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Honestly, the use owl imagery as a stand-in for greys observing people still gives me chills. Whatever you say about the rest of the movie, I think that element was excellent.
I still can't get over my "paranoid as hell" type buddy absolutely loosing it at school after watching this because there was an owl outside his window one night.
It’s lifted from Twin Peaks, where owls are used as a sign that the demon is near. “The owls are not what they seem” is one of the show’s most iconic lines.
@@jackyzimmerman I think that’s a very surface level and selective way to look at it as if Twin Peaks created or owned this concept. Owls have been considered evil omens throughout human history. I also find it to be a clever idea to have the Barn Owl represent the Greys in the form of a false memory, they even kind of look similar if you look at a Barn Owl a certain way.
@@troin3925 They were just pointing out an example that predates this film. It's a fair point. I don't think their intention was to decry or invalidate The Fourth Kind.
The thing that always creeped me out was seeing "real" Abigail looking like all the life got sucked out of her in that interview. When I first saw it I was freaked when they first showed her.
Meth addict who went crazy killed her Husband and child and used the whole alien abduction theorie bullshit to cover it up and it worked because everyone was vulnerable to the phenomenon of aliens and detectives couldn’t prove she did anything so yeah she got away with it so now it’s all speculation and clearly it was premeditated just off the simple fact she had so called patients to act as if they all seen the same thing she seen
Have you seen Dark Skies? Even though The Fourth Kind came first and is extremely creepy, I think Dark Skies is more unsettling. I do admit Dark Skies kind of fell apart toward the end.
This is the only movie that has ever given me nightmares as a kid. The interview scene at the end where she leverages and speaks through the voice "I AM GOD" haunted me for years
What really scared me - and still unsettles me - about this movie, aside form the intense performances, is the apparent motivation behind the abductions. These aliens aren't scientists, or explorers, or anything like that. They appear to just be sadistic psychopaths. They kidnap and torture for fun, and replacing the victim's memories with the owl imagery appears to be part of the fun for them.
You get the idea that they do it simply because they are stronger/smarter than us. Calling itself God shows that’s it’s just fucking with them for fun. I love it
They may seem like psychopaths, but their motives may simply be beyond our comprehension. That's what I've always loved about this movie - the characters are pawing at the unknown and are seemingly incapable of understanding it, resorting to spiritualism as a framework, but we only get brief flashes of abstract symbols. Actual communication with these beings is powerful enough to destroy the human body. The terror escapes rational interpretation because our meat can't contain it. Hella Lovecraftian.
@@gregsmith80 good point. Maybe calling itself a God is in reference to what we would think of them if we began to comprehend their motives? If they’re capable of possession, they’re strong as fuck lol
I remember really loving this movie and being shocked that it seemed to have such low review scores. It was very effective in its storytelling…and that owl is creepy as hell 🦉
As an Alaskan, we've just had to accept that movies always get the location wrong, which is wild because Nome/Kotz/Bethel and that whole YK delta is frequently genuinely terrifying
@@icatfishedyourdad2767 Can be hard to explain, but when you get overcast days out on the tundra, where the sky is gray and the light is dim, and you can't really tell where the sky stops and the ground starts. You're completely alone, the snow just eats all the sound that you're not making yourself. Existentially frightening in a way that's hard to put into words. That's without digging into the fact that a lot of the area out here is true wilderness that stretches for hundreds of miles that's teeming with wildlife, ground that's always shifting (permafrost), rivers that change every year. If you spend any ammount of time talking in private with people who spend any real time outside towns in the YK Delta, they'll tell you all kind of strange stories of being followed by things that shouldn't be. Including a very common story of being followed by big balls of cold light which talks when you're not looking at it. But that all info requires not only talking to people who live here, but talking to the right people
@@kimbooley90 Right? I had few doubts that it was fake as a kid but the owl stuff really got to me nonetheless. I think that a lot of it was really well executed, especially the psychological elements. Not scary but creepy in a way that a lot of horror movies lack.
I knew it was fake, but this is the only movie to legit spook the shit out of me. This and Signs got me a little paranoid for a while. But then again paranormal isnt scary because it isnt real. Where as aliens are mathmatically probable (though unlikely to have been here). The owls were a very freaky plot device.
I have sleep paralysis from time to times. Generally I just have the paralazing aspect of it (mostly because I know better and I keep my eyes closed) but sometimes I also have hallucinations. Two episodes have really left an impact : the first one when I was a teen, having just watched The Grudge, and I hallucinated the ghost lady walking towards me. And a few years ago, when I saw aliens around my bed, watching me, and discussing me. Thankfully I knew what was happening. But I can imagine the terror someone must fell if they don't know what is happening to them...
This movie scared the crap out of me when I watched it alone one stormy night. I thought the far out way it told its story really worked. I haven’t seen it since it came out. You’ve inspired me to watch it again. I hope it’s less scary this time.
The aliens "talking" is the worst part for me, I've had occasions where my calls get dropped and I hear something similar, I immediately get scared with a knot in my throat. I am so happy I saw it in theatres too
My dad is a Hardcore Skeptic and when this movie came out and we all watched it together, even he got the goosebumps and went on a long search to be 100% sure if it was real or fake.
I'm never sure if this was the intention, but I thought the "reconstruction of real footage" gimmick was a pretty smart way to do a found footage horror movie AND be able to sell the movie on a recognisable actor. Kinda reminds me of what American Horror Story did with their Roanoke season.
Another thing about the Betty and Barney Hill abduction was that they were shown a star system of where the aliens came from which at the time was unknown, but years later scientists discovered a star system that looked exactly like how it was drawn and described, Zeta Reticuli.
YES! One of the very few movies to genuinely unnerved and scare me. I could never see owls the same ever again. I genuinely loved this movie and what it was trying to do, by having the "original footage" and the movie's footage side by side gave it a realistic feeling that definitely made a ton of us ask if this was a real event or not.
Same, this is one of the few movies to ever unnerve me. The only other alien encouter movie to do this was that one video that was on the web years about about the aliens showing up at that home in the middle of nowhere and the family is freaking out and at the end the aliens go into the house and the last shot you see is the alien in the bedroom. That was a great video I wish i knew who made it
2:53 I cannot, it was a PERFECT segway. You're absolutely right about how this film feels, one can see how fake it is but it is engaging enough. I do enjoy it but a little over 10 years later I can see Jovovich was not the smartest choice, Jennifer Carpenter on the other hand would've been perfect.
Milla Jovovitch as “herself” at the beginning, introducing the context of the story, is astonishingly effective at establishing the kayfabe. I don’t think I’ve seen any other film attempt something like it. (Of course, if there ARE other fillums out there with this sort of framing structure, I REALLY wanna know about them.)
"The Poughkeepsie tapes" feels very real. It's found footage about detectives looking into a serial killer with over 100 tapes of his kills. There's a movie "butterfly kisses" where some guy finds a student film about a supernatural entity that I think did great. "Behind the sightings" is a movie about people investigating those clown sightings a few years back and rumors about a killer clown cult that was pretty enjoyable. Idk if you've watched hell house LLC but all 3 of them are worth the watch if you enjoy ghost slashers in found footage style.
I remember seeing this movie for the first time at around 16-17. I drove home with my sister and we were freaked out. We got home and on top of my best friends house, at the edge of one side of the roof there was a massive bird staring in what appeared to be in our direction. It looked like a massive owl. My friends house was behind mine (our backyards were separated by a fence), so it was a ways away yet it was massive, almost the size of the chimney that stuck out of the roof. Ill never forget that moment
Ryan, I love your style, many other UA-camrs who cover horror movies/other scary stories put on this really dark persona, and they put it in all their editing, and it just puts me in a bad mood. You're able to balance the moodiness with a more casual tone that works much better for me. I like horror content but I dont want to leave a video feeling depressed, and your content is perfect for that. Cheers ✌
This movie essentially was my "Blair Witch". I had missed that movie due to being too young to be interested at the time, and this was the first (and last) found footage movie to trick me into thinking it was real. It scared me pretty effectively, and it just goes to show how effective some of their techniques were at getting people to suspend their disbelief.
Same here! I think I was 12 when this came out and it's probably the only time I've been genuinely frightened by a movie. It's also given me a fear of barn owls!
I think the movie has a lot of elements that work great indipendently but never seemed to come together for me. The "real" Abbey carries it hard though, that lady's performance was A+
This movie was weird because, as a Native Alaskan, I watched it with family and had an almost Mystery Science Theater-level of tearing it to shreds and having a good time with it, especially with the set pieces around "Nome." But then a year or so later, I was home alone and saw it on and figured I was in the mood for a good spook, and it legitimately filled me with dread. Knowing full well it's fictitious, I still had this morbid fear after watching it, and brought some of my outside dogs inside just so I could feel more comfortable being home alone.
I saw this on my own and was like oh aliens hang out in alaska? And I asked my mom if we could move to Ohio (I didnt know where Ohio was I just heard of it) she of course said no
i'm alutiiq and had the same experience when i was younger with my cousins and best friend. i later rewatched it on my own during a massive found footage binge when i was home sick, and it was unsurprisingly a lot easier to get into it alone. i had just rewatched the compiled news footage-style war of the worlds retelling Without Warning, and the two films back to back (along with chugging soup for my strep throat lmao) really ramped up the tension for me
This is one of the first movies that unnerved me and really got me interested in the horror genre. While not perfect, i still found it effective and interesting, just the thought of these powerful beings messing with your life and mind and not being able to do anything to stop them. The concept on top of the unsettling performances, audio, and "found footage" (especially the 'real' Dr. Tyler, she was genuinely haunting) just made for quite the experience for young me. if i remember correctly, i think the end credits played recorded phone calls reporting UFOs and it was a cool detail that added to the experience and left me wanting to know more. It's still a fave and I'm really glad you covered it and did an amazing job as always ❤️
The alien sequence in Fire in the Sky is one of my favorite depictions of how an alien ship, species and experiments on humans could look and it’s terrifying
Well, according to Travis Walton himself, that scene was almost completely fake. He said that his actual abduction wasn't violent, that apart from the aliens he saw a man and a woman in the ship, and the ship itself had an interior that is entirely different, more metallic than organic.
