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The Fourth Kind | 2009 | PG-13 | - 2.6.4

Based on 40 years of alleged UFO sightings, radar anomalies and unexplained human disappearances in northern Alaska, this film follows a psychotherapist (Milla Jojovich) as she investigates sleep disturbances and UFO sightings with the help of her mentor (Elias Koteas) and a local sheriff (Will Patton). The film mixes allegedly real footage of alien abductees with re-enactments by actors. Also with Corey Johnson, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Enzo Cilenti, Daphne Alexander, Alisha Seaton, Tyne Rafaeli and Mia McKenna Bruce. Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi. [1:38]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - In one brief scene a nude woman is examined by unseen aliens: we see her sitting on an examining table, from the bare shoulders and neck up, and a drill seems to penetrate her as she screams.
 In a dim bedroom scene in close up, a woman and a man kiss in bed (we see her bare shoulder and his bare chest).

VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - A man holds his wife and two children hostage at gunpoint, he calls the sheriff and a psychologist, police and emergency personnel arrive, he yells through the front window that he and his family will never have to see "them" again, he fires three shots out of the front window, shoots his wife in the head (she falls), and shoots both children, pointing the gun off-screen.
 A man is stabbed in his bedroom one night by a long blade that appears from off screen, and his wife screams for a long period; we see no blood, just the knife sticking out of the man's chest and their young daughter goes blind after this incident.
 A huge drill appears from off screen and punctures the back of a woman's bare shoulder in a close up: she screams (we see no blood or the wound) and we later see that her shoulder has a red abrasion on it. We see a huge drill pointed away, toward a point between the bare feet of a person, we hear a woman scream and the scene ends.
 We see a photo of a dead man with a large dark patch on his temple, along with a picture of a handgun and the dead man's wife admits that he committed suicide.
 In three scenes, hypnotized abduction victims sit upright and their open mouths become abnormally large as they growl and scream and channel a deep male voice speaking a foreign language; they each levitate, their bodies twisting violently, looking as if unseen hands are breaking their backs and twisting their necks and spines and three people collapse and are left paralyzed. The forcible abduction of human beings is presented throughout this film in blurry home movies, and sometimes with what looks like old home movies. In several scenes with each of three patients (2 male, 1 female), a psychologist hypnotizes each one and the patient reports seeing a white owl, then something or someone enters the bedroom and does something to each one, which none can remember; each patient screams, and the men jump off a couch and break lamps or tables before awakening from the trance. In a blurry scene, we see a bedroom door open and four translucent black humanoid shapes scurry in, a woman in the room screams many times, we see her hands reaching for the bed as something pulls her away into the dark and the scene ends; the woman finds marks on the wooden floor, extending from the bed. A woman and her two children are abducted (off-screen), and she and her son come back, but her daughter does not. A man shows his psychologist a large abrasion on his bicep, which he said he received after he was abducted by aliens; he reports that first he thought it was an owl, but it changed into a dark humanoid shadow that grabbed him (he looks frightened, and says something is clawing his brain). A home movie of a man under hypnosis shows him choking, gurgling and screaming before waking up, and he says: "I know what they are. They're not from here. There is a smell of cinnamon. No, no, no, no…" and the scene ends.
 A woman tells a sheriff repeatedly that her husband was murdered. Two 911 calls are played of a woman screaming and pleading for police to come and help her, because aliens are attacking her. We hear a 911 call of a woman screaming: "No Tommy, not the kids," we hear a gunshot, and the woman screams again. We hear a man on a video saying, "Oh my God, my God. Something is flying in and pulling them out. Get some backup here." In a dictation recording, a doctor's voice begins to scream and a deep male voice cuts in with echoing, harsh foreign words and we later hear that the words mean "My creation... examine... ruin/destroy. I enforce my will. I am God. I am savior. End study." A woman tells a man that an alien told her that her "Child... never... return."
 There is a vague suggestion throughout the film that abductors are demons and that the time that they appear is always 3:33 AM because that's 666 halved. Three victims state that something is inside them, tormenting them, suggesting demon possession. We see religious symbols (Holy Grail, Book of Genesis, Sumerian stone carvings of gods, the number 333 as a demonic symbol, and a Holy Spirit dove pendant) in several scenes. An actress appears on screen and states that the information in this film is extremely disturbing.
 In several scenes, a sheriff yells at subordinates, witnesses, and persons of interest, calls them names (especially "insane"), arrests some without due cause, illegally forbids two psychologists from practicing their trade, smashes chairs, slams his fists on tables and shouts obscenities. Throughout the film, a psychologist is interviewed, she is hollow-cheeked, usually with tear-filled eyes and she says that the creatures she saw were not God, but pretend to be and we see her in a quadriplegic's wheelchair. A man picks up a chair, and smashes a standing mirror with it for emphasis.
 A man accuses a woman of being unstable when she tells him that her daughter was abducted and beamed through the ceiling. A boy accuses his mother of being the reason his dad is dead. A man accuses a psychologist of causing deaths due to the after effects of hypnosis and they argue. A sheriff tells a psychologist that one of her patients suffered three severed upper spine vertebrae during a hypnosis session and it is her fault.
 Closing credits include many 911 calls, interviews, and Air Traffic Control reports that refer to UFOs, and one is a boy that says, "The men from the stars are coming for me"; others are from a man that says he is afraid to go out of his house because of UFOs and aliens that harass him.
 Throughout the film, extreme close-up shots of an owl's eye are shown. One man vomits into a wastebasket. A woman is shown in a hospital bed with a brace on her neck, and an IV in her arm and we understand that she has been a coma for two weeks.

LANGUAGE 4 - 5 scatological references, 9 mild obscenities, name-calling (faker, jerk, insane, not right in the head, rat-study, ridiculous, offensive), stereotypical references to research scientists, psychologists, UFO witnesses, FBI agents and the mentally ill, 6 religious profanities, 16 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A glass of wine sits on a woman's dinner table (she does not drink from it), a law enforcement officer states that people may be drinking and therefore hallucinating alien creatures, and a woman says that the FBI investigated missing persons in Alaska and came to no conclusions and write it off to alcohol use. A medicine bottle sits on a bedside table beside a man that is sick in bed.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Extraterrestrials, alien abductions, murder, dreams, hypnosis, mental illness, fear, conspiracy theories, police brutality.

MESSAGE - Something is out there.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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