Mothman

Mothman starts out... essentially it's like another one of those ridiculously common ghost movies. Characters become targeted, some die mysteriously and survivors must discover how to survive.

The monster itself tends to emerge from whatever reflective surfaces are available to murder victims.

The protagonist is visiting and reporting on the town. Killing her first wouldn't raise any suspicions so naturally the monster goes around killing the permanent citizens first.

But things reach their lowest when the monster starts rampaging, ignoring the previously-established rules completely. This scene doesn't make sense in the context of the previous events and is likely caused by a rewrite. Another problem is the main cast; many were murdered without making any impression.

In Point Pleasant, land of the legend The Mothman, a group of seven teenage friends accidentally kills the boy Jamie (Alex Hardee) in a prank by the river and they decide to cover up the incident simulating an accident.

Ten years later, the journalist of the Washington Weekly Katharine Grant (Jewel Staite), who was one of the seven teenagers that murdered Jamie, is assigned by her editor to return to her hometown to prepare a matter about the 10th Mothman Festival. She reunites with the other six friends that have stayed in the town and sooner they are murdered one by one by The Mothman. Katherine and her former boyfriend Derek (Connor Fox) seek help with an old blind man Frank Waverly (Jerry Leggio) that has been luring The Mothman for many years trying to save their lives from the punishment of the entity.

"Mothman" is a lame collection of clichés about a vigilante entity that punishes the sinners. The predictable plot is a mess, the CGI is very poor and the acting is reasonable but the cast has a very poor material to work. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Castigo Mortal" ("Mortal Punishment")

Basically this is really bad. No one needs to see this. Unless you are in love with Jewel Staite. Who? My thoughts exactly. But she's pretty and a pleasure to look at... and there are girls in bikinis in the first 10 minutes. There is one very brief scary part (about two seconds worth) and one almost scary part (about half a second) and that's about it... truly next to zero creepy factor, lame CGI and mediocre acting. Bottomline: this movie sucks. I know I should stay away from Made-for-Syfy Channel TV movies but they call to me every now and then so I can see what a truly crappy movie is.

3.2 / 10 stars

--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

Some movies, even made-for-TV movies, are better than you'd expect. This is not one of them.

The plot could work, if the writing was even decent. The actors really did seem to be doing the best job they could, given a horrible script. The setting and costumes were fine and believable (there are mountains and no-name hotels in West Virginia, and normal young adults will wear jeans and tank tops around town).

This is one of those movies that is the acting equivalent of flipping burgers or cleaning hotel rooms. It's honest work, and the actors did the best they could in the context, but it's a job you hope will be pushed off a resume by better work. Even the TV-movie-only actors deserve better resume content than this mess. Fortunately, some of the cast (such as Firefly's Jewel Staite) have had enough quality work for this thing to only be a place-holder in the long run...One of those jobs you pick up to pay the rent when work is slow, or for some extra cash. Otherwise, this is a horribly mediocre movie and is best for background noise during a weekend afternoon nap.

I admit that I do dislike most of the movies airing on the SyFy channel, but I watch them out of curiosity to get novelty value or to see if either of them are actually surprisingly watchable when there is nothing or little else on. Mothman as I've said is not SyFy's worst by a long shot, but it is not very good, as a matter of fact it is rather weak.

The acting is better than anticipated though none are particularly great, but they are undermined by stock and stereotypical characters, a very rushed and underdeveloped story, a laughable script and when they seemingly realised that they only had twenty minutes left and had not finished telling the story the writers decided to include a twist. Unfortunately this twist is utterly moronic leading to one of the weakest endings I've seen in a while.

In conclusion, not the worst but weak. 2/10 Bethany Cox