Not even gonna pretend to lie this was one of the last movies to actually legitimately scare me as a teenager and it scared me good for a good while. Maybe I'm a literal technical xenophobe cuz Signs is still unnerving to this day for me. Great work as usual, Ryan🙌👏
One of the most fun viewing experiences I ever had was telling my friends beforehand this was real and watching them analyse it. Insisting it must be real because they’d ‘spot any flaws no problem’ 😂
I miss those good old days before the internet videos and UA-cam that you can click on to say it’s fake. I was just old enough to do that with Blair witch project and my friends and I saw that in a Scotland remote farmhouse which made it more terrifying. Joys of youth
Same haha. It was fun seeing where my friends fell along the spectrum of credulity toward what they were witnessing on screen. I was always disappointed with my more skeptical friends recognizing the BS immediately. The movie definitely tricked me so I didn’t want to believe I was the most gullible person I knew!!
My most frustrating experience was when a friend was trying to convince us that it was real, and he genuinely believed it. (He's one of those "anything-truther" types, though thankfully just believes it personally and isn't preachy.) Even by the end, it took until the fake-real actors were credited that he finally listened to us. And thank god the producers didn't fully commit to the bit and try to pretend the testimonials were real.
The only thing that ever stuck with me about this movie is that during the credits there are real phone calls from people that supposedly saw aliens, and one of the calls is from my hometown
Probably still is. The commentator of this clip sounds real naive and like a smart ass immature know it all. I would go by the actual inhabitants of the town and also the fact MANY FBI AGENTS kept visiting this town after the apparent events. Also. The Ancient Sumerian Culture ( the mysterious language of the movie ) says that in ancient times, the first Sumerians always maintained that " Gods from the skies came down and taught them everything they know " ( including mathematics and language ).
These kind of horror movies are like my favorite sub genre alien abduction horror movies are always interesting to me. Dark Skies, Fire in the Sky, etc. It’s such an underrated genre. The idea of aliens as much more of a psychological threat is always scarier to me. They aren’t blowing up monuments. They’re sneaking in and testing us. So creepy!
Bro that imagery with the owl slowly melding with an alien's silhouette over the course of the movie blew my mind when I was nine. It was the first time I'd ever really pieced together the way that symbolism relates to a story. Film is weird as hell, but my god did it get my younger self the first time.
As someone who had many sleep paralysis episodes over the years, I absolutely believe most of the alien abductions, especially happening while sleeping, were most likely episodes of sleep paralysis. I can't describe how real and horrifying it feels when happens. Opening your eyes, not being able to move no matter how hard you try and seeing/hearing paranormal entities literally next to you is pure terror and torment. I've never had experience with aliens during an episode, but I had plenty of shadow and demonic entities. The 1st time I had it, I didn't sleep for 3-4 days and left my light always on for a week, even tho I knew it wasn't real. And even after I "got used" to that and I'm aware while happening, it's still extremely horrifying.
This gave me the BIGGEST creeps when I first watched it ages ago. The “real” footage felt subtle and convincing when it was side by side with the “reenactment” version coupled with the sound design really made it.. unsettling.
The medical experimentation scene in Fire in the Sky scared the hell out of me as a kid. I had trouble sleeping for several nights afterwards. As an aside, I have had one or two episodes of sleep paralysis during my life. It's a truly terrifying experience as I thought there was someone standing over me in bed. I wanted to turn over--in fact tried my hardest to do so--but could never manage it.
It happened to me once. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I remembered seeing a dark figure standing. I couldn't react, and my breathing felt heavy. I was sleeping next to a family member, and it was a desperate situation to not be able to "get help." When I woke up the next day, it took me some time to remember what happened the night before.
This movie scared the piss out of me as a kid, I remember sleeping in the living room for a couple of days (cause my parents wouldn’t let me sleep in their bed 😭)
an odd detail about this movie is that when this movie first came out, the whole town of Nome agreed that this movie was "real" & that people needed to "know what was happening in Nome." fast forward, & the entire town accused the director & the actors of using Nome as a publicity stunt & a way to make income for themselves. the movie was never proven to be false or true. it was just considered "entertainment." however, the statistics in the movie are in fact true about alien abductions. that's why the theme of this movie is: "what you choose to believe, is up to you."
@@HEARTS-OF-SPACE k that abduction scene in dark skies fucked me right up lmfao! I forgot about that movie & only watched in theatres during release… think it may be time for another watch.
@@HEARTS-OF-SPACE what a great movie that was! Thanks for shouting that out i think i mentally pushed it out of my brain due to how much it bothered me 😂😂😂
I remember seeing this film on Netflix when I was younger. The true story angle got to me and I was somewhat terrified. Then I did some online research and learned that real story angle basically existed to sell tickets. This review brought back some fun old memories.
Honestly that was creepy as fuck at first, but I feel that personally made it a bit cheesy upon later thought. I'm not saying I'm super cool and didn't get creeped out for a few weeks though!
@@alexroy5854 I think they said something along the lines "it was no god, but something that thought it was". I think that an alien with grandiose delusions is scary as hell.
You can miss me with this movie. I watched it when I was alone at my home, and it just so happens that a meteor hit in my state that night. When I saw the bright light through the blinds of the window, I knew I was about to be abducted.
Ryan, thanks so much for covering this one. The Fourth Kind scared the sh*t out of me when I was younger and still creeps me out. You always pick the best content! Thanks for your work! ❤️
THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME DUDE. I think it has to do with how immersed you get, how you start to empathize with the people in the movie. You imagine yourself in these situations. It is pure fear. Wonderful movie.
I had never heard of this movie, but decided to watch it years ago after a multi day drug bender. In my meth fueled, sleep deprived state I absolutely believed that this was real and thought I was witnessing actual proof of alien invasion. I was shook for weeks before making my partner watch it with me, sober. Felt pretty dumb considering I had spent the past few weeks telling everyone I had found verifiable proof of aliens. Moral of the story is to never mix sci-fi movies and sketchy bathtub drugs. In fact, maybe it's better if you just avoid sci-fi altogether.
It does have it's good points (pardon the pun), but yes I wouldn't recommend persistent use, if any amount of use at all, of meth to anyone. @@Meekmoonlitmuse
I'm so excited you're covering this movie! I've grown up with horror movies and media, and The Fourth Kind is one of the few films I've seen that genuinely disturbed me and scared the living sh*t out of me. Such a shame it got such negative reviews given how effective it is as a horror film.
My dad kept telling me about that movie for years until I watched it and for all those years he kept up the illusion that it was real footage. He only told me after I watched it and was kind of freaking out. I respect the commitment to the bit
I can’t believe I thought this was a real found footage film when I was in Middle School. It legitimately scared the hell out of me. Great video, Ryan!
I saw this as an adult of about 30-something and the movie had me wondering if the real footage was genuine or not, up until the murder/suicide scene because I doubted such footage would be released by the police for a movie even if censored.
@@MandleRoss I’m pretty pissed off because I watched it last night (as a 36 year old) and thought the whole point was the tapes were real. That’s how it was sold! I did think it was a bit brutal having the live family murder footage. That’s extremely frustrating that the “real footage” wasn’t at all. Not happy.
@@bigmike1015 I'm glad to hear that the current mindset of "it's fake" as the immediate reaction to anything hasn't spread to 100% of the population yet.
@@MandleRoss It’s so disappointing. Usually I’m the first to try and look behind the veil and see the real motives in things; which is usually money. However in this case - when you’ve got a star come on to the screen as herself, stipulating that the movie footage will run alongside the “real footage” and that the interview was with the real Abigail….why wouldn’t I believe that? And it’s not like Blair Witch and R.E.C, which were clearly fake for entertainment sake. This had a different vibe about it. I didn’t think it was even legal to outright lie on the big screen, make fake websites, use real missing person’s names etc. How everyone didn’t get sued is beyond me. This movie had me thinking for days and nearly changed my whole reality. Imagine if people went and took their own lives thinking that this was real. There’s a lot of accountability and responsibility here. It’s left me extremely disappointed and angry that they would do this to make some cash.
I saw this movie shortly after its release on DVD. I made the mistake of watching it while alone in my house one night when I also had no internet access due to downed telephone lines after a storm. It completely and utterly terrified me; I was 90% sure it was all fictional, but I had no way of jumping online just to hit up IMDB and, you know, MAKE SURE. I had trouble sleeping that night, and I kid you not, the first thing I did when we got an internet connection back was confirm that it was, in fact, only a movie. :) I've never watched it since, and I imagine it wouldn't have the same effect on me now, but I still have to give it props for being one of the few movies I've watched as an adult to actually scare me. Also, Elias Koteas is such an underrated actor. :)
I remember myself when i was in college when i was watching this at 1am while rushing to finish a project--i didn't need coffee at all, this movie didn't let me fall asleep at all
This movie truly played on my anxiety of the unknown especially seeing it as a child. Despite it being debunked To this day when I hear the local owls outside at night I close the curtains 11 years later.
Used to live on a ranch that had a pair of barn owls living on it. This movie legit convinced me for years that Gary and Grace were aliens until Gary's passing.
It definitely tried to be the Blair Witch Project 10 years later. But you can't make lightning strike twice, so obviously people knew it would was fake. Not to mention the scene where the guy freaks out and shoots those people would have given it an NC-17, if it was real. Not a PG-13 rating.
