The Owls Are Not What They Seem

I should have known better.

It's been a long time since I've been scared by a movie, but for some reason, The Fourth Kind succeeded where many others had failed. I don't even think it's a particularly good film, but it definitely hit my trigger button. Alien Abduction.

When I was 13 years old I read Communion, by Whitley Striber, and there are no words to describe how much it freaked me out. After that I was afraid to sleep for years. And movies like Fire in the Sky certainly didn't help matters.


As I got older however, the popular consensus became clear; alien abduction was something that only "hicks" believed in, and to even entertain the notion was unintellectual and silly. Gradually, as time went on, my fear was alleviated. The little grey people with the large eyes no longer haunted my psyche.

But I still think they are terrifying. The thought of waking up to one of those things next to me makes the hair on the back of my neck stand to attention. So when a friend told me about this film I knew I had to give it a watch. Because let's face it—we like to be scared sometimes. It's one of the strange things about being human.

So I watched the film last week. Alone. Huddling under a blanket on my couch.

The film plays out like a documentary, with a supposed real psychologist—who conducted a study on abduction—speaking to a reporter. Intermixed with this "real" footage are reenactments by actors. Notably, Milla Jovovich plays the psychologist.

The plot centers around a group of people in Nome, Alaska, who have all been experiencing sleep disturbances. Eerily, they all remember seeing owls staring down at them. This is crazy creepy, in my opinion. I've always found owls to be incredibly scary looking—especially barn owls. And anyway, it's creepy because you know that these people didn't really see owls. They've seen something else that they will not let themselves remember. When the psychologist puts them under hypnosis, the real "fun" begins.

I don't reccomend this movie to anyone who has a tendency to be freaked out by aliens. All of the horrors that take place happen when the characters are going to sleep. So if you have an interview early the next morning, I would think twice. This movie really got under my skin.