The Mothman Prophecies is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s twisted, sick and chaotic. I first saw it in theaters in sixth grade, and I’ve never been able to shake it. I went with my friend Delaya, for a Saturday matinee. The theater didn’t have many people in it. The day was overcast. At one point during the movie, when the Mothman was talking, Delaya leaned over to me and whispered “That’s the Devil”, and sat back in her seat. It shook me. I remember as we were leaving, the sky was darker and the streetlights were on. I stared up at the sky wondering if the Mothman was watching me. Sometimes I still wonder.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. My headboard was up against one window in my room, and I kept imagining the Mothman’s glowing red eyes peering through the blinds watching me. The other window was all the way across my room, and I’d positioned the blinds so there was absolutely no space between them for any light to come through. The room was practically pitch black. It was practically 3 a.m., and I stared at my alarm clock waiting for daylight to break in a few hours. Then I saw my phone light up. I had one of those translucent house phones that were cool in the early 00s, and when the ringer was off, an orange-ish light would flutter by the headpiece. I picked it up, nervously. This is the scene, if I were starring in a horror movie, where the viewers would describe the beginning of the end for me. They’d shove popcorn in their mouths and shake their heads at the screen like “You stupid bitch!! Don’t answer the phone!!”. But I picked it up. I didn’t say anything. “Aly?” Delaya said. “Yeah?” I responded. “You can’t sleep either, huh?” “No.” I said. We sat there whispering on the phone for a few hours, shaken at the thought of the Mothman.
I rewatched The Mothman Prophecies recently. Every now and then, I turn it on, hoping that the outdated technology and special effects will unravel before my eyes and force me to acknowledge that it’s just a movie. It never works. It’s not the idea of the Mothman that bothers me. It’s the message at the crux of the film, when Richard Gere starts wondering about God. It reminds me of an analogy I learned about God all through Catholic school. There’s a lot of different viewpoints, but the ones I think about most are God as the puppet master and God as the clockmaker. If God were a puppet master, free will wouldn’t exist, and we’d be forced to think that every single action we made was controlled by a higher power, like puppets on a string. The clockmaker is a different theory, which is a little closer to what I believe in, but not completely. The clockmaker theory is where the world is a clock that God made, and when the clock stops working correctly, God leans down and tweaks some things to get the clock running again. I don’t think either of these are 100% correct, but what IS correct when it comes to religion anyway? Some people don’t believe in God at all, which is also fine. That’s not any of my business.
Anyway, Richard Gere is wondering if the Mothman is God, and someone responds by pointing to a window washer. They say “Look at that window washer. From up there, he can see a car accident about to happen. It doesn’t mean he predicted it or made it happen, but he has a different perspective than you do, and is in a better position to see it. He’s not God, is he?”. And they’re right. The window washer isn’t God, and doesn’t essentially “know” any more than people walking around on the ground. He just can see more. That still doesn’t explain the Mothman, but it’s something to keep in mind.
When bad or unfavorable things happen, we can spend a lot of time wondering why, or asking what the hell we did to deserve it. I think sometimes people take comfort in thinking that everything happens for a reason, but I don’t personally believe that, so it doesn’t comfort me. I feel more comforted in understanding that sometimes things just happen, and there is nothing noble about suffering for the sake of something else good that may happen down the road. Bad things just happen, out of our control, and there’s nothing that could be done to stop it. This may be a bleak outlook, but it’s realistic for me and helps me sleep at night. It’s the perspective I’ve chosen to have. Every ounce of pain will not serve some greater good later on, and everything doesn’t have to mean something.
Maybe that’s the only thing scarier than the Mothman.
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