The Fourth Kindis a docu-horror film made up of “real” footage and sound clips from an incident in Nome Alaska where residents who were having sleep issues, turned out to have been possibly abducted and experimented on by extra-terrestrial beings from another planet. As the film has been screened the Internet has been hotly debating as to whether this footage in the film is truly real, and not simply a Blair Witch inspired hoax. Web searches for the individuals named in the film seem to come to dead ends or viral websites that have disappeared as the release date for the film slowly approaches. The trailer and poster both state that the story is based on "actual case studies," but does not specify which cases. As I write this review for the film, as far as I know the filmmakers have not yet come forward to say the film is a hoax, and it has not been proven one yet as well.

The Fourth Kind is not your standard Hollywood fare, and shares more in common with the current docu-horror phenomenon Paranormal Activity, than anything that has come out of Hollywood in quite a long time. The story focuses on Dr. Abigail Tyler who came forward with the material for the film some time after the events took place. The meat of the story exposition is told through an interview Dr. Tyler did on a Chapman University talk show. It is further elaborated through police videos from squad cars, videos of therapy sessions, audio clips and reenactments.  The reenactments star Milla Jovovichas Dr. Tyler, in a role that I think really gave her more of a challenge than her usual zombie killing fare she is known for - and one she surprisingly pulls off well.  Dr. Tyler is a grief stricken psychologist, trying to overcome the death of her husband who was recently killed in a home invasion. She attempts to work through this by throwing herself head first into her and her husbands’ work as means to escape her grief.

It’s during this work interviewing traumatized patients, that she discovers quite a few people in the town suffering from sleeping issues seem to be having the same experiences and hallucinations. They all note seeing a white owl outside of their window at night.  This revelation is what starts the plot moving in a very slow yet methodical style, which keeps you going until the very end. Since this is supposed to be based on real events, the film is not paced like a normal film and doesn’t offer a normal payoff either, but I don’t think that it hurts the film at all. There is also a lack of gratuitous exposition that you normally find in American films, which I found very refreshing.
more and the rating after the jump!

The score in the film was sparse and almost unnoticeable due to the films documentary-like approach. But what was there was eerie and unsettling at times, and does a good job of conveying mood without overpowering the documentary experience.  The film also finds interesting ways of working in the multimedia suite of sources that it is made up of - and still making it visually interesting to watch. The visual style of the film switches from reenactments, which are shot with your normal Hollywood sensibilities to the “real” footage shot with various forms of consumer grade home video cameras.  This is sometimes a bit jarring to watch, but it lends itself well to the unsettling nature and subject matter of the film and really works in the favor of some of the films best “jump scare” moments. The only issue I had with the way the film was shot was the over-use of the “split-screen” effect when they would play the “real” footage and the reenactment footage side by side in real time in some scenes. I found this very hard to watch because sometimes they didn’t quite sync up as well as they should, and the actors tended to over do it a bit.

Like I stated earlier we see Milla playing a role that is neither glamorous, or in line with her normal comfort zone of roles to say the least.  If The Fourth Kind doesn’t prove that there are aliens among us, it at least proves Milla Jovovich is capable of doing more than showing off her beautiful rack and shooting zombies with a shot-gun. I can honestly say I don’t think I have ever seen Milla look this bad in a film, but it does nothing but work in her favor; its only by shedding her cover girl image that she can play a role like this with the level of believability she does.

Milla plays opposite Elias Koteas as her friend, and fellow psychologist helping her through the death of her husband, and Will Pattonwho plays the stereo-typical small town sheriff, “who won’t have none of this alien business in his parts”.  Elias Koteas creeps me out in anything he is in honestly, since I saw him in Crash, and lends an interesting element to his relationship with Milla’s character. He does this because he is not so easily read; thus you don’t immediately know where he always stands. Will Patton pulls off ignorance so well I think he should be the official small town sheriff in alien abduction movies from here on out, you really get a sense of struggle for his character as he attempts to keep reality in this equation when holy hell is braking loose in his town.

Now I have done a lot of thinking about this film, and at first I was a bit disappointed because there wasn’t the traditional big Hollywood payoff at the end of the film. I found the rest of the film to be very enjoyable and gave me quite a few good scares, but I was kind of hung up on the end of the film. After a few nights of turning on every light in my apartment I figured that wasn’t the point, and not what I believe the director of the film was trying to accomplish.  The film was supposed to be a real account, and a real account of our rides home from work seldom ends in a police chase, where helicopters are trying to shoot out our tires.

The ending while being more subdued, has a tendency to grow on you the more you think about it and creep you out in the process, which is what I believe the intended effect was.  The Fourth Kind is a lot like Paranormal Activity in that respect, where the film really begins to work, not when your sitting in the safety of the movie theater, but it’s when you at home alone that night and you think turning on that is light is a really good idea. When I began this review was focused on the implied reality of the film, but I have to say I was wrong because even if the film turns out to be fake, I think it accomplishes what it intended to do which is give us a good scare and keep us looking out that window for white owls and it is because of that I am giving it 3.5 stars out of 5.