

Washington Post reporter John Klein (yes, it’s Richard Gere, but don’t let that put you off either), and his wife Mary (Deborah Messing) are driving away from a succesful house-hunting trip, on which they’d just found the home of their dreams, when Mary swerves the car off the road to avoid a mysterious apparition that only she sees. Her injuries, while serious, are not life threatening, but doctors discover a very rare and inoperable form of brain tumour (a glioblastoma) during their subsequent tests.

Mary’s visions of the same supernatural entity that she claims she saw before the accident grow more intense, as Klein is to learn when he discovers, after her death, the drawings his wife made of the creature. Two years on, Klein is still struggling to come to terms with his loss - en route for Richmond, some two hours away from Washington for work purposes, his car breaks down in the middle of the night. Knocking on a local homeowner’s door to ask for help, Klein is taken aback when Gordon Smallwood (Will Patton) threatens him with a shot gun, demanding to know why Klein is calling at exactly the same time, 2.30am, as Smallwood claims he has done for the past two nights.

Klein further discovers that, in the space of 90 minutes, he has somehow managed to travel 400 miles off his intended route - Sgt. Connie Parker (Laura Linney) tells him of the many strange events that have been taking place in the town, specifically, accounts of a bizarre creature from reputable witnesses, and a sketch drawn of the mysterious figure is virtually identical to the bizarre drawings of Klein’s late wife. The Mothman cometh…

Sounds hokey, doesn’t it? With its poor promotional campaign and unfair initial reviews, the film failed on its original release, but there is a lot more going on here than you’d think. Principally, thanks to impressive performances from Gere and particularly Patton, what might have been simply a cheap ‘bump in the night’ schlock-fest is in fact an unnerving, intense study of events outside human experience, tied in with a genuinely touching portrayal of grief from Gere as Klein - a man who wants answers from the genuinely creepy ‘Indrid Cold’ (I’m giving nothing away), but who may not be allowed to find them.

In fact, the ‘true story’ tagline (the film is based on events that took place in 1966-67) is in fact not really relevant - just let yourself be drawn in by a tale that’s reminiscent of the classic camp-fire ghost story, and none the worse for that.

119 mins.