I kind of disagree; it was enough removed from the Blair Bitch to be its own thing that it really did carve out a place of its own. Personally I think it was far superior to TBW.
@@Chris-ci8vs I didn't say that I necessarily liked Blair Witch, I more meant it's marketing and trying to claim it was "real footage" to get more attention.
I remember back when me and my mom watched this. She had seen UFOs before in her life, and when she was a young girl she remembered a white owl sometimes being near her bedroom window and such or across the road in a tree as a kid. So watching this really did shock us and scare us back then.
This movie, you guys! I went into it knowing nothing about it, not even so much as watching the trailer, and it scared me more than any supernatural horror ever has. I will admit the framing device got me and using something as mundane yet vaguely spooky as an owl made it seem all the more believable to me. Owls get mistaken for all kinds of supernatural phenomenon by people who spot them at night. The thought that aliens could use this against us to develope a kind of plausible deniability is viscerally terrifying! Even after I learned that there was, in fact, no "true story" as presented in the movie, I plunged head first down the whole sumerian, annunaki, ancient aliens rabbit hole and there was the smallest part of me that, still to this day, wonders but what if... "Aliens!" Very well constructed movie. I had a good time!
No matter what anyone says in this video or wherever. The Fourth Kind scared me like nothing has ever before. For the FIRST time in my adult life, I slept with the lights on. Even while typing this I have chills running all over my back and I keep looking back checking out my dark kitchen without the lights on. No kidding. The owl scene is brilliant yet incredibly disturbing, not to mention the therapy sessions and the cassette tape screaming. (Ok ok, deep breath, man up!) lol
As someone who has experienced sleep paralysis more than once I can completely understand how someone would interpret that as aliens. Especially given the wide range of possible hallucinations.
Love your insightful takes on this one and why it didnt quite work out. I get why IMDB is so rough on this but it's also pretty great to see so many people have fond/horrifying memories of it in the comments. There's something about the way its presented that seems to make it memorable, even when the characters and plot don't. That claustrophobic, low budget analog-video feel puts you in a headspace that's somewhere in between fever dream, late-night youtube ARG, and watching Unsolved Mysteries when your parents think you're asleep.
I saw this when I was fairly young and didn't FULLY realize that the "real" footage was entirely fake right up until the SUICIDE SCENE when I was like....did I just watch someone die for the first time? That haunted me but also made me be like wait this is fake then right??? RIGHT??? Also good on them for making owls terrifying.
I dunno, the thing that's always stuck with me is the realistic and overwhelming nihilism and despair. Like you say, this movie is so bleak that when I watched it as a child it was enough to almost make me throw up. Very intense film and it's depiction of the aliens works because of how overwhelming they are. You can't stop them. There is literally nothing you can do and they will ruin your life. Then you have to live with it. Those experiences that are literally so horrible they can drive you insane-it's maddening. So when Tommy shoots himself and his family it feels real. It feels like you're seeing a man who can't cope with an overwhelmingly traumatic experience snap, and in his mind he's saving himself and his family. That's how horrible these entities are. "They're just the worst... the worst thing you can imagine."
A lot of times I'll hear people talk about how awful this movie is (they usually can't name the movie, just that it was some terrible UFO found-footage film they saw once), and I for the life of me don't really understand the hate. Even if you already know going in that it's entirely fabricated, it's legitimately terrifying in places, and the found-footage portions feature some very convincing acting. Maybe some of that resentment comes from the fact that it "tricked" people into believing it was all real, but no one seems to hold that against 'The Blair Witch Project' the same way they did 'The Fourth Kind.' When I saw this film I had no idea the found-footage parts weren't authentic, and that certainly made my viewing experience far scarier (especially since my family lived out in the middle of nowhere at the time), but even though I now know it's all bunk it's still a very effective, eerie "what-if?" kind of film, one I still find highly fascinating.
It mix two areas people didn't want connected, Religion and intelligent life- if we found out aliens are sadistic monsters who [prey upon us and set up the ancient religions. that is literally an either part of Revelations (the angels returning to attempt to intermix with humanity) It hit to many areas to be so vague- you can only overtly mention the truth after making it clear YOU don't believe it- so if they made a fuss about it being a dope horror flick and not found footage? It could of easily could of been a modern classic- sticking in the heads of millions- rather than millions rushing to dismiss the entire narrative
In addition to Fire In The Sky, Whitley's Streiber's Communion was also adapted to film by Hollywood around the same time. Being pretty familiar with alien abduction phenomena, I do find "the science's" obsession with sleep paralysis pretty hilarious, considering that the majority of abduction stories don't take place inside the subject's home, let alone while they're sleeping. I get the focus on it for the review but it's a good example of confirmation bias.
It's definitely a trope and even a misnomer nowadays. "Oh it happened while they were asleep, so it was just a bad dream", and a similar one is "oh they're not right in the head so you can't believe them", and lastly "they're on drugs so...."
Fire in the Sky and Communion are two of the most traumatizing films depicting alien abductions. The Fourth Kind definitely is up there with them, but the edge goes to Communion, simply for the pitch perfect white knuckle build up to the the depiction of the cabin abduction. By the time that head peeks out from behind the wardrobe I thought I was gonna have a cardiac event and had to stop the movie and decompress....and I was like 12,13 yo.
I had some weird experiences as a teenager, which made me look into alien abductions and psychology. I was never convinced by the sleep paralysis explanation: I was never paralyzed when the weird shit happened. I don't believe it was aliens though. Best frame of understanding I have found is from Buddhist traditions.
I legit had an internet argument with someone who didn't believe in sleep paralysis at all. He just thought people who have it are completely mad. I don't know why I wasted my time trying to educate that butthead.
Hey, Ryan! I don't know if you knew this but owl imagery is very common in UFO believer circles. There's a particular figurehead named Mike Clelland who believes that owls and UFOS are inherently linked.
Fire In The Sky was sooo slow and lack luster, but when you get to THAT scene (y'all who've seen it know what I'm talking about) it cold clocks you with some of the scariest shit ever put to film. I knew the story already going into the movie, and it's still left me feeling terrified, empty and hopeless.
Lol I’m the first to admit I’m a scare baby and I watched Fire in the Sky but must’ve been very bored because I can’t even recall what you’re referring to
Since you showed a brief clip of the Phoenix Lights I was reminded of another fairly good found footage alien abduction movie that just sort of came and went: Phoenix Forgotten. You should do a vid on that movie if you want to keep the alien abduction theme going.
Thanks to my sixth grade social studies teacher for showing us just the found footage scenes with no further context for scaring me for months. Specifically the scene where they say “I am God” dealing unknown amounts of psychic damage to my Christian baby mind at the time.
I remember seeing this in theaters. Looking back on it, I know the movie is a little silly. But specifically the scene where she listened to her recording screaming in the night still terrifies me to this day.
This film has been one of my favorites for years now. Watching it for the first time I knew the footage was fake because I had never heard of the incident in Nome as someone who follow these type of cases. However, what was truly fascinating was the very real depiction of disbelief and psychological trauma throughout the film. Super true to a lot of these cases that get documented throughout the years. Also, the theory of Drinkwater and Dagnall is understandable but overlooking the evidence that was left behind on the clothes of Betty & Barney Hill for that night is a bit stranger to me that, that wasn't consider. But I guess certain evidence isn't enough when it comes to certain topics.
There was also the star map of Zeta Reticuli. Betty described how the aliens showed her a star map of their home and this was before scientists discovered this star system and gave it a name. Unless she was an amazing astronomer, how could something like that be faked?
@@troin3925 Reading about the analysis of that so called star map... It really isn't much of a star map at all and Marjorie Fish herself has rejected her hypothesis - so it might not even be the Zeta Reticuli star system at all. The star system was indeed known before that - in 1756 it was first mentioned in a star map. The two stars got different designations in between 1856 and 1903. So yeah, I'd say that the star system was known before the Hill's so called abduction.
Ok whoa, I had legitimately & randomly thought back on a clip from this movie during an early morning bathroom trip today for no real reason except that I was half asleep and apparently trying to freak myself out. I've never actually seen the movie, but *have* heard of it, seen the trailer, and saw the creepy-as-heck "Sumerian voice clip" from a video collection on "scary things from your childhood" at one point. So again, whoa, I must've been having a premonition of some kind. I've been abducted by the "Hoyever!" 😆 Also, I'm glad you're feeling better today, Ryan. 😌
This was the last horror movie to genuinely scare me. I watched it at like 1 in the morning while home by myself. Needlessly to say, I didn't go to bed anytime soon.
Oh hey, Nome is my hometown, before we moved to Anchorage. My Dad was the Chief of police at the time we lived there up until like 2007ish. It's always weird coming back to this movie and seeing how they portray my home town.
I'm not going to lie, this is among my favourite horror films. Can you do an essay on The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) next? No need for the sequel though.
I recently rewatched a review of The Fourth Kind by Cinematic Excrement that was posted years ago and there’s _still_ people leaving comments giving him shit because “that’s real footage! You can’t make fun of that!” It’s so incredibly frustrating because they’re willing to die on that hill and cannot be convinced otherwise. I honestly don’t understand why some are willing to accept that The Blair Witch Project was not actual found footage but they’re argue endlessly that _this one_ is “real”.
I mean, “Ancient Aliens” has been on air for over 10 years now. If this footage was real, you can guarantee they would’ve talked about it 😂 that show has to actually make stuff up to try and prove their point.
God, just hearing her screams gave me nightmares as a kid. Everything about this movie just gave me an intense sense of uneasiness that when shit hit the fan near the end I was too invested to look away even though I really wanted to.
