The Real Truth Behind 'The Fourth Kind'
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom
I am a bubble burster, always have been. My first experience with The Fourth Kind was writing up the trailer for SciFiSquad with the slug "Trailer for 'The Fourth Kind' Might be Lying to You". I have no innate grudge against the film, but I am aware that we live in the year 2009 and that I am surrounded by magical Interweb-enabled devices that can tell me whether or not I should believe a movie that purports to be "based on actual case studies". Immediately after watching the trailer I set out for confirmation as to whether or not its claims about alien abductions in Nome, Alaska had any basis in this world. I found nothing.
However, I have since then seen The Fourth Kind and I can tell you flat out that it is fascinating. Not because the film is, in fact, fact, but because of how intentionally delusional it is in its approach. It's interesting that people assume/remember The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity both sold themselves as being "real footage" because neither did. Both just played with conventions of the first-person perspective to create an illusion of truth. The Fourth Kind is not content with such a linear ploy, though. It not only contains the same 'found footage' gimmick as those two films, but it pretends the footage is real. It has its star actress literally walk right up to the camera and tell us that the movie is unadulterated truth.
And while that tactic annoyed me at first, I've since come to respect it. I cannot think of any film that has ever used the Door-in-the-Foot technique so brilliantly. I'll explain.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-05-2009 @ 1:20PM
rocket joe said...
really interesting take on this film.
i'm sort of an alien buff and have been looking forward to checking this out since i saw the trailer a few weeks ago.
i've read a lot of the debate around the film on the web so it's nice to see alot of it so concisely collected and explained. however, i'm still excited to take a looks for myself this weekend.
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11-06-2009 @ 4:22AM
pizzakittens said...
I think it's a good film...
but now it just pisses me off that it's come out as fake.
really, I get how one can come to respect the whole "door-in-the-foot" technique when the main actress just comes up and says it's the truth, but seriously?! why aren't we angry about this?! I've been lied to! I mean, I know it's for sales and all, and I didn't believe everything from the start anyways, but at least I would have liked to believe the audioclips! Pisses me off, cause I'm a believer, I guess.
11-06-2009 @ 4:22AM
Sam Davis said...
Just came back from seeing the movie and while I liked it, I feel like it might've done better if it had just gone the Blair Witch route.
The disturbing sounds and images were enough to scare me anyway (aliens and abduction have and will continue to scare the sh*t out of me) but the movie quality of it all, the re-enactments, took away from it a little bit. It maybe have just been that some of scenes themselves didn't flow well but if they'd just gone the "based on actual events" and then used a series of the handy-cam footage and I guess some explanation to set up the scenes, it may have worked a bit better.
Then again Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity had the camera on and fliming for the entirety of the movie (at least in the case of Blair Witch, haven't seen P.A. yet). Not sure how they could've switched it up.
It in now way failed to creep me the eff out though.
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11-06-2009 @ 10:26AM
BarkingGhost said...
One of the more difficult aspects of an notion of alien life is that most of the time it is anthropomorphized and as a result isn't very alien.
The [political] joke of the day is that is a Demirepublicanized Independent politician. :)
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11-08-2009 @ 1:58AM
lindsey said...
i just saw this movie for the first time today and i don't believe that it was intended to fool us but to make us think about how we really see things. i am a strong believer in the ancient astronaut theory so this just made alot of sense to me especially the part where they were translating the alien language i mean as it says in the movie "the decision on what you really choose to believe is ur own".but it all just makes too much sense to deny =)
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11-09-2009 @ 8:05PM
P-Nut said...
Their isn't any helpful source to come to the conclusion that this movie is actually based on true events. They change the names, professions, and blank out several factors, you also need to think why would the government allow info like this to leak out so easily. Most alien encounters report people sending threats out to witnesses, let alone those whom claim to have been abducted. Im not a conspiracy theorist, but it would make sense for something like this to be suppress. If this is real, then the government would have force them to stop or make it seem fake. Maybe after awhile they will tell us if the movie is fake or not, like what they did for Blair Witch, but then again they might not. Something tells me, that i don't want this to be fake. It seems correct, if not purposely, then by accident. I've been learning about the Sumerians and their gods when i was 15, two years have passed and i come to like the possibility of us having been not important to anyone, didn't feel any different, It sounded better than a god who loves us and lets us suffer. I don't wish to make this a argument about religion, so don't think i'm attacking anything.
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11-15-2009 @ 5:43AM
Judson said...
All i say is look at the Sumerian cylinder seal of our solar system depicted on that tablet 4000 years ago. I ask how in the world did they know about our planets in the solar system when we didnt discover pluto until 1930...Look at that cylinder seal!
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11-16-2009 @ 1:50PM
blizzak47 said...
all im going to say is,yes the movie may be betrayed as fake or whatever just to cover up some truth the movie may have..there's a part in the movie where dr.tyler says "this being is not god,but it can pretend to be"..that can go one in the same in the bible because in the beginning god said "let US make man in OUR image" think about that,and think about the adam and eve story of how the two were created..believe what you want to but i for one believe the human race was created not of a miracle but of a labatory,somewhat like clones or the first testtube,then in the movie they speak of and show evidence of the sumarians in which the mayans knew about which bring about the planet nibiru...both egyptian,mayan,and a sumarian text speak of a 10th planet also...then although fantizied think about the movie aliens vs preditor one how they were worshipped as gods and taught humans how to build and make weapons..and mysterious enough is standing on the very top of the mayan temple...think about that
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11-20-2009 @ 7:43PM
Adina said...
Well i dont know if its true or not it was an interesting movie but i must say some things sounds and stuff in the movie really happened to me irl in Baciu Hoia Woods and Buftea Woods in my home country Romania...so its kinda odd and scary to fell those things irl...and many other happenings in my ...lets say ..."paranormal" adventures...
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