THE 4th KIND is hooey.

THE 4th KIND is hooey.

The 4th KIND is hooey in two senses of the word. First it is pure nonsense and secondly, the word hooey connotes something so out of fashion, it isn't retro quaint. It is so out of touch it looks like a relic. The 4th Kind's hooey is so bad it smacks you between the eyes, leaving you wondering why this film was ever made.

The word hooey came into being in the 20s. It means nonsense. It meant that then and still means that. Don't believe what is being said or what is being told. It is hooey. The 4th Kind purports to use actual footage of a psychiatrist in Nome, Alaska working with a series of patients. As she treats these people, she discovers many of them were abducted by aliens. She recovers their memories by hypnotizing them. Because she is a good doctor, her sessions were taped or recorded. As explained in the movie, the first kind is seeing aliens, the second is producing evidence of them, the third, as we all know, is contact and the fourth is abduction.

To add truthfulness to the film, the "actual" footage of the doctor and her patients is used. Split screened with "dramatic" scenes starring Mila Jovovich as the doctor and Will Patton as the earnest police chief, the actual footage is supposed to add verisimilitude. This is meant to allay any concerns of manipulation. The first question jumping into the audiences mind that after BLAIR WITCH & PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, is it possible this stuff is actual footage? Yeah. Of course it is. And If you believe that there are some legitimate Ponzi schemes that your money. make the check out to "cash" & everything will work out fine. Tangentially, the Anchorage Daily News reported those abductions were more about excessive alcohol and long winter nights than wide eyed aliens who are smart enough to abduct people, but not the film makers, who probably should have been.

But the hooey doesn't stop there.

The 4th Kind is directed by first timer named Olatunde Osunsanmi. If this was a student produced film, the stale techniques may have been excused. The opening scene has Ms Jovovich emerging from out of focus to let us know what we are about to see is based on fact. We can draw are own conclusions. The first conclusion drawn was that this technique is as old as talkies and about as effective as a 50s Red Scare propaganda film. The film is rife with ham handed attempts at legitimacy, bad editing choices and bad script writing.  The final one showing the actual director talking with the supposedly "real" doctor and acting like he was a combination of therapist and Father Confessor, smacked of narcissism, wooden, poorly acted narcissism. But be sure to catch all of those end of film "where are they now" statements. The 4th Kind wears it preposterousness as a badge of honor. Heck, at least that got chutzpah.

The 4th Kind is a bad movie based on a bad premise, directed by someone who doesn't know how to direct. The plot has more holes in it than a fishing net and the only fish this turkey could catch is the suckers willing to plop down bucks to see it. On top of the fourth kind, there is a fifth kind too. That's how much you would need to drink to believe anything on screen.

The 4th Kind is pure hooey.

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Garen has been in the dark for years. As a film exhibitor, programmer and reviewer, he has seen thousands of films.  Regularly seen on NE Cable News & heard on NH Public Radio, he also produces the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. Besides film, he has a passion for being a Frugal Yankee.