The Mothman: LA-Connected, SwVa-Based Film Company to Screen Documentary in Norton

Bigfoot inhabits the great Northwest.
The Loch Ness Monster scares from the waters of Scotland’s Loch Ness.
UFOs and aliens fly the skies and sometimes crash and land.
So go countless reports and scattered evidence.
But Mothman? Who or what the dickens is Mothman?
Learn more when Los Angeles-connected, Southwest Virginia-based Black River Films’ documentary “Dark Wings: The Mothman Chronicle” enlivens the screen at Cinema City Theaters in Norton, Va. Oct. 2-4. Producer-narrator Travis Shortt and director Charles McCracken will be on hand Oct. 2 to speak and take questions.
“We make no assumptions as to what Mothman is,” Shortt said on Monday night by phone from Bluefield, W.Va., near Black River Films’ base in Appalachia, Va.
Instead and as shown throughout the 78 minute film, Short interviewed eyewitnesses who have reported seeing Mothman in Point Pleasant, W.Va. Sightings began in November 1966.
“Three days after the first sightings,” said McCracken, “it was on the front page of Stars and Stripes in Vietnam.”
Sightings continued heavily for 13 months to the day, until Dec. 15, 1967 and the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant that killed 46 people.
“The town was spooked by the sightings in 1966,” Shortt said. “There were hundreds of sightings in those 13 months, including on the day of the collapse.”
Per descriptions, Mothman stood from between seven and nine feet tall. He had wings upon his back much as a moth does as opposed to those of a bird and Mothman flew.
“It was a bizarre, bizarre time for this little town,” McCracken said.
Despite hundreds of sightings, however, there is no known photographic or video footage of Mothman. So that left Shortt and McCracken in a pickle regarding how they could depict the character in their film.
“Charlie spent over 6,000 hours in the past six years to create a digital version of Mothman,” Shortt said.
Such painstaking attention to detail extended beyond the digital recreation of Mothman. Perhaps the most difficult task that faced the filmmakers was that of securing interviews with reluctant eyewitnesses, many of who faced ridicule 40-plus years ago upon initial accounts of having seen Mothman.
“They were ostracized initially and really in the four decades since,” Shortt said. “They were ridiculed. It took us about a year to get some of them to do the interviews.”
Significant portions of those interviews are in the film. Indeed, the story of Mothman is told via those interviews of those who reported having seen the creature.
“I’m not drawing any conclusions in the film,” McCracken said. “We let the witnesses tell the story in the film.”

IF YOU GO
What: Black River Films’ “Dark Wings: The Mothman Chronicle”
When: Oct. 2-4, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Where: Cinema City Theaters, 206 Coeburn Ave. S.W., Norton, Va.
Admission: $7.25 adults, $5.25 seniors and children ages 11 and under
Info: (276) 679-2227Web and video: http://www.blackriverfilms.com

TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at .