Metacritic reviews

This is the scariest movie I've ever seen.

One truly, madly, deeply satisfying creep-out.

An entertaining and chilling film that will make you question what you believe about myths and the supernatural.

Compellingly watchable horror-spectacle.

As the plot loses steam, director Mark Pellington (whose paranoid thriller "Arlington Road" was one of the worst movies of 1999) tends to rely on cheap tricks to maintain suspense, although the final catastrophe is very nicely done.

The creepy set pieces are repetitive and the payoff is rather unsatisfying, even though the prophecies do eventually pan out.

It would have made for a cool fictional thriller, but The Mothman Prophecies' attempt to stick to true-life roots paralyzes it from being satisfying. It gives you the tingles all right, but they won't follow you out of the theater.

Despite moments of atmospheric tension and a core of compelling mystery, the film feels remote, cold and, oddly, obvious.

Almost sinks under the weight of too many red herrings, but is rescued by a skewed sense of reality and pervasive sense of dread that should keep audiences from dwelling on them.

Gere, who's credited with keeping the project alive for years, has never thrown himself quite so fully into a role, and Pellington tells the story without a hint of skepticism. I suppose he had no choice. If you're going to treat poppycock as history, you had better believe it.