Eyes of the Mothman (2011) - 3/4

Something about the legend of the mothman, often classified amongst cryptozoological legends like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, that stimulates a degree of seriousness not reserved for those others. There have been several films on Bigfoot and Nessie, most of them silly and of very poor quality. The mothman, however, inspired The Mothman Prophecies (2000), one of the most elegant, mysterious, and mature horror movies since The Haunting (1960). And when one watches the various documentaries on Bigfoot and Nessie, where cryptozoologists build upon one another’s loose, largely invented or at least misconstrued data, and then a documentary like Eyes of the Mothman, one can see why there is such a difference. Because the mothman is not just a creature, it’s a protracted series of events that seem to contain some undeniable reality.

Eyes of the Mothman, much like The Mothan Prophecies, is an elegant and evolved work. The genteel shots of the local environments, the poetic voice of narrator Richard Pait that suggests honesty and patience, and the quotes from poets like Tennyson are the earliest cues that this is not the ordinary conspiracy/UFO documentary. As Eyes scrutinizes Point Pleasant from the Revolutionary War through TNT stockpiling, the mothman events and up to the present, the cues are confirmed. Eyes’s two-and-a-half hour runtime is intimidating, but ultimately justified by the breadth of research.

Eyes begins with the local folklore of Revolutionary War-era Chief Cornstalk’s supposed curse on the land. The anthropological scrutiny of the curse is given objectively: Native curses were land-based rather than individual-based, for various reasons. This grounding is not the basis for the remainder of the documentary, but serves two perhaps opposes purposes. The first is to start in mystery, the possibility of something spiritual or unnatural. The other is to show a small town prone to self-mythologizing. Director Pellowski deserves credit for allowing both suggestions to coexist.

Next is a fretting discussion of the World War TNT stockpiles in the Point Pleasant wilderness. Local ponds were frequently contaminated and mutant fish have been discovered. Eyes has its weaknesses on issues of science. The professor interviewed casually remarks that intelligent life has only been on earth for two-thousand years. That would make Socrates a feces-flinging primate. So rather than involve real biologists in the discussion, the possibility that the mothman is a genetic mutation is glibly implied without scrutiny. Again, this grounding has two purposes. For one, the vastly unpredictable worlds of biology and chemistry gives a natural alternative to Native curses. But Pellowski is also showing a small town distrustful of outsiders, including—if not especially—its own government.

Eyes thankfully plunges from there right into the peculiar phenomena of the mothman sightings. The rashes, swollen eyes, and psychological disturbances of the sightings are described by actual sufferers or other Point Pleasant locals. The relationship to the TNT stockpiles takes on some credibility. Some biologists did then and still now suggest witnesses only saw a particularly large, foreign crane—perhaps a mutant one.

Point Pleasant's situation develops from the mothman sightings into UFO sightings, visitations by men in black, the appearance of a strange man known as ‘Indrid Cold’—an innately creepy name, I think—the prophecies of things to come, and finally the collapse of the bridge. Following that particular tragedy, all the weird phenomena stops. Either the mass hysteria has been blown away by genuine tragedy, or there was a real and occult trajectory to the strange events.

The complexity of the series of events encompassed by the rubric ‘mothman’ is highly fascinating in itself, of course. There is just so much more to the Point Pleasant events than the mothman sightings. But what’s more interesting is how Eyes presents the mothman sightings as a real community event. Locals describe hanging around an area known for sightings, hoping to see the mothman. One even says it was like going to the drive-in. They were afraid of it, and yet they loved it. The mothman brought excitement in a boring town. The men in black brought a feeling of significance and importance. The bridge tragedy brought sense, one way or another.

Eyes never makes a statement. The complex mixture of genuine, confused, fudged, and then outright invented data is presented by Pellowski with honesty and integrity, albeit passively. Pellowski shows a certain reluctance to engage in open skepticism or criticism. The interviews also fail to engage any critics, but instead some unrelated ‘paranormal investigators.’ But the patient comprehensiveness of Eyes gives the intelligent viewer room to ponder. If there is any overarching point to Eyes, it is that the one consistent point amongst all witnesses, the strange, red eyes, suggest some reality to the events. But if there is any lasting value to be derived from this documentary, it is the scrutiny of a small town’s obsessions, collective neuroses, and mythologizing imagination.