I have a lot of feels about this movie, the idea of having something happening to you while you sleep is terrifying. I saw it in a movie theater and no one moved once the movie was over, after 5 min a guard came to check what was happening and only then people reacted and started leaving.
I remember when I was in Uni I had a class with someone who worked with people who claimed to be abducted by aliens. She said that the most distressing thing about working with them wasn't that she believed they had been abducted, she didn't, but that these people were genuinely traumatised (and in some cases actively suffering from PTSD) due to their own dreams or sleep paralysis.
I remember when this film came out, a BUNCH of my friends were like "D00d, you gahta see this movie, d00d! It's REAL, d00d! I can't believe the government even let this movie get released d00d!" While they felt pretty dumb later on, it dies speak to how well the film made itself appear to contain real footage. I can't remember if any major releases ever did something like this before The Fourth Kind. As in, having seemingly real footage along with interviews with those involved but also having a "dramatized" rendition using relatively well known actors! Adding the real actors really threw people off haha PS: I grew with a family named Drinkwater! To this day, The Fourth Kind is the ONLY other time I've ever heard that name
One of the creepiest movies I've seen. The owl, the bending of human beings in ways only an exorcist could appreciate, and that blood curdling , spine iceing queen of them all scream that erupted from the recording, actually made my ears ring lmao, great movie
I totally get the issues that some people have with this movie. But it is, sincerely, one of my favorites exactly because it throws that gut-punch of an unhappy ending. Personally, I'm of the mind that a lot of modern media is weaker because of creators being unwilling to deliver unhappy endings which, in most stories, make more sense and are to be expected in their stories. Instead, they contrive plots points and events to lead to good outcomes, which feels a bit saccharine. The 4th Kind will always be a welcome flick in my home.
Yeah the daughter's disappearance and never being found was the most terrifying climax to me, loosing children by abduction by man or beast feels like a very primal feeling that makes you wanna scream in anguish. I mean what do they expect the aliens to just give her back? They have no sympathy for witnesses what's stopping them now when they hold so much power over this dangerously close human subject.
Oddlly enough, all of my favorite horror flicks have ended on unhappy notes. Paranormal Activity, The Strangers, Hereditary, The Fourth Kind, Rec/Quarantine, etc. I guess I have a strong belief that the best horror films end with no one winning. Because, realistically, people wouldn't
yas and Ryan also didn't mention the credits, which consists of real people calling in to report UFO sightings which is cool and scary as hell!@@jase276
I specifically remember the footage from the craft above the home when the cop was outside the home shown on the Maury show many years ago. Before “You are not the father” Maury used to bring people on the show who would show footage of odd things. Long before all of the huge Alien conspiracies. So I don’t think anything is totally fiction or nonfiction. Besides it’s no secret that Alaska has a high rate of sightings and proclaimed abductions and furthermore it wasn’t investigated just once but it’s ongoing and so often that I’m surprised it’s not classified as a No-Fly zone like parts of Antarctica.
This movie definitely scared the hell out of me, the "possession" scene with the alien speaking through the one person had me wanting to cry, truly terrifying shit
Thanks for covering this film! I truly love alien abduction films, its one of the few sub genres of horror that truly frightens me and im glad to see you covering an old favourite of mine. edit: I still get a little shiver if i notice im awake at 3:14 am
When this movie came out, I remember getting really pissed off because I enjoyed the movie but based on the marketing I was expecting something like fire in the sky, or to the lesser extent a movie like The Blair Witch Project where it's clearly fake but there they go all-in. Instead as you note it's clearly a fake film and that's fine but it annoyed me immensely. A few years later I bought it used and I enjoy it so I kept it. A better film in his vein is Phoenix forgotten, and I highly recommend it to anyone. As for the scariest sci-fi horror, hands down for me that will always be Event Horizon. Chalk it up to my religious upbringing but it is the most realistic depiction of hell I have ever seen in cinema, the visuals are striking and largely hold up today, and I still hold out for an eventual director's cut if they can ever find the full print
The men that disappeared in Alaska were also native and there's a long history of cops leaving indigenous people to freeze in Alaska and Canada so using that seems a bit yikes.
I know its fake. Ive known it was fake since basically the moment i watched it because of course it was... but it still was the only horror movie to legitimately frighten me as an adult, the same level of terror in fact that i felt a decade before when i first saw Fire in the Sky.
I saw this movie by accident! A friend of mine and I bought tickets for it and then tried to sneak into Paranormal Activity 2, playing the next screen over, but were caught by the theatre employees who were good natured about us being stupid teens to just tell us to go to the correct room. Later after having gotten to watched PA2 I'll always wonder how in the world that movie is rated R while this is rated PG-13 and think it might have been better if we hadn't been caught because *this* movie is leagues scarier.
I'm a total found-footage slut so of course I liked this movie. I think what made it unique was what was possibly said in this video (I try to comment before watching as I find my opinions will sometimes get contaminated). Anyways, what made it unique is that it revisited the "based on a true story" gimmick that Blair Witch Project did and used it to significantly creepier and more disturbing effect. I think the main thing for me with horror films is that I tend to find what I don't believe in at all (ghosts, demons, an afterlife of any kind) absolutely terrifying while things I can see or perceive isn't that scary (like a man with a knife). I can understand a man trying to kill me- I live in America in 2021. But I can't understand or logic my way out of demons or ghosts- their ruleset doesn't work, and that's what makes them scary, because they're impossible to comprehend. My rambling has a point- I find aliens are able to bridge my known vs unknown horror gap. I believe in aliens, because I believe in man, but true alien motives on first contact would either be Mass Effect Asari coming to give you their "azure"... or first contact would be... this movie (and Skyline). A complete nightmare. And that's the way I describe this films horror scenes- they are living nightmares to watch. Even seeing clips just now before watching this video, I'm reminded that just simply making the aliens "demonic" and stretching peoples faces and bodies are simple enough that it makes my skin crawl. Easily one of my favorite (in a long list albeit) found footage horror works. Also, Milla Jovovich's best work is in this movie besides The Messenger.
*What is the BEST Sci-Fi Horror? ... Also, let your REQUESTS in the comments!*
Go to expressvpn.com/ryan to take back your Internet privacy TODAY and find out how you can get 3 months free.
The void, ginger snaps trilogy, hellraiser, fear street movies, what we do in the shadows and over the garden wall.
Ginger Snaps!
I'm currently obsessed with the Fear Street trilogy and have noticed the rise of kid horror movies, especially based on books from the 90s.
Aliens, Event Horizon, and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
John Carpenter's The Thing
Honestly, the use owl imagery as a stand-in for greys observing people still gives me chills. Whatever you say about the rest of the movie, I think that element was excellent.
I still can't get over my "paranoid as hell" type buddy absolutely loosing it at school after watching this because there was an owl outside his window one night.
It’s lifted from Twin Peaks, where owls are used as a sign that the demon is near. “The owls are not what they seem” is one of the show’s most iconic lines.
@@jackyzimmerman I think that’s a very surface level and selective way to look at it as if Twin Peaks created or owned this concept. Owls have been considered evil omens throughout human history. I also find it to be a clever idea to have the Barn Owl represent the Greys in the form of a false memory, they even kind of look similar if you look at a Barn Owl a certain way.
@@troin3925 They were just pointing out an example that predates this film. It's a fair point. I don't think their intention was to decry or invalidate The Fourth Kind.
@@HEARTS-OF-SPACE Fair enough
The thing that always creeped me out was seeing "real" Abigail looking like all the life got sucked out of her in that interview. When I first saw it I was freaked when they first showed her.
Same! I felt so sad for her but also quite scared
For real. She looked like the alien.
Yep! That's the most terrifying feature of that movie.
@@NoudlePipW im quite scared for not having your instagram
Meth addict who went crazy killed her
Husband and child and used the whole alien abduction theorie bullshit to cover it up and it worked because everyone was vulnerable to the phenomenon of aliens and detectives couldn’t prove she did anything so yeah she got away with it so now it’s all speculation and clearly it was premeditated just off the simple fact she had so called patients to act as if they all seen the same thing she seen
This is probably the only movie that actually scared me and made me fear the unknown the most
Right? But according to RH it's "forgettable", lol!
Same
Have you seen Dark Skies? Even though The Fourth Kind came first and is extremely creepy, I think Dark Skies is more unsettling. I do admit Dark Skies kind of fell apart toward the end.
Love that movie.
Especially when you wake up at 3:33 the night after watching it
This is the only movie that has ever given me nightmares as a kid. The interview scene at the end where she leverages and speaks through the voice "I AM GOD" haunted me for years
What really scared me - and still unsettles me - about this movie, aside form the intense performances, is the apparent motivation behind the abductions. These aliens aren't scientists, or explorers, or anything like that. They appear to just be sadistic psychopaths. They kidnap and torture for fun, and replacing the victim's memories with the owl imagery appears to be part of the fun for them.
You get the idea that they do it simply because they are stronger/smarter than us. Calling itself God shows that’s it’s just fucking with them for fun. I love it
They may seem like psychopaths, but their motives may simply be beyond our comprehension. That's what I've always loved about this movie - the characters are pawing at the unknown and are seemingly incapable of understanding it, resorting to spiritualism as a framework, but we only get brief flashes of abstract symbols. Actual communication with these beings is powerful enough to destroy the human body. The terror escapes rational interpretation because our meat can't contain it. Hella Lovecraftian.
@@gregsmith80 good point. Maybe calling itself a God is in reference to what we would think of them if we began to comprehend their motives? If they’re capable of possession, they’re strong as fuck lol
Has a very lovecraftian feel to it
When tf is it mentioned that they aren’t scientists or doctors?
