“The Mothman Legacy” Film Review
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter - Uphill Both Ways Podcast)
Writer/director Seth Breedlove and his Small Town Monsters crew released their documentary The Mothman of Point Pleasant in 2017, and their latest video venture finds them revisiting the topic in The Mothman Legacy. This documentary centers on how the mystery of the reported sightings of a large, red-eyed, winged cryptid — and the belief by some that it is a harbinger of doom — still affects the town and residents of Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
Among the many intriguing topics broached in The Mothman Legacy is how Point Pleasant was settled largely by Scots and Irish immigrants, and how their folklore such as banshees may have influenced the legend of the Mothman — for example, both entities are believed to foretell of deaths, from one interviewee’s account of a relative’s demise to the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse. Combined with the local Native American legend of thunderbirds, this may be one way how sightings of possibly something as common as a large owl could have been mistaken for the titular cryptid.
Breedlove also examines how the Mothman reports have given Point Pleasant a national identity, and the owner of the town’s Mothman Museum and his daughter give proof to that. Tourists have visited the town since the legend began in hopes of seeing the man-sized beast, and the release of the 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies — based on the book by John Keel, who is also mentioned in this documentary — added to the local mystique.
As with all of Breedlove’s Small Town Monsters projects — including the documentary film Invasion on Chestnut Ridge and the documentary series On the Trail of UFOs — the technical qualities are first-rate. From cinematography to sound design to the score to the narration by noted cryptozoologist and author Lyle Blackburn, all of the filmmaking aspects are as impressive as the storytelling and subjects. I honestly feel that each Small Town Monsters production tops the previous one, which is no easy feat, and The Mothman Legacy continues that pattern.
The Mothman Legacy, from 1091, is now available on VOD platforms and DVD or Blu-ray. For more information, visit https://www.smalltownmonsters.com/.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/) and Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast (decadesofhorror.com/category/classicera/). He also writes for the film websites Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Ghastly Grinning (ghastlygrinning.com), and Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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