The Fourth Kind (2009)

I read once online on some horror forum that the first horror movie to really scare you as a kid will forever give you, at a minimum, the creeps when you rewatch it as an adult. I can now attest to that fact after rewatching The Fourth Kind 13 years removed from my initial viewing.

I have a distinct memory of my best friend at the time sleeping over on a Friday night and us watching this in my room. It would have been around midnight, for sure. I couldn’t tell you at exactly which point it happened, but at some point we paused the movie and mutually agreed to finish it in the morning because it was scaring us way too much. We knew it was fake, but somehow got sucked in anyways. I’m not even sure what aspect did it, if I’m honest. But, I do know that that owl still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

As much horror nostalgia as I have for this one, though, it’s really kind of a stinker. Imagine my initial shock when I looked this movie up the other day and saw how terribly it was received! I had a fuzzy recollection of the “real” footage looking obviously fake, but that was about it.

I have to say, I totally understand why this movie was so poorly received. The Fourth Kind contains some of the most questionable cinematography I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t call it outright bad, per se—amateurish, yes—but it’s certainly not the right type of camerawork and lighting for this film. So, in that regard, it’s terrible. There’s just a plethora of shakycam footage here that has no business being part of a “dramatization of real events”. It’s as if the filmmakers had seen a couple of DTV found footage films and came to the conclusion that all mockumentary/found footage films had to look like that.

Cinematography aside, the editing isn’t doing the movie any favors either. Jumpy, weird cuts make it look more like someone editing out a mistake in their YouTube vlog than a documentary. It doesn’t happen too frequently, but it’s jarring when it does. The split-screen stuff is fun, if dated; I especially take issue with the shot of a generic sunrise split-screened into three. Truly a shot that served zero purpose to the film, as is the case with a number of other shots as well. I get that a 97-minute runtime isn’t all that much, but maybe shaving an extra 2-4 minutes would have helped immensely.

Storywise, I still found this pretty gripping. I mean, as gripping as a late-aughts mockumentary about alien abductions can be, which isn’t a whole lot, but it’s enough. I found the writing to be mostly fine, aside from a handful of awkward lines here or there. The shakiest segments are those involving one of the patients, Scott, played by Enzo Cilenti. I don’t think this is necessarily an issue with Cilenti so much as the material, but not having seen any of his other work, I can’t say for sure. The rest of the actors were fine. I did find Will Patton’s Sheriff August to also be poorly written from a dialogue perspective, but otherwise well-done for the type of movie this is. Admittedly, the movie does do a nosedive for its “epilogue”, so to speak. The film never fully commits to its ending, leaving a sense of being unfinished.

After my rewatch, I do still think a lot of the hate for The Fourth Kind is unwarranted, but it isn’t completely without merit either. That said, it’s still a very solid entry in the alien abduction subgenre and one I’d be happy to rewatch with a good group of friends. I’m going to recommend this just because I really like it, not because I think it’s required viewing.

review on letterboxd