MOVIE REVIEW
‘The Fourth Kind’: Kind of succeeds in its creepiness
“I am actress Milla Jovovich,” says the gorgeous actress at the beginning of the alien abduction film “The Fourth Kind.” “Well, of course you are,” say veteran filmgoers. We’d recognize her anywhere — beautiful woman, pretty fair actress, too, as this film underscores.
So why the opening meet and greet? Because “The Fourth Kind” spends half its time selling you the idea that it’s showing “actual footage” of psychiatric interviews with Dr. Abigail Tyler, the supposedly “real” woman Jovovich is playing — as well as giving you “actual” recordings of them to scare you.
So, then, you’ve got at least one conspicuous professional (i. e. glamorized, especially in Jovovich’s case) pretending to be a real person who is actually a less glamorized performing unknown. Scenes of the same events bounce back and forth between the two to convince you that — hang on to your beanies — all those disappearing folks in Nome, Alaska, were abducted by aliens who may have been in need of a fourth for bridge.
OK, I made up that last part. But then convincing you that made-up stuff is real is how this movie depends on its creepiness which is semi-authentic. The movie has a couple of scary jolts — mostly of the loud noise “boo!” variety. What makes it cool is how hard it works to convince you that it’s presenting one story in two separate ways: one of “fictional” footage, the other of documentary footage, including the film’s actual director interviewing the saucer-eyed woman who’s supposed to be the “real” Dr. Abigail Tyler, the focus of all these “actual events.”
The semi-spectacular news here is that, God bless it, “The Blair Witch Project” has, for sure, bequeathed to us a new kind of horror movie — one which depends entirely on ingenuity and chutzpah and not money, blood and big names. Very cool, it seems to me.
Which is also what I think about the structure of “The Fourth Kind.” (We learned from Spielberg’s Wagnerian extravaganza “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” that’s what you call it when you come into physical contact with space aliens. Now, we’re told, that “The Fourth Kind” of encounter is being abducted by them.)
It’s not that I believed this baby for a second, mind you. The “real” Dr. Abigail Tyler— whose husband is, early on, stabbed to death in bed next to her and whose hysterically blind daughter vanishes before the film is over — looked an awful lot like an actress to me. And then there is the matter of the side camera angle that suddenly shows up in an interview supposedly recorded only by one head-on camcorder.
But, hey, maybe I made that up, too. It’s the thought that counts here, and I must say, even with zero credibility, all the effort at creating the “false document” makes for a film that’s structurally fascinating. And fun.
People have been telling stories with “false documents” for many centuries. “Don Quixote,” “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Robinson Crusoe” — just to name three off the top of my head — all purport to be representations of “actual” stuff, not the made-up sort. The vibration between the false and the real is part of their exalted art.
The art of “The Fourth Kind” is far from exalted, but it’s a kick. Jovovich is good as the fictional Dr. Tyler, around whom far too much happens for comfort. Elias Koteas plays a confidante and Will Patton is solid as the exasperated local sheriff. (Real Nome disappearances, by the way, were investigated in quantity by the real FBI, which could only conclude alcohol consumption was a common factor. Serial killer? Aliens? Mass depression via the bottle? Name your poison.)
And then there are all those supposedly real sessions of hypnotherapy, where people talk about seeing scary owls, then hyperventilate and, finally, seem to levitate just when the camcorder footage turns to total static and visual “white noise.”
Too much cleverness and dogged willpower went into “The Fourth Kind” to make me believe a word of it, much less scared me. It’s kind of impressive, though.
A little, anyway.
THE FOURTH KIND
Three stars
STARRING: Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Will Patton
DIRECTOR: Olatunde Osunsanmi
RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes
RATING: PG-13 for intensity and some sexuality.
THE LOWDOWN: A lot of people in Nome, Alaska, get hypnotized, see snowy owls and disappear in what seem to be alien abductions.
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