The Mothman is real.
Or so the documentary film The Mothman of Point Pleasant asserts from its opening moments.
In the mid-1960s, a series of strange sightings and events that occurred in the small Ohio River valley town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, drew the attention of writers and others from the area. The film, which played Tuesday at the Athens International Film and Video Festival, chronicles the year-long tale in which more than 100 people in the Point Pleasant area claimed to have spotted a large half-bird, half-man with glowing red eyes flying, creeping and stalking around their neighborhood.
The story is told mostly by the witnesses themselves, through recordings of witnesses giving their accounts when they spotted the Mothman, and by current Point Pleasant residents who have simply taken a liking to the folk legend that’s commandeered the historic town’s reputation.
The slew of Mothman sightings are varied to say the least. The creature is described as large as 7 feet tall or as short as 4 feet. At times it has the body of a bird and the head of a man, others it is a furry gray creature that perches in trees, and others it is simply a very large bird. One account seemed to be more of a description of a pterodactyl than anything. All of the descriptions given in the film are almost comically illustrated by kitschy drawings with bug-like red eyes.
There never seems to be any real evidence of the Mothman’s existence given, despite the narrator’s adamance that it is very real. The filmmakers apparently assumed the only convincing the audience would need was the sheer volume of eyewitness accounts given — which, purely coincidentally, increased exponentially after the local newspapers started publishing reports made by those witnesses.
But wait, there’s more. The Mothman wasn’t the only strange happening in Point Pleasant. His visits oddly coincided with numerous UFO sightings and ominous interactions with mysterious men in suits who seemed to be threatening the townspeople if they got too interested in the creature.
There’s never much of an answer given as to where the Mothman may have come from. On the contrary, several theories seem to be implied simultaneously. It’s possible that the creature descended on the Ohio River Valley because of a curse placed upon the area long ago by a murdered Native American chief. One theorist proposed the paranormal, and plenty considered it extraterrestrial. One source says the creature was simply not of the this earth and felt misunderstood, while another living witness assures the camera the Mothman was clearly a byproduct of hell.
The Mothman legends faded from prominence after a local tragedy seemed to draw the town’s attention elsewhere, but The Mothman of Point Pleasant will surely help to further immortalize a strange legend that has inextricably linked itself to the small river valley town. For all its flaws and provocation of skepticism, the documentary begs the interesting questions of what local legends are made of, why people cling to them and what their impacts may be.
Ratings: 3/5
