November 5, 2009 | by Vic Holtreman 

The Fourth Kind Review

Rating:

3.5 out of 5

Short Version: IF you let it draw you in with its factual approach, The Fourth Kind will creep you out more than Paranormal Activity.

milla jovovich in The Fourth Kind review
Screen Rant reviews The Fourth Kind

After the extreme split in opinions on Paranormal Activity (I liked it), I was curious to see The Fourth Kind to see which side of the fence I fell on. I can understand how you can either love or hate the former, and I have a feeling something similar will happen with this film: Either you buy into the whole premise and let it suck you in, or you stand back and call B.S. on the whole thing.

The Fourth Kind opens unexpectedly, with Milla Jovovich as herself talking plainly to the audience. She speaks matter of factly and seriously, telling us the details upon which the film we are about to see are based. In addition to actors portraying real people (most of whom will have their names changed in the film) there will be scenes of actual video shot during the events portrayed in the movie. It will be disturbing, she tells us.

What will be so disturbing? The account of Alaskan psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler (played by Milla), taken from her notes, videotapes (and a personal interview by director Olatunde Osunsanmi) which tells the story of the strange nocturnal experiences of a number of residents of Nome Alaska in the Summer/Fall of 2000. A number of townsfolk have all been experiencing the same unique visions and sleeplessness at night – similar in details that could not be coincidental, and they’ve individually turned to her for help in determining what these things mean.

They all share visions of being watched by a strange white owl in the middle of the night. This sounds goofy, but when they intercut footage of the actual people in her office relating their story – each on their own and each story with the same details – the creepiness factor starts to escalate. And it only gets worse as Dr. Tyler delves deeper into their psyches to unearth buried details via hypnosis.

What starts her down the path of “something really weird is going on” is the fact that going back to the 1960s there have been (for a town of its size) an awful lot of unexplained missing people in Nome. The FBI has gone out multiple times to try and find answers and has always come up blank. One of her sessions leads to a very tragic event, putting her at odds with the town sheriff who believes she is stirring people up and causing harm. Eventually things come to a head, get really crazy and out of hand, and bring us to the present day interview that is threaded throughout the film.

The creep factor comes in from assuming that what you’re watching is, in fact, true and that the homemade videos are all in fact legitimate. However I will say that the farther you get into the film the more you have to suspend your disbelief – especially with some of what appears in the supposedly real camcorder footage. I won’t give anything away, but you’ll understand if you see the movie.

If you don’t buy into that concept at least a little bit, then The Fourth Kind will leave you as cold as Paranormal Activity did for people who didn’t go along for the ride with that film. However if you let it get in your head, I think you’ll find that The Fourth Kind is even more effective at freaking you out and causing you some nervousness after you turn off the last light at night and head off to bed.

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Tags: 3 star movies, the fourth kind,

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  • Odd
    so what if its fake or real? Its a friggin scary movie.. And you really think people will tell you its real? angels dont exist either, right? ... Dont diss movies like this...!

    if its real or not, some of it is of course real.. aliens exist, ufos exist.. and yes i believe abductions exist.
  • kazman
    I just seen this movie on www.doesthatwork.co.uk for free its awesome!
  • M
    Even if it wasn't real it has real similarities to demonic possession.

    2nd Thessalonians 2:9-12 9 "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness."
  • Carl Snyder
    I'm not going to give a comment on the movie but instead tell you of an experience my mother had back in 1963. My mother had booked a room on a freighter,out of New Orleans,to go to the Worlds Fair in Brussels and visit family in Holland. While in route,somewhere at sea,a u.f.o. payed the ship a visit. My mother claimed that it hovered about fifty feet over the ship,silently,and all on board could feel the warmth of the thing.After a short while,it just took off. the captain of the ship commented "no country has anything that can fly like that." She described it as moving very fast in a zig zag pattern.
  • Hector
    !!!!!Spoilers!!!!

    Dave,

    I'm not one to answer a question with a question, unless the questions will help me find an answer. At this point if you have to make me imagine, which I tried to do during this movie, your not answering my question.

