“The Fourth Kind” A short review

I’ve always been a sucker for anything paranormal: UFO’s, ghosts, Bigfoot, you name it. So whenever a movie comes along that promises me a glimpse into the supernatural world, particularly one that purports to be real, curiosity drives me to investigate.

This weekend, that movie was “The Fourth Kind”; a somber exploration of a series of supposed alien abductions in the remote Alaskan city of Nome. If you’ve missed the ad campaign for this film, the premise is thus: A psychologist by the name of Abagail Tyler finds that patients seeing her for sleep disorders are describing startlingly similar experiences. As she digs further, she finds that the root cause of their torment is both very real, and very terrifying. The film features audio and video recordings, which it insists are documents of the actual events that took place back in 2000.

The filmmaker’s commitment to bolstering the reality of this footage borders on the pathological. In the opening scene, Milla Jovovich (who plays Tyler), informs us with a sober gravity worthy of Robert Stack that some of the footage we are about to see is “extremely disturbing”. As new characters are introduced, the character name is flashed on the screen as well as the name of the actor playing them, which I think was intended to underscore the grave, grave importance of the proceedings but only served to remind me of the opening titles of Magnum P.I.

And, like so many movies these days, Fourth Kind has a whole online subsidiary of background information, peppered around the Internet. Little nuggets of viral promotional gold waiting to be discovered. Of course all of this can be dismissed with even a casual session of web surfing. There seems to be no more truth to any of this than there was to “Paranormal Activity” a few weeks ago, but Paranormal was at least up front about its deception. Fourth Kind, on the other hand, seems to be playing its bluff to the bitter end.

Not that any of these efforts prevent Fourth Kind from smashing the credibility barrier to splinters. It becomes pretty obvious early on that if even half of the alien shenanigans presented here actually took place in 2000, it would have made the news at some point. You don’t start chanting in Sumerian and leviate off of a bed without at least making a few ripples.

But does the subterfuge that make Fourth Kind a bad movie? In my opinion, no it does not. There’s gimmickry aplenty here that sometimes gets in the way of a perfectly good story (For example, every time we’re about to see something juicy in the “real” footage, there’s interference on the tape that distorts it just enough that we only catch a glimpse…darned aliens) but director Olatunde Osunsanmi manages to portray an atmosphere of subtle dread and foreboding that’s quite effective. Once you’re accepted the fact that it’s not based on any kind of fact, you’re left with a solid, taut little thriller that, while it’s not entirely satisfying, at least delivers a few good chills.

If you’ve already seen the quite excellent “Paranormal Activity” and are still up for a pseudo-quazi-docu-horror flick, you could do worse than “The Fourth Kind”.

The Great Outdoors.

I went to the beach the other day. I hadn’t been there in a long, long time. Being a Maritimer, you’d think the seawater would be in my blood, flowing between the components of my molecular structure, making me saltier with each passing minute. And maybe that’s the case. It’s a viable theory that because I ostensibly carry part of the sea with me wherever I go, that I have no need to visit it in person. No man is an island, but they can be an ocean, by cracky!

So far this summer the weather has been generally miserable. When the sky isn’t a milky white canopy of blandness, it’s been dumping rain, drizzle, and fog like a punishment for some unspoken slight. Temperatures have been cool, and blue sunny skies have been few and far between. This has been going on since June, so on those rare days when the sun does decide to put in a special guest appearance it feels like a gift that should not be squandered. Sitting in the house watching G4 or The Price is Right are accompanied with pangs of crippling guilt: Who can enjoy the showcase showdown when the the backyard is a gold dappled paradise?

Yesterday was one such day. We were on the second day of nice weather and warm temperatures. The house was getting uncomfortably warm and this was making my usual net surfing and DVR watching activities a little more uncomfortable than usual. The blue skies were practically daring me to come outside, the problem was what the problem always was: I have no business out of doors.

Few of my preferred activities are ones that require a splendid day to do. Fluffy white clouds scattered on a field  of azure make a great backdrop for watching a movie in the house, but they are not required by any stretch of the imagination. Compounding the problem: I live in bedroom community with no nearby outdoor facilities to speak of. And even if there were such places withing convenient walking distance, I would have nothing to do once I got there. All of my friends have the same sedentary interests as I do, none of them are going to be receptive to a suggestion of heading down to the rec center for a quick game of Ultimate Frisbee.

But since it was stifling in the house, and since, in theory, I have access to some fine beaches not a 45 minute drive away, I decided to pack up the car and head out to the seaside. I discovered that things have changed a little bit since I was last there.

First, and this should have been obvious to me before I left, was that it was crowded. It took me about ten minutes to secure a parking space and another five or so to find an appropriate rectangle of sandy real estate to spread my towel. This was more my own doing than anything else. It was a hot Sunday on a holiday weekend, so naturally everyone would have had the same idea as me. Plus I had had my brainstorm late in the day, so the late afternoon tide was in, compacting everyone into an ever tightening ribbon of usable recreation space.

Second was the atmosphere. There was more of a raucous festival vibe in the air, not like a carnival so much as a flea market. People gathered together for a common purpose yet somehow a little at odds with one another. Maybe it was just me, but seemed like there was a spirit of one-upsmanship to see who could have the most conspicuous amount of fun. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just that I remembered the beach as being a pretty laid-back afternoon of sitting around. This seemed more…organized.

I decided to go into the water. There was a logistical problems with this that didn’t exist the last time I went to the beach. That being my cell phone. I was genuinely uncomfortable carrying it when walking around on the beach, and obviously I couldn’t go diving into the water with it so I gave it to my brother to hold and made for the waves.

A funny thing happens to me on a hot day when I get near cold water. No matter how much I say I hate the heat, no matter how uncomfortable I get, no matter how much I think I’d enjoy being immersed in icewater at any given moment, when the moment actually arrives I realise very quickly that it’s all big talk. As soon as I got into the water past my waist I felt more than sufficiently refreshed. But I came all this way so I stubbornly swam out further until I could just barely touch the bottom with my toes. It was a very unfamiliar feeling for me. Pushed back and forth by the water, feeling truly cooled for the first time in months. And yet part of the experience was very familiar. I was back in the sea. My blood was re-brined. My Maritime-ity was restored.

I went back in a couple of more times, walked around the beach until I was dry enough to drive, knocked off some of the sand, and headed home. Today is another sunny day, and I sit inside typing this blog entry confident that I am not wasting my day. I’ve done what I needed to do.