“The Fourth Kind” Uses UFO Tales to Build Movie Hype

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

“The Fourth Kind” Uses UFO Tales to Build Movie Hype

By By Eric Kohn
The Wall Street Journal
10-21-09

The trailer for the spooky alien abduction thriller “The Fourth Kind” (above), which hits theaters Nov. 6, bears an immediate stamp of authenticity: a straight-faced Milla Jovovich walks toward the camera while identifying herself as the actress portraying Dr. Abigail Tyler, the movie’s heroine. In subsequent quick-cut scenes, some of which look like home video footage, Jovovich interrogates terrified patients, all of whom recount similarly foreboding extraterrestrial encounters. At least one person appears to lapse into ancient Sumerian during hypnosis, and an expert talks about millennia-old hieroglyphics containing images of astronauts.

“This is a dramatization of events that occurred in Oct. 2000,” Jovovich intones. “Every scene in this movie is supported by archive footage.”

But is it? . . .