    But I will humor you. If I was the FBI looking at the situation I would think that she was crazy and needed physiatric help that does NOT involve hypnosis. And saving lives would have involved stopping her from practicing. There are a lot of other ways to figure out if aliens were messing with these people other than hypnosis which would have taken this movie to another level in my opinion.

    After watching the film I left with these questions;
    1.) If hypnosis works so well why was she not able to see that her husband committed suicide?
    (Aliens implanting a false memory doesn't work in this situation because they did the same thing when they abducted people and yet via hypnosis they saw what happened to them.)
    2.) If her husband did commit suicide wouldn't that discredit this whole movie based on hypnosis?
    3.) What if aliens were truly messing with the hypnosis tapes, wouldn't all of them have the same distortion?
    4.) If the tapes had that level of distortion wouldn't the audio have the same type of distortion, almost making none of the audio recognizable?
    5.) Why did everyone involved in that ordeal give up on that "crazy" woman and want nothing to do with this film?
    6.) Why would an alien say its god? (Felt that an extraterrestrial would more or less say that there is no god.)

    Now these are some questions that were going through my head during the film. All of which lead me to think that nothing presented was believable, other than the history lesson, which almost every civilization has including ours. Also at the end I felt that it was a "supernatural power" and not an alien.

    The only thing that helps this movie in supporting an alien abduction theory is the daughter going missing. But even then the film makers didn't do their homework to find a city that actually has a missing child. If you try to do a search for missing children in Nome, Alaska within the last 20 years you will come up with no results.

    But overall to me, this movie had lazy written all over it but had potential to be better. While somewhat entertaining I left the theater disappointed. Not that I thought via a movie I was going to be taught something but the fact that they screwed up their own story so badly. If your going to make a movie like this then you need to make sure your story supports itself instead of dismantling what you tried to create. I've seen a lot of extraterrestrial documentaries and movies that are better than this joke of one.
  • James
    @Dave Mowers, for other reasons I'm very sure the footage is not real and did not think it was a good movie regardless (and posted those on the first page), but I do like the way you are looking at it, because I've always held that if the governments of the world are covering up UFOs, it is because there is a very sinister aspect to them.

    The same is true for ETs....If they exist and visit us, and have been for some time, without making any contact, and in fact doing everything possible to keep their existence hidden, it would make sense that they were sinister or had motives that we would find sinister.
  • James
    "James made Adrian’s point by the way, all languages came from somewhere and Sumerian is the oldest known. Assyrian, Akkadian- whatever."

    Ohm, no...because Sumarian was a language Isolate. It is not related to Akkadian (which Assyrian is related to). It is also NOT the oldest know, it is just the first one that had a writing system we know of, and even that may be in dispute.
    Unfortunately, records were destroyed by the tribe of Conan (thanks a lot :( )
  • Dave Mowers
    Ziggy rules, and as far as this goes..

    "I’m curious, what other FACTS are presented in this movie other than the whole Sumerian language/history issue?"

    Imagine you are involved at any level with what is claimed to have occurred in the film. Would you really keep pushing it? Really? Even if you are FBI you are not stupid, screw saving lives and doing your job when you are up against something like this, ever see The Entity?

    Everyone involved in that ordeal gave up on that poor woman and wants nothing to do with a supernatural power that can KILL you at will.

    How is this for a fact, who cares what it is doing this or why or finding out any evidence, screw that. the He!! with Nome, Alaska.

    Whether or not it really happened no one who came against this thing will EVER want to talk about it and that is not the issue. The issue is that this was a damn good movie. If you are into the "alien thing" then...

    James made Adrian's point by the way, all languages came from somewhere and Sumerian is the oldest known. Assyrian, Akkadian- whatever.

    Disclaimer:

    I am descended from the middle-eastern tribe of Conan who is responsible for the destruction of Assyrians, and subsequent enslavement therefore I cannot really be on Adrian's side due to the whole family member killing your ancestors thing.
  • James
    @adrian, I'm actually a really nice guy :), but the condescending little tone you wanted to come at me with is the reason I'm talking down to you.

    And no, no matter how much you want to wish it so Assyrian does not have roots with Sumarian, it shares roots with Akkadian, which was a completely different language with completely different roots. They both adopted cuneiform from the Sumarians because that was dominant system of writing in the area (and that does not make them anymore related than Polish and Malay, which both currently use the Latin Alphabet). However, Aramaic had its own alphabet based on the Phoenician script (you do know that that language came from the Fertile Crescent area, not Mesopotamia, right?).