I remember really loving this movie and being shocked that it seemed to have such low review scores. It was very effective in its storytelling…and that owl is creepy as hell 🦉
As an Alaskan, we've just had to accept that movies always get the location wrong, which is wild because Nome/Kotz/Bethel and that whole YK delta is frequently genuinely terrifying
Hell, driving through Denali in the off season in the middle of the night is a horror movie waiting to happen.
👋 fellow Alaskan 🙂
Howdy from Homer! The road up through Kenai feels apocalyptic this time of year. Perfect time to listen to Cormac McCarthy's works.
Yeah tell the utuber who apparently isnt afraid of such conditions & not scary @ all.
You’ve piqued my interest! Terrifying in what way?
@@icatfishedyourdad2767 Can be hard to explain, but when you get overcast days out on the tundra, where the sky is gray and the light is dim, and you can't really tell where the sky stops and the ground starts. You're completely alone, the snow just eats all the sound that you're not making yourself. Existentially frightening in a way that's hard to put into words.
That's without digging into the fact that a lot of the area out here is true wilderness that stretches for hundreds of miles that's teeming with wildlife, ground that's always shifting (permafrost), rivers that change every year.
If you spend any ammount of time talking in private with people who spend any real time outside towns in the YK Delta, they'll tell you all kind of strange stories of being followed by things that shouldn't be. Including a very common story of being followed by big balls of cold light which talks when you're not looking at it.
But that all info requires not only talking to people who live here, but talking to the right people
Showing the abductee’s horrified reactions was scarier than showing the aliens themselves. You could only imagine what they were seeing.😱
Still remember watching this for the first time and had chills throughout. Perfect based on story presentation
Oh hi rycon
I can never look at owls the same way after watching this movie.
@@kimbooley90 Right? I had few doubts that it was fake as a kid but the owl stuff really got to me nonetheless. I think that a lot of it was really well executed, especially the psychological elements. Not scary but creepy in a way that a lot of horror movies lack.
I knew it was fake, but this is the only movie to legit spook the shit out of me. This and Signs got me a little paranoid for a while. But then again paranormal isnt scary because it isnt real. Where as aliens are mathmatically probable (though unlikely to have been here).
The owls were a very freaky plot device.
@@kimbooley90 the owls are not what they seem
I have sleep paralysis from time to times. Generally I just have the paralazing aspect of it (mostly because I know better and I keep my eyes closed) but sometimes I also have hallucinations. Two episodes have really left an impact : the first one when I was a teen, having just watched The Grudge, and I hallucinated the ghost lady walking towards me. And a few years ago, when I saw aliens around my bed, watching me, and discussing me. Thankfully I knew what was happening. But I can imagine the terror someone must fell if they don't know what is happening to them...
ok fed
aaaaaand im getting probed tn
This movie scared the crap out of me when I watched it alone one stormy night. I thought the far out way it told its story really worked. I haven’t seen it since it came out. You’ve inspired me to watch it again. I hope it’s less scary this time.
nice.
Maybe it’s best to be seen alone? Which would be a failure in the film industry because you want droves of crowds
@@whitedragoness23 I think so. It’s got some really really intense scenes.
It’s just as scary. I had to get drunk to get through it
The aliens "talking" is the worst part for me, I've had occasions where my calls get dropped and I hear something similar, I immediately get scared with a knot in my throat. I am so happy I saw it in theatres too
My dad is a Hardcore Skeptic and when this movie came out and we all watched it together, even he got the goosebumps and went on a long search to be 100% sure if it was real or fake.
I'm never sure if this was the intention, but I thought the "reconstruction of real footage" gimmick was a pretty smart way to do a found footage horror movie AND be able to sell the movie on a recognisable actor. Kinda reminds me of what American Horror Story did with their Roanoke season.
Except the second half of roanoke was some of the worst garbage I’ve ever seen on a screen
@@benguensche roanoke was garbage from the very start, from what I recall. I just remember feeling so disgustingly dissapointed.
Another thing about the Betty and Barney Hill abduction was that they were shown a star system of where the aliens came from which at the time was unknown, but years later scientists discovered a star system that looked exactly like how it was drawn and described, Zeta Reticuli.
YES!
One of the very few movies to genuinely unnerved and scare me. I could never see owls the same ever again. I genuinely loved this movie and what it was trying to do, by having the "original footage" and the movie's footage side by side gave it a realistic feeling that definitely made a ton of us ask if this was a real event or not.
Same, this is one of the few movies to ever unnerve me. The only other alien encouter movie to do this was that one video that was on the web years about about the aliens showing up at that home in the middle of nowhere and the family is freaking out and at the end the aliens go into the house and the last shot you see is the alien in the bedroom. That was a great video I wish i knew who made it
2:53 I cannot, it was a PERFECT segway. You're absolutely right about how this film feels, one can see how fake it is but it is engaging enough. I do enjoy it but a little over 10 years later I can see Jovovich was not the smartest choice, Jennifer Carpenter on the other hand would've been perfect.
Milla Jovovitch as “herself” at the beginning, introducing the context of the story, is astonishingly effective at establishing the kayfabe. I don’t think I’ve seen any other film attempt something like it. (Of course, if there ARE other fillums out there with this sort of framing structure, I REALLY wanna know about them.)
Aye that was good, but I do think a different actress would have been better.
@@Chris-ci8vs gotta disagree, this was a refreshingly amazing performance from her
My dad used to say that - "fillums"
"The Poughkeepsie tapes" feels very real. It's found footage about detectives looking into a serial killer with over 100 tapes of his kills. There's a movie "butterfly kisses" where some guy finds a student film about a supernatural entity that I think did great. "Behind the sightings" is a movie about people investigating those clown sightings a few years back and rumors about a killer clown cult that was pretty enjoyable. Idk if you've watched hell house LLC but all 3 of them are worth the watch if you enjoy ghost slashers in found footage style.
@@MrGizzyRey I generally like her but I had to turn this movie off halfway through because I thought her acting was god awful
I remember seeing this movie for the first time at around 16-17. I drove home with my sister and we were freaked out. We got home and on top of my best friends house, at the edge of one side of the roof there was a massive bird staring in what appeared to be in our direction. It looked like a massive owl. My friends house was behind mine (our backyards were separated by a fence), so it was a ways away yet it was massive, almost the size of the chimney that stuck out of the roof. Ill never forget that moment
Man I LOVE Fourth Kind
I don't know what it is, but it just has this feeling of paranoid dread that most other found footage-type films don't
Ryan, I love your style, many other UA-camrs who cover horror movies/other scary stories put on this really dark persona, and they put it in all their editing, and it just puts me in a bad mood. You're able to balance the moodiness with a more casual tone that works much better for me. I like horror content but I dont want to leave a video feeling depressed, and your content is perfect for that. Cheers ✌
This movie essentially was my "Blair Witch". I had missed that movie due to being too young to be interested at the time, and this was the first (and last) found footage movie to trick me into thinking it was real. It scared me pretty effectively, and it just goes to show how effective some of their techniques were at getting people to suspend their disbelief.
Went backpacking the next day after seeing blair witch in the theaters. This one had me closing my blinds at night.
I remember thinking the documentary follow up to Blair Witch was real too. Then my friend told me how at the end, the credits had the cast listed
Same here! I think I was 12 when this came out and it's probably the only time I've been genuinely frightened by a movie. It's also given me a fear of barn owls!
Same here! I truly enjoy and I am unnerved by this film
late 80s kids had Blair Witch, 90s kids had Paranormal Activity.
I think the movie has a lot of elements that work great indipendently but never seemed to come together for me. The "real" Abbey carries it hard though, that lady's performance was A+
This movie was weird because, as a Native Alaskan, I watched it with family and had an almost Mystery Science Theater-level of tearing it to shreds and having a good time with it, especially with the set pieces around "Nome." But then a year or so later, I was home alone and saw it on and figured I was in the mood for a good spook, and it legitimately filled me with dread. Knowing full well it's fictitious, I still had this morbid fear after watching it, and brought some of my outside dogs inside just so I could feel more comfortable being home alone.
Gotta leave maggie outside to bark at the aliens in the corn maze.
I saw this on my own and was like oh aliens hang out in alaska? And I asked my mom if we could move to Ohio (I didnt know where Ohio was I just heard of it) she of course said no
i'm alutiiq and had the same experience when i was younger with my cousins and best friend. i later rewatched it on my own during a massive found footage binge when i was home sick, and it was unsurprisingly a lot easier to get into it alone. i had just rewatched the compiled news footage-style war of the worlds retelling Without Warning, and the two films back to back (along with chugging soup for my strep throat lmao) really ramped up the tension for me
Fire in the Sky was absolutely traumatizing for me as a kid. I kept imagining grays peeking in my room for weeks.
Always preferred this one to stuff like Paranormal Activity.
Both suck
@@gorgin1017 sure but this is better
Same! I remember being freaked out at this one and the PA knock off Paranormal Entity.
Paranormal Activity always gave me a laugh, never could take it serious tho I love paranormal stuff.
true.no need for a sequel. one movie is enough to traumatize your childhood and this movie is one of them.
This is one of the first movies that unnerved me and really got me interested in the horror genre. While not perfect, i still found it effective and interesting, just the thought of these powerful beings messing with your life and mind and not being able to do anything to stop them. The concept on top of the unsettling performances, audio, and "found footage" (especially the 'real' Dr. Tyler, she was genuinely haunting) just made for quite the experience for young me. if i remember correctly, i think the end credits played recorded phone calls reporting UFOs and it was a cool detail that added to the experience and left me wanting to know more. It's still a fave and I'm really glad you covered it and did an amazing job as always ❤️
The alien sequence in Fire in the Sky is one of my favorite depictions of how an alien ship, species and experiments on humans could look and it’s terrifying
My dad calls bunk on it as he was a mile away camping from travis on that night. But yeah another creepy alien flick.
surprise theres no remake...i loved that movie as a kid
@@yeettiti3621 don't give them any ideas! lol
Well, according to Travis Walton himself, that scene was almost completely fake. He said that his actual abduction wasn't violent, that apart from the aliens he saw a man and a woman in the ship, and the ship itself had an interior that is entirely different, more metallic than organic.
