The Mothman Prophecies

The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

Timing: 1:59 (119 min)

6.2/10
1219

All about film

Video 1

Photo 49

Actors and characters

Release date

2002-01-25

Country

United States

Production

Lakeshore Entertainment, Screen Gems

Genre

Drama, Horror, Mystery

Budget

$32 000 000

Revenue

$55 305 279

Website

Director

Mark Pellington

Actors

Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Will Patton, Debra Messing, David Eigenberg, Alan Bates, Lucinda Jenney, Nesbitt Blaisdell, Bill Laing, Dan Callahan
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Gary W. Goldstein, Richard S. Wright, Terry McKay, Ted Tannebaum

Operator

Fred Murphy

Composer

tomandandy

Artist

Dan Kuchar, Eva Kamienska-Carter

Audition

Sheila Jaffe, Georgianne Walken

Editing

Brian Berdan, Anja Stadelmann, Tal Meirson
All team (212)

• Filming took place in Washington, D.C., as well as in ten locations in Pennsylvania. It began on January 24, 2001, and ended in May of the same year.
• The film is based on facts, characters, and descriptions from the book of the same name by John E. Keel, who arrived in Point Pleasant in December 1966 and began collecting testimonies from eyewitnesses to the strange events taking place.
• The events depicted in the film took place in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. They began on November 12, 1966, and over the course of a year, more than 100 people claimed to have witnessed encounters with the infamous Mothman. At 5 p.m. on December 15, 1967, the 200-meter-long Silver Bridge over the Ohio River suddenly collapsed, along with the rush-hour traffic on it. Forty-six people died. Subsequently, 44 bodies were recovered from the water, while two were never found.
• The Mothman makes fleeting appearances in the film four times: first, flying into Mary Klein’s windshield; second, during John’s conversation with a woman from Point Pleasant; third, when Indrid is glimpsed in the reflection of a mirror on a door when John slams it shut; and fourth, in the reflection of a car window as a severed suspension cable violently strikes the vehicle on the Silver Bridge.
• The Mothman, or Indrid Cold, is shown in the film at best as a distant silhouette, or a fleeting shadow.
• The end credits of the film state that the true cause of the Silver Bridge collapse was never discovered. This is not true. In reality, after several years of investigation into the cause of the disaster, it was determined that metal fatigue in one of the bridge’s suspension cables was to blame. It failed first (which is what we actually see in the film), and then the others snapped. Furthermore, in the film, the stone towers on either side of the bridge remain standing, while in reality – they were also destroyed.
• In the scene where John Clyde explains on the phone that he did not call the man at the chemical plant, a discrepancy can be noticed in the movements of John and his reflection in the mirror. Shortly after, when he slams the door on which the mirror hangs, the reflection also reveals an image, presumably belonging to Indrid Cold.