    I'll give you the simple version, because I dont feel like writing term papers on screen rants. There were Sumarians, they spoke a language which was what is known as a language isolate. They were NOT a Semitic and spoke a non Semitic language. They were later conquered by the Akkadians, who were a semitic people who spoke a semitic language, and Akkadian became the lingua franca of the region (replacing Sumarian). Assyrian and Babylonian have their roots in Akkadian. Aramaic is also a semitic language and shares that with Akkadian and Assyrian. Which all has NOTHING to do with Sumarian. The fact that Akkad conquered Sumar, does not make Akkadian the same thing or even related to Sumarian. I think this is where your confusion is from. Maybe You are confusing Akkadian and Sumarian. Who knows? Maybe your obsession over some genealogical mythology is clouding your thinking.

    "thousands of years of assyrian heritage"...means nothing. My great great great grandpappy was a Turk, so what, doesnt make me an expert on Troy. Personally, Its kind of sad that people have to wrap themselves up in some ancestral mythology (5000 years ago there was a civilization there, and you act like you had something to do with it...lol, in reality its as much your actual heritage as it is mine). I never got that...does believing you may have a Sumarian ancestor from 5000 years ago actually make you feel special? Ah, whatever.

    Anyway, I've actually been to Ur several times (near modern Nasiriyah), and would have loved to discuss this stuff with you in a nicer way in a different forum... But you want to get all undeservably pompous with your 'uneducated American' stuff...I'll knock you back to the Gutian period.
  • Hector
    Adrian,

    I believe that an educated person never underestimates a group of people. Neither would an educated individual think that his bloodline dictates his level of knowledge.

    But back to the main subject at hand, The Fourth Kind.

    You stated this;
    "anyways fake or not, this film was very interesting if you know your history facts right…this movie had alot of them!"

    I'm curious, what other FACTS are presented in this movie other than the whole Sumerian language/history issue?
  • adrian
    An Anu
    Ki/Ninhursag Aruru, Mammi
    Enlil Ellil
    Enki Ea
    Nanna Sin
    Inanna Ishtar
    Utu Shamash
    Ninlil Mullitu, Mylitta

    are you finished arguing with me?
    first list is sumerian, second is assyrian.
    inanna is the Babylonian and Assyrian goddess of love and fertility and war, ishtar is our version of saying it.

    so how do you pronounce sumerian words?

    look at assyrian "anu"....pronounced AHN-oO....now take away the U and you have "AHN"
    watch the history channel, they have it on that also.

    sorry, american, but thousands of years of assyrian heritage compared to what moderns have JUST found. scary isent it? your talking to a person who has a bloodline in the past tense.
    who in 4 generations (400) years before america was ...america, my great great great great gramps was in present day iraq, which was once assyria, which was once partialy sumer.
    im done, i've presented enough facts.
    listen to me, or listen to what the internet says.

    what you believe.......is YOURs to decide.
  • Fenix
    I didn't realize my Western Civ Proff read screenrant too....
  • adrian
    and like i said james, you failed yet again, because assyrian words have there roots too sumerian...and Aramaic sounded very very close too sumerian, the very few OLDER assyrians know how to speak Aramaic, the words are close too what they have in sumerian.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia
    you look assyrians lived in the meso. era, if you look too your right you will see, sumer and then you will see down the list Assyria.

    "First, some definitions: Mesopotamia, in general, refers to the area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Assyria, was the northern portion of Mesopotamia, who's capital was Ashur (until 883 BCE, when it was moved to Calah/Nimrud) and whose reach included the major city of Nineveh (Ninua). Sumer refers to the southern delta region, whose primary cities included Ur, Uruk, and Eridu. Akkad was a region north of Sumer which included the area around modern Baghdad as well as the ancient sites of Babylon, Kish, and Nippur."