Not even gonna pretend to lie this was one of the last movies to actually legitimately scare me as a teenager and it scared me good for a good while.
Maybe I'm a literal technical xenophobe cuz Signs is still unnerving to this day for me.
Great work as usual, Ryan🙌👏
Sinister also scared me as a teenager. Which was hard to do.
One of the most fun viewing experiences I ever had was telling my friends beforehand this was real and watching them analyse it. Insisting it must be real because they’d ‘spot any flaws no problem’ 😂
I miss those good old days before the internet videos and UA-cam that you can click on to say it’s fake. I was just old enough to do that with Blair witch project and my friends and I saw that in a Scotland remote farmhouse which made it more terrifying.
Joys of youth
Same haha. It was fun seeing where my friends fell along the spectrum of credulity toward what they were witnessing on screen. I was always disappointed with my more skeptical friends recognizing the BS immediately. The movie definitely tricked me so I didn’t want to believe I was the most gullible person I knew!!
My most frustrating experience was when a friend was trying to convince us that it was real, and he genuinely believed it. (He's one of those "anything-truther" types, though thankfully just believes it personally and isn't preachy.)
Even by the end, it took until the fake-real actors were credited that he finally listened to us. And thank god the producers didn't fully commit to the bit and try to pretend the testimonials were real.
The only thing that ever stuck with me about this movie is that during the credits there are real phone calls from people that supposedly saw aliens, and one of the calls is from my hometown
This movie is really one of a kind. And I really enjoyed what they did with the story. I actually did think it was real at one point.
I think it's safe to say that this movie is more than one of a kind, is more like a four of a kind.
@@rafaelalodio5116 Lmao beat me to it🤣
Probably still is. The commentator of this clip sounds real naive and like a smart ass immature know it all. I would go by the actual inhabitants of the town and also the fact MANY FBI AGENTS kept visiting this town after the apparent events. Also. The Ancient Sumerian Culture ( the mysterious language of the movie ) says that in ancient times, the first Sumerians always maintained that " Gods from the skies came down and taught them everything they know " ( including mathematics and language ).
These kind of horror movies are like my favorite sub genre alien abduction horror movies are always interesting to me. Dark Skies, Fire in the Sky, etc. It’s such an underrated genre. The idea of aliens as much more of a psychological threat is always scarier to me. They aren’t blowing up monuments. They’re sneaking in and testing us. So creepy!
Bro that imagery with the owl slowly melding with an alien's silhouette over the course of the movie blew my mind when I was nine. It was the first time I'd ever really pieced together the way that symbolism relates to a story.
Film is weird as hell, but my god did it get my younger self the first time.
As someone who had many sleep paralysis episodes over the years, I absolutely believe most of the alien abductions, especially happening while sleeping, were most likely episodes of sleep paralysis.
I can't describe how real and horrifying it feels when happens. Opening your eyes, not being able to move no matter how hard you try and seeing/hearing paranormal entities literally next to you is pure terror and torment.
I've never had experience with aliens during an episode, but I had plenty of shadow and demonic entities. The 1st time I had it, I didn't sleep for 3-4 days and left my light always on for a week, even tho I knew it wasn't real. And even after I "got used" to that and I'm aware while happening, it's still extremely horrifying.
This gave me the BIGGEST creeps when I first watched it ages ago. The “real” footage felt subtle and convincing when it was side by side with the “reenactment” version coupled with the sound design really made it.. unsettling.
The medical experimentation scene in Fire in the Sky scared the hell out of me as a kid. I had trouble sleeping for several nights afterwards.
As an aside, I have had one or two episodes of sleep paralysis during my life. It's a truly terrifying experience as I thought there was someone standing over me in bed. I wanted to turn over--in fact tried my hardest to do so--but could never manage it.
It happened to me once. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I remembered seeing a dark figure standing. I couldn't react, and my breathing felt heavy. I was sleeping next to a family member, and it was a desperate situation to not be able to "get help." When I woke up the next day, it took me some time to remember what happened the night before.
This movie scared the piss out of me as a kid, I remember sleeping in the living room for a couple of days (cause my parents wouldn’t let me sleep in their bed 😭)
Same haha
Same. My parents had a California king sized bed and wouldn't let me sleep with them. They pointed out that I was 27 but I was still hurt.
an odd detail about this movie is that when this movie first came out, the whole town of Nome agreed that this movie was "real" & that people needed to "know what was happening in Nome."
fast forward, & the entire town accused the director & the actors of using Nome as a publicity stunt & a way to make income for themselves.
the movie was never proven to be false or true. it was just considered "entertainment."
however, the statistics in the movie are in fact true about alien abductions.
that's why the theme of this movie is: "what you choose to believe, is up to you."
This movie was so underated. It's the creepiest alien/ufo movie IMO.
Yep!
It's not really underrated. The Fourth Kind, Dark Skies and Fire in the Sky are easily the creepiest alien encounter/abduction films even to this day.
@@HEARTS-OF-SPACE k that abduction scene in dark skies fucked me right up lmfao! I forgot about that movie & only watched in theatres during release… think it may be time for another watch.
@@HEARTS-OF-SPACE what a great movie that was! Thanks for shouting that out i think i mentally pushed it out of my brain due to how much it bothered me 😂😂😂
@@HEARTS-OF-SPACE Definitely checking those out
I remember seeing this film on Netflix when I was younger. The true story angle got to me and I was somewhat terrified. Then I did some online research and learned that real story angle basically existed to sell tickets. This review brought back some fun old memories.
I AM… GOD
If anyone tells you that’s not one of the scariest scenes in horror history, they’re lying.
💯💯💯💯
Haven't seen a God proclamation that creepy since Tim Curry in Criminal Minds. 👽😈
Honestly that was creepy as fuck at first, but I feel that personally made it a bit cheesy upon later thought. I'm not saying I'm super cool and didn't get creeped out for a few weeks though!
@@DJtheBlack-RibbonedRose Woah. I really want to see that. Tim Curry's cool.
@@alexroy5854 I think they said something along the lines "it was no god, but something that thought it was". I think that an alien with grandiose delusions is scary as hell.
The 4th Kind scared me way more than any of the "real" footage horror movies have. They did amazing at the story telling.
You can miss me with this movie. I watched it when I was alone at my home, and it just so happens that a meteor hit in my state that night. When I saw the bright light through the blinds of the window, I knew I was about to be abducted.
Lol
Did you live?
@@amaninawhale8061 Currently dead
@@Onethonone that's wild. Rest in peace.
🥶👻👽☠
Ryan, thanks so much for covering this one. The Fourth Kind scared the sh*t out of me when I was younger and still creeps me out. You always pick the best content! Thanks for your work! ❤️
I love this movie. It scared me so much that tears came out of my eyes, wasnt crying, just tears were runing down. No other movie ever did that to me.
THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME DUDE. I think it has to do with how immersed you get, how you start to empathize with the people in the movie. You imagine yourself in these situations. It is pure fear. Wonderful movie.
I had never heard of this movie, but decided to watch it years ago after a multi day drug bender. In my meth fueled, sleep deprived state I absolutely believed that this was real and thought I was witnessing actual proof of alien invasion. I was shook for weeks before making my partner watch it with me, sober. Felt pretty dumb considering I had spent the past few weeks telling everyone I had found verifiable proof of aliens. Moral of the story is to never mix sci-fi movies and sketchy bathtub drugs. In fact, maybe it's better if you just avoid sci-fi altogether.
Moral of the story, don’t do meth
er youre sober now right?
It does have it's good points (pardon the pun), but yes I wouldn't recommend persistent use, if any amount of use at all, of meth to anyone. @@Meekmoonlitmuse
It's better to avoid meth... lol
I'm so excited you're covering this movie! I've grown up with horror movies and media, and The Fourth Kind is one of the few films I've seen that genuinely disturbed me and scared the living sh*t out of me. Such a shame it got such negative reviews given how effective it is as a horror film.
My dad kept telling me about that movie for years until I watched it and for all those years he kept up the illusion that it was real footage. He only told me after I watched it and was kind of freaking out. I respect the commitment to the bit
I can’t believe I thought this was a real found footage film when I was in Middle School. It legitimately scared the hell out of me. Great video, Ryan!
I saw this as an adult of about 30-something and the movie had me wondering if the real footage was genuine or not, up until the murder/suicide scene because I doubted such footage would be released by the police for a movie even if censored.
@@MandleRoss I’m pretty pissed off because I watched it last night (as a 36 year old) and thought the whole point was the tapes were real. That’s how it was sold!
I did think it was a bit brutal having the live family murder footage. That’s extremely frustrating that the “real footage” wasn’t at all. Not happy.
@@bigmike1015 I'm glad to hear that the current mindset of "it's fake" as the immediate reaction to anything hasn't spread to 100% of the population yet.
@@MandleRoss It’s so disappointing. Usually I’m the first to try and look behind the veil and see the real motives in things; which is usually money.
However in this case - when you’ve got a star come on to the screen as herself, stipulating that the movie footage will run alongside the “real footage” and that the interview was with the real Abigail….why wouldn’t I believe that?
And it’s not like Blair Witch and R.E.C, which were clearly fake for entertainment sake. This had a different vibe about it. I didn’t think it was even legal to outright lie on the big screen, make fake websites, use real missing person’s names etc.
