The Fourth Kind 2009

Michael Phillips, At the Movies: No, no, no, no. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Unfortunately, none of the subsequent noise is all that scary, and the striving for Paranormal Activity's buzz is shameless. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Mr. Osunsanmi's chutzpah exceeds his skill. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: A frustrating exercise in terror that relies too heavily on gimmicks to have any genuine impact. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: The Fourth Kind is terminally awkward in the way it meshes fake real footage with faker fake footage. It isn't required to be convincing as fact, but it doesn't convince as fiction, either. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: In two climactic scenes, the screen goes fuzzy. For over a minute what we're watching is basically a television on the fritz. The only place that's ever been frightening is in the privacy of your living room. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: Writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi attempts an Orson Welles-like confluence of "real" and imagined that might have worked had he gotten out of the way more, literally and figuratively. Read more

Cliff Doerksen, Chicago Reader: Olatunde Osunsanmi's big formal innovation tunrs out to be the split-screen pairing of patently bogus "archival" black-and-white video that shows alleged abductees undergoing hypnosis and color "reenactments" of same. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Unintentionally, laughably bad. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Too often, The Fourth Kind makes the paranormal look disappointingly normal. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The Fourth Kind may not be the most honest movie in the galaxy, but it's got one thing right: With horror, what you don't see is usually more terrifying than what you do. Read more

Glenn Whipp, Associated Press: The flat-lining, alien-abduction thriller The Fourth Kind offers a close encounter that buries an interesting idea under a barrage of gimmicky, carnivallike hokum. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: As the movie repeatedly insists, it's only presenting this information; it's up to you to decide what to believe. Well, I believe this was a waste of about an hour and a half. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: When the director divides the screen into quadrants for his big finish, the effect is just laughable -- but then by that point, the movie is too. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Badly acted by everyone (including the director, Olatunde Osunsanmi, who appears onscreen), this insipid jumble's idea of fright is incessant screaming. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The Fourth Kind has a clever gimmick and nothing more. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A mildly scary, totally meaningless excursion into the realms of psychological horror and alien-abduction conspiracies. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Not entirely uninteresting, but it suffers from some ill-advised decisions. In fact, the film's "hook" may be its greatest detraction. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Why the aliens chose this community of 9,261 to abduct so many people is a mystery. Also why owls stare into bedroom windows. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: Ultimately, the film's narrative segments are far too glossy and over-stylized, larded with ponderous scoring, obvious melodrama and split-screen visuals that offset the "reenactments" with the "real." Read more

Kara Nesvig, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The Fourth Kind is legitimately scary enough to keep you in your seat. (Just don't Google the flick before you see it.) Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: The mission here is to demonstrate how, in this explosive age of dubious information, cynicism can be quickly trumped by gullibility. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Without the true-story conceit, The Fourth Kind would be just another formula horror flick with a couple of passable jolts trying to hold a flimsy story together. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: You'd do better downloading an old Art Bell show -- say, the one about the guy who put an alien in his freezer -- than investigating this evidence of subnormal activity. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: Osunsanmi's tricksy formal device simply reinforces our disbelief and invites ridicule. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: You don't have to believe in far-fetched tales of mysterious beams of light and alien abductions to get caught up in The Fourth Kind. Read more

Rob Nelson, Variety: Universal's alien-abduction thriller none too cleverly bids to pass off mock-documentary footage of levitating psychological patients--and, scarier still, ordinary talking heads--as the real deal. Read more

Scott Foundas, Village Voice: A couple of modestly effective shocks lie in store, but none as frightening as the onscreen text informing us that some 11 million people claim to have seen a UFO. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: At a recent preview screening, the most common audience response to this nonsense was laughter, not gasps of horror. Read more