PARANORMAL THRILLER FELLED BY GENRE'S SHORT LIFE SPAN.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

You don't get many horror movies that are based on true events. ``The Mothman Prophecies'' should not inspire very many more.

A film that's better at creating unsettling atmosphere than at giving the viewer a clear notion of what the heck is going on, ``Mothman'' plays like a midrange ``X-Files'' episode. It's intelligent in its wayward way and admirable for its reluctance to indulge in cheap thrills when it can suggest mind-altering counter-realities instead. But there's a reason why ``The X-Files'' has finally been canceled; the extended heyday for this kind of stuff's eternally obscured night vision has passed.

The movie's basic concept has been taken from one of John A. Keel's nonfiction books of the same name. It recounts how, in the year or so leading up to a horrendous bridge collapse over the Ohio River in 1967, many residents of Point Pleasant, W.Va., reported visitations from a giant, mothlike creature that (and one presumes much of this recall was embellished after the disaster) seemed to be trying to communicate portents of doom.

The film was scripted by the intriguingly named Richard Hatem and directed by a music video maven, Mark Pellington. He is better with style than storytelling (his last feature was ``Arlington Road'').

Richard Gere plays modern-day Washington Post reporter John Klein. We first see him happily married to Mary (Debra Messing, from TV's ``Will & Grace''), but during a winter drive a mothman comes at her (John doesn't see it), and soon after, she dies - not from crash injuries, but from a brain tumor no one knew she had.

For months afterward, grieving John can just barely function at his job. Late one night, he starts driving south for a next-day interview in Virginia. When his car stalls out a few hours later, he discovers that he's in Point Pleasant, some 400 miles due west. It is never explained how he got there, or why, when he knocks on the man's door, the agitated Gordon Smallwood (Will Patton, adding nice extra levels of pathos to his usual, unhinged specialty) treats John like a serial harasser.

Soon, John is in the tender custody of local cop Connie Parker (Laura Linney). Having fielded many strange reports from her constituents, she welcomes the troubled reporter's aid in the growing number of investigations. This mothman thing, which calls itself Indrid Cold, is all over the place: alighting in backyard trees, contacting through waves of static on the phone, reflecting in motel room mirrors.

Then John thinks he sees Mary walking through town. He makes several frantic road trips to Chicago to interrogate a reluctant expert (Alan Bates) on the phenomenon. Bates' character is Alexander Leek, whose last name is the book author's spelled backward. For some mysterious reason, John's editors at the Post let him get away with all of this nonsense for as long as he wants.

The longer this film drones ominously on, the more we realize that Pellington really doesn't know where he ought to be taking it. There are moments of eerie elegance sprinkled along the way, and Gere and Patton find truly poignant ways of expressing their characters' very different descents into apparent madness.

But the main things ``Mothman'' leaves us with are memories of a lot of noise and swooping shadows. What it's all supposed to prophesy is anybody's guess.

``THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES''

(Rated PG-13: violence,language, sex)

The stars: Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Will Patton, Debra Messing, Alan Bates.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Mark Pellington. Written by Richard Hatem, based on John A. Keel's book. Produced by Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi and Gary Goldstein. Released by Screen Gems.

Running time: One hour, 59 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two and one half stars