How everyone didn’t get sued is beyond me. This movie had me thinking for days and nearly changed my whole reality. Imagine if people went and took their own lives thinking that this was real.
There’s a lot of accountability and responsibility here. It’s left me extremely disappointed and angry that they would do this to make some cash.
@@bigmike1015 I’m very confused what your upset about. They mixed real footage with cinema what makes you think those videos were fake
This movie was a masterpiece of sci-fi horror. Scared me so badly and I still get scared watching it.
I saw this movie shortly after its release on DVD. I made the mistake of watching it while alone in my house one night when I also had no internet access due to downed telephone lines after a storm. It completely and utterly terrified me; I was 90% sure it was all fictional, but I had no way of jumping online just to hit up IMDB and, you know, MAKE SURE.
I had trouble sleeping that night, and I kid you not, the first thing I did when we got an internet connection back was confirm that it was, in fact, only a movie. :)
I've never watched it since, and I imagine it wouldn't have the same effect on me now, but I still have to give it props for being one of the few movies I've watched as an adult to actually scare me. Also, Elias Koteas is such an underrated actor. :)
Elias Koteas is a damned fine actor.
Elias Koteas is awesome in the movie Crash, 90's film with James Spader. Check it out man its weird and cool as hell.
I remember myself when i was in college when i was watching this at 1am while rushing to finish a project--i didn't need coffee at all, this movie didn't let me fall asleep at all
This movie truly played on my anxiety of the unknown especially seeing it as a child. Despite it being debunked To this day when I hear the local owls outside at night I close the curtains 11 years later.
It's okay, I'm still scared of the aliens from Mars Attacks 23 years later.
@@lainiwakura1776 Ack ack ack AAACK.
Used to live on a ranch that had a pair of barn owls living on it. This movie legit convinced me for years that Gary and Grace were aliens until Gary's passing.
It definitely tried to be the Blair Witch Project 10 years later. But you can't make lightning strike twice, so obviously people knew it would was fake. Not to mention the scene where the guy freaks out and shoots those people would have given it an NC-17, if it was real. Not a PG-13 rating.
I kind of disagree; it was enough removed from the Blair Bitch to be its own thing that it really did carve out a place of its own. Personally I think it was far superior to TBW.
@@Chris-ci8vs I didn't say that I necessarily liked Blair Witch, I more meant it's marketing and trying to claim it was "real footage" to get more attention.
I remember back when me and my mom watched this. She had seen UFOs before in her life, and when she was a young girl she remembered a white owl sometimes being near her bedroom window and such or across the road in a tree as a kid. So watching this really did shock us and scare us back then.
This movie, you guys! I went into it knowing nothing about it, not even so much as watching the trailer, and it scared me more than any supernatural horror ever has. I will admit the framing device got me and using something as mundane yet vaguely spooky as an owl made it seem all the more believable to me. Owls get mistaken for all kinds of supernatural phenomenon by people who spot them at night. The thought that aliens could use this against us to develope a kind of plausible deniability is viscerally terrifying! Even after I learned that there was, in fact, no "true story" as presented in the movie, I plunged head first down the whole sumerian, annunaki, ancient aliens rabbit hole and there was the smallest part of me that, still to this day, wonders but what if...
"Aliens!"
Very well constructed movie. I had a good time!
No matter what anyone says in this video or wherever. The Fourth Kind scared me like nothing has ever before. For the FIRST time in my adult life, I slept with the lights on. Even while typing this I have chills running all over my back and I keep looking back checking out my dark kitchen without the lights on. No kidding. The owl scene is brilliant yet incredibly disturbing, not to mention the therapy sessions and the cassette tape screaming. (Ok ok, deep breath, man up!) lol
As someone who has experienced sleep paralysis more than once I can completely understand how someone would interpret that as aliens. Especially given the wide range of possible hallucinations.
Me too. I suffered from it frequently when I was a kid. I can't sleep on my back because I'm worried I will have sleep paralysis.,.
Same. I learned years ago to just keep my eyes closed until I can manage to wake up.
um.....it is aliens....
Unfortunately me as well, suffer from this. I agree...
Cmon now! Everyone knows it’s demons that cause sleep paralysis…😬
Love your insightful takes on this one and why it didnt quite work out. I get why IMDB is so rough on this but it's also pretty great to see so many people have fond/horrifying memories of it in the comments. There's something about the way its presented that seems to make it memorable, even when the characters and plot don't. That claustrophobic, low budget analog-video feel puts you in a headspace that's somewhere in between fever dream, late-night youtube ARG, and watching Unsolved Mysteries when your parents think you're asleep.
I saw this when I was fairly young and didn't FULLY realize that the "real" footage was entirely fake right up until the SUICIDE SCENE when I was like....did I just watch someone die for the first time? That haunted me but also made me be like wait this is fake then right??? RIGHT??? Also good on them for making owls terrifying.
the sumerian voiced scenes are freaking me out every time. it's insanely well done. and very scary. brutal.
The aliens left a big "HOYEVER" word cut in the corn field.
I dunno, the thing that's always stuck with me is the realistic and overwhelming nihilism and despair. Like you say, this movie is so bleak that when I watched it as a child it was enough to almost make me throw up. Very intense film and it's depiction of the aliens works because of how overwhelming they are. You can't stop them. There is literally nothing you can do and they will ruin your life. Then you have to live with it. Those experiences that are literally so horrible they can drive you insane-it's maddening. So when Tommy shoots himself and his family it feels real. It feels like you're seeing a man who can't cope with an overwhelmingly traumatic experience snap, and in his mind he's saving himself and his family. That's how horrible these entities are. "They're just the worst... the worst thing you can imagine."
I’m so glad UA-cam has recommended me a Wikipedia article on alien abductions for this
BUT CONTEXT MATTERS!!
You mean google
A lot of times I'll hear people talk about how awful this movie is (they usually can't name the movie, just that it was some terrible UFO found-footage film they saw once), and I for the life of me don't really understand the hate. Even if you already know going in that it's entirely fabricated, it's legitimately terrifying in places, and the found-footage portions feature some very convincing acting. Maybe some of that resentment comes from the fact that it "tricked" people into believing it was all real, but no one seems to hold that against 'The Blair Witch Project' the same way they did 'The Fourth Kind.' When I saw this film I had no idea the found-footage parts weren't authentic, and that certainly made my viewing experience far scarier (especially since my family lived out in the middle of nowhere at the time), but even though I now know it's all bunk it's still a very effective, eerie "what-if?" kind of film, one I still find highly fascinating.
It mix two areas people didn't want connected, Religion and intelligent life- if we found out aliens are sadistic monsters who [prey upon us and set up the ancient religions. that is literally an either part of Revelations (the angels returning to attempt to intermix with humanity)
It hit to many areas to be so vague- you can only overtly mention the truth after making it clear YOU don't believe it- so if they made a fuss about it being a dope horror flick and not found footage? It could of easily could of been a modern classic- sticking in the heads of millions- rather than millions rushing to dismiss the entire narrative
In addition to Fire In The Sky, Whitley's Streiber's Communion was also adapted to film by Hollywood around the same time.
Being pretty familiar with alien abduction phenomena, I do find "the science's" obsession with sleep paralysis pretty hilarious, considering that the majority of abduction stories don't take place inside the subject's home, let alone while they're sleeping. I get the focus on it for the review but it's a good example of confirmation bias.
It's definitely a trope and even a misnomer nowadays. "Oh it happened while they were asleep, so it was just a bad dream", and a similar one is "oh they're not right in the head so you can't believe them", and lastly "they're on drugs so...."
Fire in the Sky and Communion are two of the most traumatizing films depicting alien abductions. The Fourth Kind definitely is up there with them, but the edge goes to Communion, simply for the pitch perfect white knuckle build up to the the depiction of the cabin abduction. By the time that head peeks out from behind the wardrobe I thought I was gonna have a cardiac event and had to stop the movie and decompress....and I was like 12,13 yo.
I had some weird experiences as a teenager, which made me look into alien abductions and psychology. I was never convinced by the sleep paralysis explanation: I was never paralyzed when the weird shit happened.
I don't believe it was aliens though. Best frame of understanding I have found is from Buddhist traditions.
Actually, most stories DO take place in a person's home or at least a homely location.
I legit had an internet argument with someone who didn't believe in sleep paralysis at all. He just thought people who have it are completely mad. I don't know why I wasted my time trying to educate that butthead.
Hey, Ryan! I don't know if you knew this but owl imagery is very common in UFO believer circles. There's a particular figurehead named Mike Clelland who believes that owls and UFOS are inherently linked.
Fire In The Sky was sooo slow and lack luster, but when you get to THAT scene (y'all who've seen it know what I'm talking about) it cold clocks you with some of the scariest shit ever put to film. I knew the story already going into the movie, and it's still left me feeling terrified, empty and hopeless.
Lol I’m the first to admit I’m a scare baby and I watched Fire in the Sky but must’ve been very bored because I can’t even recall what you’re referring to
Since you showed a brief clip of the Phoenix Lights I was reminded of another fairly good found footage alien abduction movie that just sort of came and went: Phoenix Forgotten. You should do a vid on that movie if you want to keep the alien abduction theme going.
Thanks to my sixth grade social studies teacher for showing us just the found footage scenes with no further context for scaring me for months. Specifically the scene where they say “I am God” dealing unknown amounts of psychic damage to my Christian baby mind at the time.
SIXTH GRADE?? WHAT
I guess your social studies teacher just wanted to traumatize you and you’re classmates just for shits and gigs.
I remember seeing this in theaters. Looking back on it, I know the movie is a little silly. But specifically the scene where she listened to her recording screaming in the night still terrifies me to this day.
