The Fourth Kind Review (11-7-09)

You’re commentary is the ultimate diatribes of the internet. I don’t know if you intended it but you made me laugh consistently, Spoony.

And what was that word? “Spangoolie”?

OMG SPOONY! Loved the “Owls” segment, keeping me amused with every video. Keep at it!

I believe in UFOs/ETs strongly, and going into this I really wanted this movie to end up being good. I agree with Spoony. It sucked ass. Spoilers.

I kinda had to look at this two ways: Concerning UFO phenomena, and as a piece of cinema.

Firstly, UFOs- This movie fucks everything up. Seriously. You would think the directors would actually like do research instead of throwing every cliche scary movie thing in and mixing it with stereotypical UFO media stuff. Like, nothing coincides at all, in any way, with any UFO reports, or abduction phenomena, in any way. Seriously, they even had the whole beam thing. No one fucking freaks out during regression, assuming that’s actually effective, no one gets abducted by tractor beams, no one sees fucking owls, no one gets screamed at by goddam Sumerian aliens, no one ever levitates and scream ancient alien talk, and no one every is able to fight back. It contradicts and is such a poor example of abduction phenomena, it’s just feeding more stereotypes and BS. They also try to throw a completely different topic in- ancient aliens, trying to link them to the Sumerians and whatnot, but it’s like making a movie about WWII and then throwing in a whole side element about the Russian Revolution in 1917.

As a movie, it also sucked. The approach they went with was bollocks. As Spoony said, it mixed and switched between the ‘real’ footage and the ‘reenactment’. If they had just stuck with one or the other, ok, movie would have been better. You can easily get away with showing the ‘camera view’ type movies and say it’s real and make it believable. You can make a ‘reenactment’ or ‘based on true events’ type film and make that entertaining. You cannot, however, get away with, as Spoony said, reminding everyone these are actors, and make the film entertaining when both versions are absolutely fake as hell. The ‘real’ stuff was fake, and to make it worse they added in some extra distortion at the most interesting parts to make it seem even fake-er. the ‘reenactments’ were badly acted and unnecessary in some parts, sometimes even annoying and inconsistent. And not to mention, the whole owl thing lasted for about a quarter of the movie. They had it in the commercials, they were building up this huge symbolism, and then they dropped it completely. It also got its ideas confused. It started out as a ‘here’s how it went’ turned into a ‘dramatic scary movie’ and then ended as a ‘believe this shit, do it now’. They could have accomplished each thing better off in a different style. Horror movie, documentary, or ‘anti-movie’ would have been better for each meaning. And then it contradicted itself- it even showed,a s part of the plot,t hat hypnosis can be BS, and that the woman had mental problems and was crazy. :/

I was hoping this would be entertaining and scary if it was your typical horror movie, which it should have been. I was hoping it would be eye opening and interesting, if it was truly based on real events, which it wasn’t. I was hoping it could pull off a Paranormal-type movie. It couldn’t. It was a failure. It’s another stereotypical load of crap that people will throw infront of believers actually trying to do some form or real research.

Sorry for the long ass comment. tl;dr- Spoony’s review.

hey spoony one in your next Vlog can you share with us your beauty tips please? you look amazing. thanks

Oh god, I loved the Hitchhokier’s Guide reference you made.

Yeah, Sun Devils! I’m going to Barrett’s, the ASU Honors College, possibly, next year. :D

I had to explain to a number of people in my classes that Paranormal Activity is *not* real. I felt incredibly stupid for being in the same level of math and english as they were. No, I’m not that misanthropic.

I had to follow the link into the separate page for this post because when I tried to play the video, all I got was the goddamn hipster ad for whatever-the-hell trendy alcohol they’re mass-producing nowadays. Aaaang-GEEER!

Your comments about needing the reenactments to avoid having just a camera focused on a tape recorder got me to thinking, what if they just had all of this be part of an investigation into alien activity? It would require very little extra plot (and most decent actors could probably ad-lib what little dialogue there would be), and then they could have the regression sessions be from the investigation, and the recordings be one or two people sitting around a tape recorder. Plenty of movies do that, and they focus the camera on the actors to get the characters’ reactions to what’s on the tape, rather than just stare at a recorder.

And if I can think of that, why can’t the professionals?

you can turn off the blood in dragon age from the option menu :)

Your movie is broken.

and toco belle

my dad actually nows the director of this movie personally, and I attend chapman college, where the talk show is supposed to take place

The white owl was actually David Bowie taking people off to the labyrinth.

I'm not very impressed by Dragon Age, feels like almost every RPG every mad, story and gameplay wise :/

The reenactment thing is likely a nod to the west-end show “The Woman In Black” in which the fact that there are only 2 actors (the rest being narrated or by ambient noise) who play the man who lived through it as a young man (now old) and a young actor/producer who runs a production of the elder man's memoirs (intended only to clarify for the elder man's family)
And the fusion of production and reality is a major plot point.
And “The woman in Black” is fucking HORRIFYING! Because it does its jump scares and immersian so well.
But that doesn't work with Scifi very well, but with a period horror in a crowded west end theatre it can drive you crazy.
And the production company had the brains to continue the 100% immersion prospect by having the woman in black herself (a family murdering ghost) walk through the audience.
And it's all done tastefully.
Some things just don't cross genre barriers, and particularly not medium barriers well.

This is probably one of the few reviews I disagree with. This movie was f*cking SCARY!

and lol Spoony she does try to leave Alaska but that hardass cop stops her.