    now look at how assyrian and sumer sound similar? nineveh is (ninua is how its pronounced in assyrian)and now sumer which has eridu, ur, uruk. assyrian also was calah/nimrud(nim-rood)

    and we all lived around the same times.
    when they tell you aincent assyrians did this or that, normally you see sometimes artifacts from sumerians, the wheel they say was invented by sumerians, further looking you see it was also invented by assyrians by some people.
    thoes are the only two "counties" that are said to have invented the wheel.

    assyrians arent sumerian par se, but we have blood lines through them.. i might have 1% sumerian in me like millions of other assyrians in the world.

    damn..im a ancient person.
  • adrian
    james, sorry that i said a older form of Aramaic, i typed that pretty late at night. i ment too say, assyrians are pretty much descendants from Sumerians. alot of assyrian words have roots to sumerian, also our religion is the same as sumerian(worshiping stars turned too christians) and even our sun(AN..pronounced AH-N) is in our flag. and our clothing had a very tight resemblance. and yes its the oldest written language, but sumerians invented the alphabet, and time keeping(a day to 24 hours, and a hour to 60 minuets). i am glad you are a educated american.

    but some things are off, you cannot tell me my language that i speak every day does not have roots too sumerian. and my culture has its roots too the sumerian's also.
    coincidence that our nation was right where the sumerian citys were of uruk and ur..babylon?

    alas, good argument, and thank you for catching me on my mistake.
  • james
    Seriously dude, you are perusing a degree in Sumerian language and history and you Think Sumarian is an older form of Aramaic? I mean, that is so completely wrong, I dont even know where you got it from. They arent related at all.
    Man, I hope you read this so I can save you from flunking out of school.

    While we're on the subject, how about this...The professor in the film keeps referring to Sumarian as the 'oldest language in the world'...when that's not even true, its the oldest WRITTEN language we know of. And even this may not be so, since the discovery of the Tataria Tablets in Romania that predate Sumarian Cuneiform by a thousand years. Regardless, Writing is not equal to speaking, and languages had existed for thousands of years before Sumarian civilization.


    Your Friend,
    James the Educated American
  • james
    @adrian....Stupid American? WTF was that for?
    Well stupid 'what ever you are' Sumarian is NOT an older version of Aramaic. It simply isnt. Who ever told you that was full of it, and I guess you believed them....so put that in your smart little pipe and smoke it.

    Second, nobody speaks Sumarian. We only know it indirectly and are reconstructing it from a very imperfect mnemonic writing system which had not been basically aimed at the rendering of morphophonemics.
    So no, you would not just recognize sumarian if someone started speaking it....Do you? Because please, there is a nobel prize waiting for you.

    Now, next time you start calling some one stupid, you might want to do it without saying something completely wrong and stupid like "Sumerian is a much older version of Aramaic"....go read a book, professor.
  • adrian
    well, the language is almost impossible, they haven't figured out all the words yet, even Aramaic is little known.

    the movie is very factual, and i am perusing a degree in sumerian language and history..good to know where your ancestors came from. if you would like very interesting facts on the things in the movie, email me and i would gladly enlighten you on some pretty cool things.

    adrianaghaie@yahoo.com
  • godalmighty
    I heard the story above of people being abducted there in NOME, Alaska but it was not that person that is mentioned. The way I heard (while living in Alaska for the past 5 years)was that there were some aliens that landed there and that the ones involved were the Chief of one of the tribes.......Killed his family. Also that he even killed one of the aliens there. That also there were many FBI agents there thereafter.
    The Aliens had abducted a lot of people in NOME. I have to ask my father-in-law more about it though. He and his family are all from there.
    One of the only places that I did not travel to in Alaska was Nome. Glad I didnt. Scary movie and when I was traveling it was during those times that the movie was saying the audio was recorded. I got to see more places in Alaska then most people that have lived there all their lives have. Beautiful, beautiful places there in Alaska.
  • the_old_man
    Fenix says: "I don’t care how convincing it was guy.. its a movie."
    So is a documentary.

    Adrain says: "there is a lot of FACTS in that film to make it believable." The best Pseudo Documentaries do. Nice to have someone that knows a little about the Sumerian language comment about it. Knew it was being mistaken as something impossible...
  • Fenix
    Yea obviously I wasn't really expecting actual green men. I guess it tough to emote sarcasm on a board.... I don't care how convincing it was guy.. its a movie. Nothing you can say will change my opinion on THAT. The movie looks entertaining tho and I'm into ETs and stuff so i'll check it out. This is random but I watched a good scary movie last night called The Descent. Best horror/thriller I've seen in years. I actually was thinking about the movie as I went to sleep which I never do and it honestly scared me a little.
  • 790
    @Fenix, the footage was very convincing and doesn't contain any little green men.