This film has been one of my favorites for years now. Watching it for the first time I knew the footage was fake because I had never heard of the incident in Nome as someone who follow these type of cases. However, what was truly fascinating was the very real depiction of disbelief and psychological trauma throughout the film. Super true to a lot of these cases that get documented throughout the years.
Also, the theory of Drinkwater and Dagnall is understandable but overlooking the evidence that was left behind on the clothes of Betty & Barney Hill for that night is a bit stranger to me that, that wasn't consider. But I guess certain evidence isn't enough when it comes to certain topics.
There was also the star map of Zeta Reticuli. Betty described how the aliens showed her a star map of their home and this was before scientists discovered this star system and gave it a name. Unless she was an amazing astronomer, how could something like that be faked?
@@troin3925 Precisely.
@@troin3925
Reading about the analysis of that so called star map... It really isn't much of a star map at all and Marjorie Fish herself has rejected her hypothesis - so it might not even be the Zeta Reticuli star system at all. The star system was indeed known before that - in 1756 it was first mentioned in a star map. The two stars got different designations in between 1856 and 1903. So yeah, I'd say that the star system was known before the Hill's so called abduction.
"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
Ok whoa, I had legitimately & randomly thought back on a clip from this movie during an early morning bathroom trip today for no real reason except that I was half asleep and apparently trying to freak myself out. I've never actually seen the movie, but *have* heard of it, seen the trailer, and saw the creepy-as-heck "Sumerian voice clip" from a video collection on "scary things from your childhood" at one point. So again, whoa, I must've been having a premonition of some kind. I've been abducted by the "Hoyever!" 😆
Also, I'm glad you're feeling better today, Ryan. 😌
This was the last horror movie to genuinely scare me. I watched it at like 1 in the morning while home by myself. Needlessly to say, I didn't go to bed anytime soon.
I have never watched a horror movie in my whole life but god how I love Ryans' reviews about them
Oh hey, Nome is my hometown, before we moved to Anchorage. My Dad was the Chief of police at the time we lived there up until like 2007ish. It's always weird coming back to this movie and seeing how they portray my home town.
I actually enjoyed this movie when it came out. Havent seen it in years so not sure if it still hold up.
Its a good watch if youre alone
I'm not going to lie, this is among my favourite horror films.
Can you do an essay on The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) next? No need for the sequel though.
I recently rewatched a review of The Fourth Kind by Cinematic Excrement that was posted years ago and there’s _still_ people leaving comments giving him shit because “that’s real footage! You can’t make fun of that!” It’s so incredibly frustrating because they’re willing to die on that hill and cannot be convinced otherwise. I honestly don’t understand why some are willing to accept that The Blair Witch Project was not actual found footage but they’re argue endlessly that _this one_ is “real”.
Because it's easier to fool someone, then it is to make them understand that they've been fooled.
Definitely true! Just like with certain Grand Illusions!
I mean, “Ancient Aliens” has been on air for over 10 years now. If this footage was real, you can guarantee they would’ve talked about it 😂 that show has to actually make stuff up to try and prove their point.
God, just hearing her screams gave me nightmares as a kid. Everything about this movie just gave me an intense sense of uneasiness that when shit hit the fan near the end I was too invested to look away even though I really wanted to.
I have a lot of feels about this movie, the idea of having something happening to you while you sleep is terrifying.
I saw it in a movie theater and no one moved once the movie was over, after 5 min a guard came to check what was happening and only then people reacted and started leaving.
lol love this hahhahaha
I remember when I was in Uni I had a class with someone who worked with people who claimed to be abducted by aliens. She said that the most distressing thing about working with them wasn't that she believed they had been abducted, she didn't, but that these people were genuinely traumatised (and in some cases actively suffering from PTSD) due to their own dreams or sleep paralysis.
I remember when this film came out, a BUNCH of my friends were like "D00d, you gahta see this movie, d00d! It's REAL, d00d! I can't believe the government even let this movie get released d00d!"
While they felt pretty dumb later on, it dies speak to how well the film made itself appear to contain real footage. I can't remember if any major releases ever did something like this before The Fourth Kind. As in, having seemingly real footage along with interviews with those involved but also having a "dramatized" rendition using relatively well known actors! Adding the real actors really threw people off haha
PS: I grew with a family named Drinkwater! To this day, The Fourth Kind is the ONLY other time I've ever heard that name
One of the creepiest movies I've seen. The owl, the bending of human beings in ways only an exorcist could appreciate, and that blood curdling , spine iceing queen of them all scream that erupted from the recording, actually made my ears ring lmao, great movie
I totally get the issues that some people have with this movie. But it is, sincerely, one of my favorites exactly because it throws that gut-punch of an unhappy ending. Personally, I'm of the mind that a lot of modern media is weaker because of creators being unwilling to deliver unhappy endings which, in most stories, make more sense and are to be expected in their stories. Instead, they contrive plots points and events to lead to good outcomes, which feels a bit saccharine.
The 4th Kind will always be a welcome flick in my home.
Yeah the daughter's disappearance and never being found was the most terrifying climax to me, loosing children by abduction by man or beast feels like a very primal feeling that makes you wanna scream in anguish.
I mean what do they expect the aliens to just give her back?
They have no sympathy for witnesses what's stopping them now when they hold so much power over this dangerously close human subject.
Hereditary
Oddlly enough, all of my favorite horror flicks have ended on unhappy notes. Paranormal Activity, The Strangers, Hereditary, The Fourth Kind, Rec/Quarantine, etc. I guess I have a strong belief that the best horror films end with no one winning. Because, realistically, people wouldn't
yas and Ryan also didn't mention the credits, which consists of real people calling in to report UFO sightings which is cool and scary as hell!@@jase276
I specifically remember the footage from the craft above the home when the cop was outside the home shown on the Maury show many years ago. Before “You are not the father” Maury used to bring people on the show who would show footage of odd things. Long before all of the huge Alien conspiracies. So I don’t think anything is totally fiction or nonfiction. Besides it’s no secret that Alaska has a high rate of sightings and proclaimed abductions and furthermore it wasn’t investigated just once but it’s ongoing and so often that I’m surprised it’s not classified as a No-Fly zone like parts of Antarctica.
Interesting, tell us more please
Watching this movie, I believed more that Abigail Tyler was hypnotizing people into acting strange rather than actual aliens
This movie definitely scared the hell out of me, the "possession" scene with the alien speaking through the one person had me wanting to cry, truly terrifying shit
Thanks for covering this film! I truly love alien abduction films, its one of the few sub genres of horror that truly frightens me and im glad to see you covering an old favourite of mine.
edit: I still get a little shiver if i notice im awake at 3:14 am
When this movie came out, I remember getting really pissed off because I enjoyed the movie but based on the marketing I was expecting something like fire in the sky, or to the lesser extent a movie like The Blair Witch Project where it's clearly fake but there they go all-in.
Instead as you note it's clearly a fake film and that's fine but it annoyed me immensely. A few years later I bought it used and I enjoy it so I kept it. A better film in his vein is Phoenix forgotten, and I highly recommend it to anyone.
As for the scariest sci-fi horror, hands down for me that will always be Event Horizon. Chalk it up to my religious upbringing but it is the most realistic depiction of hell I have ever seen in cinema, the visuals are striking and largely hold up today, and I still hold out for an eventual director's cut if they can ever find the full print
The men that disappeared in Alaska were also native and there's a long history of cops leaving indigenous people to freeze in Alaska and Canada so using that seems a bit yikes.
I know its fake. Ive known it was fake since basically the moment i watched it because of course it was... but it still was the only horror movie to legitimately frighten me as an adult, the same level of terror in fact that i felt a decade before when i first saw Fire in the Sky.
4:40 when he starts talking about the movie
When I watched this for the first time I bought into it and was absolutely and completely terrified. Like, to the core.
I think it’s very underrated.
I saw this movie by accident! A friend of mine and I bought tickets for it and then tried to sneak into Paranormal Activity 2, playing the next screen over, but were caught by the theatre employees who were good natured about us being stupid teens to just tell us to go to the correct room.
Later after having gotten to watched PA2 I'll always wonder how in the world that movie is rated R while this is rated PG-13 and think it might have been better if we hadn't been caught because *this* movie is leagues scarier.
? Paranormal activity 2 was rated R lol
This was one of the last movies to scare me. The screams at the end of the movie chilled me to my core. I've been chasing that feeling ever sense.
I'm a total found-footage slut so of course I liked this movie. I think what made it unique was what was possibly said in this video (I try to comment before watching as I find my opinions will sometimes get contaminated). Anyways, what made it unique is that it revisited the "based on a true story" gimmick that Blair Witch Project did and used it to significantly creepier and more disturbing effect.
I think the main thing for me with horror films is that I tend to find what I don't believe in at all (ghosts, demons, an afterlife of any kind) absolutely terrifying while things I can see or perceive isn't that scary (like a man with a knife). I can understand a man trying to kill me- I live in America in 2021. But I can't understand or logic my way out of demons or ghosts- their ruleset doesn't work, and that's what makes them scary, because they're impossible to comprehend.
My rambling has a point- I find aliens are able to bridge my known vs unknown horror gap. I believe in aliens, because I believe in man, but true alien motives on first contact would either be Mass Effect Asari coming to give you their "azure"... or first contact would be... this movie (and Skyline). A complete nightmare. And that's the way I describe this films horror scenes- they are living nightmares to watch. Even seeing clips just now before watching this video, I'm reminded that just simply making the aliens "demonic" and stretching peoples faces and bodies are simple enough that it makes my skin crawl.
Easily one of my favorite (in a long list albeit) found footage horror works. Also, Milla Jovovich's best work is in this movie besides The Messenger.