By Morgan P Salvo
Shot in Bulgaria, The Fourth Kind is basically another Paranormal Activity or Blair Witch with a bigger budget. Both director (Olatunde Osunsanmi) and Jovovich tell us on camera “here are the facts; it is now yours to decide”. The real facts are that between the years of 1960 and 2004 in Nome, Alaska, more than 20 people mysteriously died, or vanished. The FBI came to the conclusion that "excessive alcohol consumption and a harsh winter climate" were to blame for the disappearances, though a serial killer hadn’t been ruled out. This still left many unanswered questions and nine unrecovered bodies. From that the basis for Fourth Kind postulates that Nome is the epicenter for alien abduction, and not the ET-friendly kind, but rather the murderous-evil-white-light probing kind. Phoniness, however, overrides any hope for realism. 
Osunsanmi literally gets in the way of his own flick, conducting interviews with the supposed real Abigail Tyler. A psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, Tyler supposedly videotaped sessions with traumatized patients and unwittingly discovered some of the most disturbing evidence of alien abduction ever documented. We are shown awkward sepia toned “real footage” with the acted out footage in the format of split screen, at first interesting then highly distracting. Shooting for ominous this technique comes off as ridiculous
The extreme seriousness in the face of absolute phoniness makes FK downright laughable. Just as aliens show up giving us a chance to see something, the footage goes all static and unintelligible like the beings from another planet have gamma rays shooting out of their pores that screw up our primitive cameras. Using every trick in the book there’s the scary owl, screaming, domestic problems, child gone blind due to horror, levitating, frightened eyes, vomiting, gurgling, tons of psycho babble, alien voices, Sumerian scribbling and dialect, a new lexicon of untranslatable languages and yes…probing. On the scientific and historical side there are biblical quotes from Genesis and ancient artifacts that are “right now as we speak in a museum”. This preposterous stuff goes beyond Omen 3 or Da Vinci Code.
Jovovich's performance is absolutely lifeless while Elias Koteas (Dr. Campos) and Will Patton (Sheriff August) chew up Bulgarian scenery like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Their overacting brings to mind a bad scene study class, and in Patton’s case this means hollering a lot. Saucer-eyed Dr. Tyler is clearly acting haunted by the disturbing events. Amidst the snail’s pace Fourth Kind manages to pull off a couple of real jolts, but the credits were the most enlightening. It seems the “real people” that the actors played refused to comment or partake in the making of the motion picture, and there was no documentation for the “real footage”. As far as the preponderance of truth around Abigail Tyler, “Dr Tyler, due to her deteriorating state, is now bed ridden and is under 24 hr observational care.”
Online search reveals a website registered in August 2009 called "Alaska Psychiatry Journal" that provides a "biography" of Dr. Tyler with "related articles" However, the website does not have a homepage or contact information.I get it… this movie is a big fake. Why all the hype? Hey, if the filmmakers want us to believe— that’s fine. But why go to all this trouble to try and FOOL us? The funny part is that if the phoniness had been toned down trying to make us believe, we might've had a half decent movie.
The Fourth Kind
Starring Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Will Patton
Directed by: Olatunde Osunsanmi
2 stars
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