    Maybe you should see it first before you critique it?
  • Fenix
    I haven't seen this either but would anyone honestly go into this believing that it might somewhat be plausible?? Have none of you learned your lessons from blair witch? If they were showing actual abduction footage or footage of little green men than wouldn't that make it to the news first rather than your local theater... But hey it's not a crime to WANT to believe :)
  • pj
    @conbot
    its Hilarius that u anticipate transformers 3 lol
  • adrian
    """Btw, how the hell did this guy know they were speaking sumarian? Nobody knows what sumarian sounds like spoken. IF real you would think these recordings would be a linguists or anthropologists wet dream.

    Man, I could go on"""

    uneducated America, some research on the EVENTS of this film, and more confusing stuff at this point wouldent matter if the film is fake or not, because there is alot of FACTS in that film to make it believeable.

    Sumerian is a MUCH older version of Aramaic, which is a older version of assyrian, assyrian is the current language of...yup you guessed it, assyrians..i AM assyrian, my ancestors where descendants of Sumerians. the sculptures of men in space suits are all real artifacts, and is it a coincidence that sumerians where worshipers of the stars and during the SAME time of there worship of stars, those artifacts date back to the same time...

    think of it this way.....google ancient sumerian language, you will find bits and pieces of it, now remember what the alien was saying.....sounds extreamly familiar right?...

    anyways fake or not, this film was very interesting if you know your history facts right...this movie had alot of them!
  • Dave Mowers
    You know the usual, professors studying and proving with study how to justify stealing your money in the name of capitalism. Hey, there's good money in this racket. Pst...Yale Society SAB.

    Now SLEEP...Edi Mene Onk
  • 790
    Lol, how are things at Harvard these days?
  • Dave Mowers
    Unfortunately, members of Skull and Bones are not allowed to answer that question. I am displaying my horned hand signal to you though! Ding....sorry my child treat just finished in the oven..gotta go.
  • 790
    @Dave Mowers, if your a buff, you know that some of these beings feed off of fear,,,

    Which kind are you?
    8-)
  • Have you ever been afraid?

    I mean truly in fear, lost in the woods in an unknown location by yourself late at night with no idea which way to walk so you don’t move until dawn?

    Or put it this way, you are standing on the 30th floor of a building. You are in the window sill and looking down at the people and street below, nervousness sets in, your heart starts beating faster. A man yells at you from behind, you turn just in time to see him throwing a metal chair at you. You duck, it smashes into the window, and shards of glass sting you as they hit your face. You are off balance, in shock and he runs up and tries to push you out the window. You can see the street below now, hear the sounds of the outside world, and feel the wind on your face. It is cold today you think, oddly, as the nervousness becomes absolute fear. The man is so enraged and hitting you so many times you know you are going to die. Your death will be after the fall, you think to yourself.

    Next Friday night I am having a party at my family’s high-rise office building in downtown Charlotte. I would like you all to email me your S.S.N., home address, telephone number and a brief write up about yourselves. One lucky winner will get to come with me as my personal guest!

    How many of you will do that for me? What was the point?

    If you know nothing about alien abduction…if you are afraid of the dark, or being lost. Do not seek out this evil.

    "All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing."
    -Maurice Maeterlinck

    On the other hand if you are a "buff" all I can say is…vacation in the Caymans. Alaska has too much downside risk.

    "When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you"
    -Friedrich Nietzsche

    Which Kind are you?

    http://www.mnight.com/signs/quotes

    Imlk
  • M-Cat
    Just came back from viewing the movie.

    The split screen wasn't too bad. I liked seeing the footage from 2000 while seeing how they acted it out.

    The movie was ok imo but entertaining in an x-files type of way. My main feeling leaving the theater was that I just felt bad for the mother and the family but the mom was obviously just insane. Other than that, I didn't take much from it.

    Wait for video.
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