Richard Gere stars in this supernatural mystery as a Washington, D.C. reporter who gets lost while en route to Richmond and inexplicably ends up five hours off course in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where he becomes involved with some of the locals who have recently experienced strange visions of a dark winged creature, the descriptions of which match the pictures drawn by Gere’s late wife before she died of a brain tumor. Soon, he’s getting calls in his hotel room from a seemingly telepathic entity known as Indrid Cold and trying to decipher clues that point to some sort of imminent catastrophe. Based on the 1975 book by John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies is a mopey, meandering and completely ludicrous thriller undone even further by the fussy flourishes of director Mark Pellington (whose brash over-direction breathed some life into Arlington Road but seems indulgent and out of place here) — even X Files creator Chris Carter would have a tough time swallowing this bunch of hooey. Gere seems unwilling to commit to this nonsense, though his scenes in which he speaks with the possibly malevolent Indrid Cold are nonetheless good for a few chills, if only because of the terrifically creepy mixing job on Cold’s voice. “Chhhhapsssstick.”
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New On Netflix: The Mothman Prophecies