Review of The Fourth Kind (2009) by Robert H — 26 Apr 2015

The Fourth Kind, much like the Blair Witch Project, boasted itself as a telling of a true story with actual film elements. It goes so far as to keep that illusion going right through the credits never really coming out of the closet as being something entirely fictional... but it is.

The Fourth Kind would probably work and be relatively scary if the viewer buys into the "reality" of it all. The idea of alien abduction and the horror of it is something engrained into popular culture and as such, can come across as very believable. Director Olatunde Osunsanmi is really banking on this fact and does manage to put together an interesting film as a result. It is technically well done, the idea is sound, the acting is for the most part really good using name actors in the likes of Milla Jovovich, and Elias Koteas to truly sell the realism portrayed by actors you've never seen or heard of (on purpose). Where I find fault and somewhat of a disgust is The Fourth Kind uses one piece of fact about this part of Alaska... there was a large number of missing persons reports and the FBI did go in to investigate. Using real life tragedy to sell a completely fictitious piece of film can be in bad taste and the fact that after the film was released the town started being treated as a place to go to "investigate" things didn't sit to well with the residents of the area (much the same thing happened after The Blair Witch Project).

The Fourth Kind is a good low budget early effort from the Director and managed to do exactly what it set out to do... whether you take offense to it after learning more about it is a matter of personal opinion. Going into the film blind is a must in order for the illusion to stand and as such, the film doesn't stand up to multiple viewings nor does it always work on first viewings. But one thing is certain... it may be the most frightening piece of alien abduction cinema to date.