The difficulty with found-footage is the ability to convince me that what we’re seeing is true. Found-footage films are possibly my favorite sub-genre of horror because, if done correctly, they can trick my mind into thinking that their logic is true. The film grammar towards found-footage is one built on the relationship between the camera and the unknown. What we can’t possibly see or understand is communicated through the camera’s depiction of terror and uncertainty. But The Fourth Kind isn’t even like my most favorite found-footage films: this takes the grammar and framework of found-footage and recontextualizes it into something more certain in its believability. It is a film that desperately wants you to know that this is real and that nothing can prove us wrong. The Fourth Kind is advancing the use of found-footage in new ways that makes the genre more terrifying and unsettling. The tapes do not lie.

The opening of the film perfectly sets up the intentions: Milla Jovovich tells us that she is an actress playing the role of the woman, not the woman herself. The Fourth Kind combines documentary and fiction to create a found-footage film that relies on the reenactments we’d normally see for television documentaries; I think of those shows that tell us the last 24 hours of a famous person, their reenactments tell us the story that we cannot actually see. But that’s not what this film is doing, that’s not the intention: the film splices the reenactments with the “real footage,” the deeply grainy and difficult imagery to see. The screams, the jumps, the howls into the night match both documentary and fiction perfectly. What we are seeing isn’t just some found-footage, but a found-footage film that fuels itself on the truth of its own existence: everything we see is true, the tapes do not lie.

Each moment in The Fourth Kind is a moment that further pushes my mind into thinking what we’re seeing is real. I saw this with one of my buddies – he had seen this before and has told me countless stories about how this has (almost) permanently damaged him – and what we talked about after was the film’s mastery in how by the end of it, you’re left believing everything you see. It’s all in the construction of the film: the lingering on the film grain from the camcorders, the masterful sound design that speaks of Sumerian language, the distorted images that tear apart and blend faces and expressions and sounds together to create deeply unsettling things that we cannot even process. It’s in the way the footage lingers on the hazy expressions of the participants – each moment is real… the tapes do not lie.

Ultimately, The Fourth Kind is a film about believing. Believing in what, I don’t know. Believing in people who share their stories and actually attempt to help them. Believing in people and having faith that people can help others grow from their suffering. Believing in something that exists beyond our total comprehension. Believing that there exists something outside of ourselves. This is a film about believing in truth – the film is a masterpiece of the genre because it repeatedly tricks the mind and convinces us that what we are seeing is true, what we believe about the film is true – and what unfolds are some of the most terrifying moments in modern(?) horror. My friend and I were pretty close (if not actually close) to crying during this: it completely destroyed our brains, our minds, our perception of things. It became even creepier when we both woke up at around the same time hours later and the clock said 3:33 AM: the same time people saw in the film…