The Fourth Kind - Film Review
Disappearances in Alaska Fodder for Director Olatunde Osunsanmi
Nov 11, 2009
The Fourth Kind, starring Milla Jovovich, is a science fiction/horror hybrid film based on some eerie "true" happenings in Nome, Alaska. Jovovich plays Dr. Abigail Tyler, a psychiatrist and widowed mother of two who discovers some unusual parallels between her patients. Plagued by sleeping troubles, the patients all report seeing a strange owl perched outside their windows at night. Placing the patients under hypnosis to try to retrieve their suppressed memories,
Tyler uncovers some unexpected - and shocking - results. The story deepens when a frightening incident during Tyler's own sleep is captured on tape recorder, and matters are soon complicated when one of her patients goes off the deep end due to his traumatic hypnosis experience and the local police become involved. Tyler eventually deduces that the town's residents are being visited in the night by some sort of horrifying extraterrestrial who speaks ancient Sumerian in an inhuman voice, abducting and violating them in some manner before returning them home safe and sound, leaving only an owl as a memory. The town's legal authorities paint Dr. Tyler as mentally unstable, taking away her son and blaming her, rather than aliens, for the subsequent disappearance of her daughter.
True Footage of Alien Encounters?
Presented in a way that merges documentary with Hollywood suspense flick, The Fourth Kind is creepy despite a lack of real action. The film mixes "archived footage" of hypnosis and interview, plumped up with dramatizations linking it all together. However, its disturbing effect barely lasts beyond the theatre. The "actual footage" and "interview footage" are camcorder quality with sort of a Blair Witch/poltergeist-haunting air. If the shots were real, they'd be scary as hell, but despite the film's straight-up claims to their authenticity, no evidence of their truth seems to exist on the Internet. The few sites that do come up in searches for Dr. Abigail Tyler and her daughter, Ashley Tyler, are no longer online and are rumored to be viral advertising sites for the film. If this were a factual story, one would think information on it would be easily found.
The Real Story Behind Nome's Disappearances
The reality seems to be, according to CNN, fairly mundane: a string of about 20 disappearances were documented in Nome and investigated by the FBI. The victims were mainly young native males, and that the cause of death was determined to be a mixture of alcohol and cold temperatures. Nine of the victims were never found.
A Science-Fiction Miss
Although the concept behind The Fourth Kind has obvious potential, trying to pass it off as the truth comes off as simply ludicrous and detracts from what could have been a great sci-fi film. But you never know, stranger things have happened. Maybe there's something to it, but more concrete evidence than fuzzy audio and video recordings would have to emerge. As Jovovich states in the movie's closing, "What you decide is up to you."
Sources:
- Hare, Breeanna. 'The Fourth Kind' of fake? CNN. 11.06.2009. Retr. 11.11.2009.
 |
