The film “The Fourth Kind”, from Olatunde Osunsamni, could be a typical sci-fi abduction thriller, showing the grays doing medical examinations of hapless humans. But it never shows anything. Ratherm it explores a series of disappearances, centering around psychologist Abbey Tyler, from Nome Alaska (almost as far west as one can go, and near the Arctic circle, much more in the boonies than Sarah Palin) as a docudrama, much of it conducted in interviews by Osunsamni himself, many with embedded video clips of Tyler herself, looking quite haggard. The actress who plays her, Milla Jovovich, looks much more vital, even as her own encounter approaches. But in format, this film is rather like Frost-Nixon, perhaps with a little of the fact-or-fiction style of the 1998 cult thriller “The Last Broadcast” about the supposed Jersey Devil.
The story is a bit complicated, as Tyler is investigating why a Nome man killed his family, as she gets drawn in herself. Eventually her daughter disappears, through the roof of her palatial home, and then she may have an encounter herself. (In the vernacular: Third Kind is sighting of aliens; Fourth Kind is actual abduction by aliens. ) The abductions are simulated by broken and vacillating (to the point of abstraction) embedded tape sequences that almost call to mind “Blair Witch Project” as well as “The Exorcist”. The bit about the presumed shadowy aliens speaking in Sumerian (as deciphered from the casette tapes) is quite interesting.
The film provides a lot of documentation (white on black, colors reversed) in the closing credits, as to what happened to Tyler and the other characters, and the idea that there could have been a G-man coverup.
Personally, I think a real abduction scene, with the medical examinations, could make for some interesting stuff. I did see Philippe Mora's film of Wesley Strieber's book "Communion" back in 1989 (New Line)and as I recall the film built up to recreating the dreamed or remembered encounter with the aliens.
The film was shot in Bulgaria and north of Vancouver. It looks a little more lush than Nome would really look in October (2000). The film is distributed by Universal and the production company is Gold Crest.
(For review of "This Is It" see the "drama blog"; for "2012" see the "disaster movies blog".)
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