Mothman

'Mothman' was yet another miserable 'original' film that SyFy decided to torture viewers with. Who at the SyFy Network is drinking the wrong Kool-Aid? They need to hire knowledgeable and intelligent decision makers when it comes to their line-up and production processes. The only thing redeemable about 'Mothman' is that the acting is above average for SyFy original features. The cast did a pretty good job with such a crazy, undeveloped storyline and script. The special effects were really pitiful - worse than the old dinosaur flicks from the 50's and 60's. With today's technology, someone with creativity and skill could have created much better effects with home computer equipment. I believe that any movie worth making is worth making right - as right as possible anyway. This starts with the writers of course. A solid plot, storyline and dialog really are the most important - special effects can enhance or destroy a film as well. Continuity is a major element in both, in order to eliminate possible holes and aid in believability. I guess the production company didn't have anyone who could provide continuity for the script or work-flow during filming and editing. Oh well. And why the heck did 'SciFi' change their name to 'SyFy'? Ridiculous!

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.

Right, well "Mothman" was definitely a TV movie in the sense of those words. Sure, it was a slight horror movie, but still it was not something that was overly impressive.

The storyline in "Mothman" was actually adequate, taking into consideration what they had to work with. But the end result of the movie was shoddy and questionable, especially given the poor CGI and the fact that it seemed like not even the actors and actresses themselves were convinced about the outcome of the movie.

The acting in the movie was for the most parts adequate, even with taking into consideration that it felt like most performers were only half-hearted there.

As for the horror aspect in the movie. Well, sure it was generic and straight forward, and not something that haven't already been dabbled with before in other movies. But still, it was sufficiently entertaining enough to keep me watching the movie to the very end. Was I overly entertained, hardly. But I still wanted to see how the movie ended.

Now, the movie suffered terribly from having laughable CGI effects. For a movie from 2010, then the movie was plagued by having special effects reminiscent of a PC game back from the mid-1990s. It was that questionable and laughable to look at, believe you me.

One thing in the movie that had me laughing was the fact that they never reloaded the shotgun and it had a lot, and I mean that literally, a lot of shots stored inside it apparently. That was just such an idiotic mistake to make in a movie.

With "Mothman" watched, I can honestly say that this movie came and went without leaving a dent in anything, only to slowly fade into oblivion. There is no chance of me ever returning to watch "Mothman" because there was just not enough contents in the movie to sustain more than a single viewing - and even that single viewing it at a stretch.

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

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