Stream it now The Fourth Kind

IMDb rating: 5.8 (41,108 votes)
IMDb ID: 1220198
Duration: 98 min
Release Date: October 24, 2009
Solar rating: 1 vote
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A thriller involving an ongoing unsolved mystery in Alaska, where one town has seen an extraordinary number of unexplained disappearances during the past 40 years and there are accusations of a federal cover up.


Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Sci-Fi produced in 2009 [UK, USA]

 
 
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yes...it was somewhat disturbing/eerie, but not enough to be believable. didn't see the whole movie, but didn't need to. i believe i caught the second half but wasn't interested enough to watch it from beginning to end.
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Guys? Come on, if there was a REAL documentary of such kind do you think they will let the whole world see it? Why not just release all the government top secrets as well? Now I'm not saying that this was not based on any truth and I'm not saying that it is either. But wake up, you are all happy that you searched and found evidence that this is not really a real documentary while that's pretty obvious if you think for 1 second. What they don't want us to know, we won't know.

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Horrible, boring, lethargic, not believable. Even the beauty of Milla can not save this film.
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Drawing comparisons between The Fourth Kind and Paranormal Activity is inevitable. Whilst TFK delivers less frightening scenes than PA, it manages to be more convincing in its 'validity' than the latter. Some might disagree but I guess it's my opinion that counts in this box.

It's somewhat dull but it easily manages to capture your attention and raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
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A good film not real tho it has got sum scary parrts in it and well worth a watch
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I kinda enjoyed this film. I really like the real footage parts. Rental for sure.
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A very eerie, Mothman Prophecies-style film, The Fourth Kind frightens despite its flaws.

Y'know, I've always found documentaries on abductions, hauntings, and possessions, with their straight-to-the-point dramatizations, much more frightening than any horror movie. With The Fourth Kind writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi seems to be acutely aware of this, because he aims to provide just that experience. The first minute of the film is Milla Jovovich speaking directly into the camera about how every scene in the film is based on genuine archive material about an event in Nome, Alaska. Not only that, Osunsanmi frequently splits the screen to show us the archive footage (which he also shot, of course; it's not real) running simultaneously with the Jovovich-starring dramatization.

The plot concerns a psychologist, Abbie Tyler (Jovovich), conducting research on a series of related phenomena in Nome, Alaska after having just lost her husband in what she believes to be mysterious circumstances. Her patients all report seeing owls in their rooms, staring at them in the middle of the night; her husband believed UFOs were responsible for the odd occurrences; and she believes an intruder stabbed her husband in the middle of the night. See how it all adds up? As she digs deeper and captures a strange metallic voice on tape, her psychologist friend (Elias Koteas) visits to make sure she remains stable and an expert on the Sumerian language and proponent of the Ancient Astronaut Theory translates the voice for her. Meanwhile, as Abbie's patients start dying, the sheriff threatens to take her children away.

The obvious influence over The Fourth Kind is The Mothman Prophecies. They're both based on true stories. They share the similar subject matter of a small town being terrorized by strange, possibly extra-terrestrial-related events. They share a similar discordant soundtrack. They share Will Patton. They even share a similar shooting style, as Osunsanmi gives us a bewildering series of close-ups of lips and such that could have come right out of The Mothman Prophecies. The difficulty with imitating a great film is that you risk being compared unfavourable. Just based on this movie, I'd say Osunsanmi is a pretty talented guy, but he's clearly no Mark Pellington. The other influence is, surprisingly, E. Elias Merhige. The use of supposed archive footage and its parallel with dramatizations makes a statement about fiction vs reality that bares resemblance to Shadow of the Vampire. But more tellingly, some moments in the archive footage could have come out of Begotten. Well, Osunsanmi's got the right idea: if you're going to be influenced, might as well be influenced by the best.

Now I want to talk a little about this archive footage issue. Because it kind of makes you wonder, "Why?" It sounds good on paper and in one's head, but in realization, it may not have been so wise. What I mean is, while there are some good effects achieved, it does so at a cost. The first point is that it's redundant. Sometimes you're watching two identical scenes playing side-by-side in split screen filmed with two different actors. There's no need to have that. Going into a film like this, we're already willing to suspend our disbelief; we don't need archive footage. It has the opposite effect, in fact. It makes us have to suspend our disbelief on two orders, and this has a distancing effect, as in Brecht's plays. If the archive footage and dramatization were not both well-done, this might be helpful; but actually, Osunsanmi did a great job making both parts very eerie in that Mothman Prophecies way. Another benefit might be in getting this theme of fiction versus reality down. That strikes me as a waste of time. That theme has been around for so long that if you're going to use it, you'd better have something damn profound to say; and Osunsanmi doesn't have much of anything to say. There are still many benefits, such as the way both the archive footage and the dramatization can be very frightening, each in their own unique way. While they never quite complement each other the way Osunsanmi probably intended, they still work very well individually.

There is another issue resulting from this experiment. I don't want to go into it too much. But the fact that the main portion of the story we're witnessing is a dramatization calls far more attention than is beneficial to the style in which it's shot. Dramatizations, let's face it, are supposed to be plain and honest. So when you get crane shots and eagle-eye views, constantly roving cameras, it seems out of place. But maybe I'm just nit-picking at this point.

Despite the slight failure of the experiment, The Fourth Kind is a good horror film. Very good, in fact. It really freaked me out, and I'm not easily freaked. It freaked me out in the way The Mothman Prophecies does. At moments, Osunsanmi pumps the volume up, in that good exploitative genre film way, on some of The Mothman Prophecies' tricks to make it chill-inducing.
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Best movie I have ever seen. If you don't believe in aliens, you for sure will after you see this gem.

Just some advice for first time viewers of the film: Beware of any owls, don't watch it at 3:33, stay away from the up stairs of your house and windows and finally never, ever venture to Nome, Alaska.
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I loved this movie! It was superbly acted and the implications are quite horrifying. When compared to the incredulous belief in that pink elephant (AKA a personal god) whose sacred words were purportedly channeled and scribed by a select few (men) in an era of misogynistic male hegemony and whose existence is substantiated only in the recounting of subjective imaginings, the proposition of multi-dimensional ET's whose existence is evidenced in measurable phenomena (footage of audio & video phenomena) is not far fetched.
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Don't listen to any of the critics about this movie. I have always had a fascination with UFO's/ extra terrestrials. This movie has some of the most compelling evidence I have seen to date. If you like mysteries and science fiction this movie is a must see!!!!
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