Entertainment

Mothman Mania

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 31, 2002 / 12:29 PM EST / CBS

Moviegoers who have seen the new psychic thriller “The Mothman Prophecies” can now order The Mothman Pizza.

They can munch on the cherry tomato eyes, the green pepper feet and mushroom wings while reading a new book on the legend during a visit to the West Virginia town where it all began.

In fact, with the film starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney making a strong early box office showing, townspeople are hoping for a tourist rush to this hamlet of 5,000 about 40 miles northwest of Charleston, the state capital.

At A Theater Near You?

To find out where and when "Mothman Prophecies" is playing or to order tickets, go to Hollywood,com.

“Dozens of people have already been here,” said Donnie Sergent, a local music store owner who is marketing his own book “Mothman: The Facts Behind The Legend” for $18.95, plus a companion CD-ROM on his own Web site at www.mothmanlives.com. The site, similar to the movie's official Web site at www.themothmanlives.com, features a homepage beckoning browsers to “Enter Mothman Territory ... if you dare.”

Sergent, who is also hawking the book on Amazon.com and Ebay.com, says sales so far are “ungodly.”

At Village Pizza, the Mothman special is basically whatever kind of pie you want.

“We'll put the wings and eyes on,” said Susie Woodall, the pizza chef in charge of the monstrous creation. “It's pretty good. You've got to like mushrooms and green peppers.”

“The Mothman Prophecies” opened on Jan. 25 and grossed $11.2 million in its first weekend to rank sixth among the top 60 movies charted by Daily Variety.

The film tells the story of a Washington Post reporter played by Gere, who is inexplicably drawn hundreds of miles out of his way to Point Pleasant, a dying town on the Ohio River, where he encounters a creature with moth-like wings whose appearance is the precursor of death and disaster.

The town owes its prominence in the film to a series of reported sightings that began in 1966 among people who believed they saw anything from a “giant butterfly” to a “brown human being” flying out of the trees. Legend holds that the sightings were a harbinger of disaster that occurred a year later when the town's Silver Bridge collapsed, killig 46 people.

Author John Keel later wrote an account of the sightings called “The Mothman Prophecies,” which became the basis of the movie.

Now hoping to cash in on a cult following like the one that attended the 1999 film “The Blair Witch Project,” Sony Screen Gems is promoting the Mothman as fact by inviting reports of sightings on the film's Web site.

“At an employee screening of The Mothman Prophecies at the Sony Studios in Culver City last week,” the company reports in a fact sheet, “a guest ran from the theater, visibly shaken. 'I've seen this thing before, and I thought I was crazy! But now I know it exists!' said the frightened moviegoer.”

Skeptics in Point Pleasant contend that the original sightings were nothing more than a sandhill crane.

“My theory is, it was a bird that had gotten off migratory course,” said Hilda Austin, the executive director of the Mason County Area Chamber of Commerce.

Whatever the case, a generation later, even skeptics can be found hawking something based on the legend.

Austin herself is selling little gray Mothman dolls with red eyes and wings, and Mothman tree ornaments from her office and her Web site, at www.moth-man.com.

She says she's sold so many $10 dolls that the exertion has given her a migraine.

“Everybody's hitting the office pretty hard for these,” she said. “The little beasts - they kind of grow on you.”

Rush Finley, owner of the Lowe Motor Inn, wants even more people to come to town. He suggests turning an empty storefront across from his hotel into a Mothman museum. He also doesn't mind if those who visit town are a little odd.

“Hell, it doesn't bother me,” Finley said. “We're redneck enough to handle any kind of people that come. We don't consider people kooky. We consider people people. I'd be glad to get people in town.”

His hotel already has enjoyed a visit by Will Patton, one of the stars of “The Mothman Prophecies.”

“He came in his ball cap and jeans,” Finley said. “He mainly came for colloquialisms - how people talk. He wanted to have his language down.”

If Patton had been interested, he could have gotten a Mothman tattoo from the local Tatt-A-Tood parlor. It has wings and red eyes, and it's permanent.

For a Mothman experience that won't last as long, there's always the Mothman sandwich, available at the Iron Gate Grille.

It's turkey and ham on toasted rye with Thousand Island dressing, two cheeses, black olives and jalapeno peppers. It tastes like a fiery Reuben.

Restaurant manager Linda Workman predicted a long run for Mothman-mania.

“It's going to be on the menu from now on,” she said.