Mothman starts in the small Virginian town of Point Pleasant where a group of teenage friends are enjoying a night out in the local woods, unfortunately Jared's (Michael Aills) annoying little brother Jamie (Alex Hardee) has gatecrashed the party much to everyone else's irritation. Jared & his friends decide to teach Jamie a lesson & tell him the story about the local legend of the fearsome Mothman, then they all go swimming in the river & try to scare Jamie by pulling him under the water but the prank backfires & Jamie drown's. Jared & his friends decide to lie & say that Jamie banged his head & drowned not wanting to jeopardise their futures to which his friends agree. Ten years later & Washington journalist Katharine Grant (Jewel Staite) is told to return to her hometown of Point Pleasant to cover the annual Mothman festival, at first Katharine is reluctant but agrees. Once there Katherne meets up with Jared & the other's who lied about Jamie's death which brings back painful memories, then the friends start to get killed by the legendary Mothman as some form of supernatural justice...
Directed by Sheldon Wilson & debuting on the Sy-Fy Channel during early 2010 this may sound like yet another terrible 'Craeture Feature' with some genetically enhanced/created or lost species of killer half Moth half man creature as the title would seem to suggest but it's more of a supernatural horror thriller with an incredibly silly central bogeyman type character who seems to be part man, part Moth & part ghost with bright red glowing eyes & Bat like wings. Mothman starts out like a blatant clone of I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) in which someone is killed in a reckless accident & those responsible cover it up for selfish reasons rather than risk going to jail, however instead of the expected teen slasher routine the local town legend of the Mothman dishes out some revenge against the perpetrator's during the annual Mothman festival. You see the Mothman is a local celebrity & has done this sort of thing before. The script is rather bland with forgettable character's, dull off screen kills & a striking inconsistency. I mean it's stated that the Mothman can only enter our world through reflective surfaces & that rule is adhered to until the last thirty minutes when the thing can just appear from anywhere (the incinerator at the old mine for instance). Then there's the rule that daylight repels it but again this rule is ditched as the Mothman is seen attacking a bridge in full daylight towards the end. Also I have to question some of the writing here, why would the one character who likes the Mothman & wants it to carry on it's revenge mission give potential victims the only thing that can kill it? It just seems counter productive if you know what I mean. What about Casey who is caught by the Mothman & flown away only to reappear a few minutes later alive & unharmed despite the Mothman killing everyone else straight away without mercy? No explanation is given as to how Casey survived, at all. I suppose Mothman is watchable in a silly horror thriller sort of way & at least it's not about a half Moth half man monster like the title suggests, at just over 80 minutes it's not too long & it moves along at a decent pace even if it's very lazily written with little explanation & apparent disregard for it's own rules, mythology & parameters.
The film looks reasonable enough, it's got that made for television look I suppose but looks alright. The CGI computer effects work is predictably terrible, the Mothman creature looks stupid, it's like a beefy man with Bat wings & glowing red eyes with a black overall appearance. There's not much blood or gore, there are a few dead bodies & a bit of blood splatter at various death scenes but nothing that will shock anyone. There's not many scares as there's very little build-up to the attacks, the Mothman just appears & attacks & within a few seconds of bad CGI computer effects work it's over. Apparently Point Pleasant is a real town that really does have a Mothman legend, really does hold a Mothman festival & it even has a Mothman museum.
The IMDb says Mothman had a budget of about $2,000,000 which I don't believe, there's no way this cost that much. The acting isn't great, the cast are the usual good looking type that sleepwalk through the roles. No-one of any note is featured.
Mothman has an OK revenge thriller plot that mixes a silly supernatural ghost story into it, not the worst film ever to grace the Sy-Fy Channel but far from the best. A passable time waster at best & an absolute mess at worst.
Directed by Sheldon Wilson & debuting on the Sy-Fy Channel during early 2010 this may sound like yet another terrible 'Craeture Feature' with some genetically enhanced/created or lost species of killer half Moth half man creature as the title would seem to suggest but it's more of a supernatural horror thriller with an incredibly silly central bogeyman type character who seems to be part man, part Moth & part ghost with bright red glowing eyes & Bat like wings. Mothman starts out like a blatant clone of I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) in which someone is killed in a reckless accident & those responsible cover it up for selfish reasons rather than risk going to jail, however instead of the expected teen slasher routine the local town legend of the Mothman dishes out some revenge against the perpetrator's during the annual Mothman festival. You see the Mothman is a local celebrity & has done this sort of thing before. The script is rather bland with forgettable character's, dull off screen kills & a striking inconsistency. I mean it's stated that the Mothman can only enter our world through reflective surfaces & that rule is adhered to until the last thirty minutes when the thing can just appear from anywhere (the incinerator at the old mine for instance). Then there's the rule that daylight repels it but again this rule is ditched as the Mothman is seen attacking a bridge in full daylight towards the end. Also I have to question some of the writing here, why would the one character who likes the Mothman & wants it to carry on it's revenge mission give potential victims the only thing that can kill it? It just seems counter productive if you know what I mean. What about Casey who is caught by the Mothman & flown away only to reappear a few minutes later alive & unharmed despite the Mothman killing everyone else straight away without mercy? No explanation is given as to how Casey survived, at all. I suppose Mothman is watchable in a silly horror thriller sort of way & at least it's not about a half Moth half man monster like the title suggests, at just over 80 minutes it's not too long & it moves along at a decent pace even if it's very lazily written with little explanation & apparent disregard for it's own rules, mythology & parameters.
The film looks reasonable enough, it's got that made for television look I suppose but looks alright. The CGI computer effects work is predictably terrible, the Mothman creature looks stupid, it's like a beefy man with Bat wings & glowing red eyes with a black overall appearance. There's not much blood or gore, there are a few dead bodies & a bit of blood splatter at various death scenes but nothing that will shock anyone. There's not many scares as there's very little build-up to the attacks, the Mothman just appears & attacks & within a few seconds of bad CGI computer effects work it's over. Apparently Point Pleasant is a real town that really does have a Mothman legend, really does hold a Mothman festival & it even has a Mothman museum.
The IMDb says Mothman had a budget of about $2,000,000 which I don't believe, there's no way this cost that much. The acting isn't great, the cast are the usual good looking type that sleepwalk through the roles. No-one of any note is featured.
Mothman has an OK revenge thriller plot that mixes a silly supernatural ghost story into it, not the worst film ever to grace the Sy-Fy Channel but far from the best. A passable time waster at best & an absolute mess at worst.