Royal Purple

Issue date: 11/24/09 Section: Spotlight

Haas [Click to enlarge]

I've said in earlier articles that I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi or horror movie before, and I have to admit that I love October and November. All the good horror movies come out in time for the holidays and all the smaller horror/Sci-Fi movies sneak through. Usually there's something good in there and "The Fourth Kind," starring Milla Jovovich, seems to be that rare movie.

"The Fourth Kind" is the story of Abbey Tyler (Milla Jovovich), a young and recently widowed psychologist living in Nome, Alaska. People have been disappearing steadily in Nome since the 1960s, but these cases have never been solved. Abbey uncovers a similarity in her patient's sessions that she can't explain and begins to investigate. What she finds is creepy, scary and just a little hokey.

So, interesting stuff first. The films starts out with Milla Jovovich actually talking about the film and her character. She claims that the footage spliced into the movie is real and shows concrete evidence of aliens and abductions. These clips from Abbey Tyler's interview sessions are seriously creepy and, if they are actually real, are genuinely messed up and will probably freak you out a bit.

But, it's in the 'real' footage that the movie draws its strength. When the aliens appear or something happens, the 'real' film will distort and mess up, but the audio remains on. So the studio and the director compensated for this by recreating the events and the interviews with Dr. Tyler's patients. You see the 'real' people and the actors portraying, doing the same thing. It's interesting to watch a 'real' scene shot on an old handheld camera and a Hollywood shot next to it of the exact same thing. It helps to create some interesting drama.

Now, the movie does fall flat here and there. The movie takes the concept of abductions and body possession to new heights and extremes, but they overuse the scrambled and distorted tape to show the monsters or possessions.
While the actors do a good job of copying the videos (Milla Jovovich is especially good at getting her character), you just notice too many forced similarities and it makes the scene seem awkward (especially when they begin discussing the White Owl that apparently attacks everyone in their sleep). Then it just gets weirder until a surprising and depressing ending.
See "The Fourth Kind" if you like a good Sci-Fi scare, but don't expect anything awesome.

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