New: The Stream- Watch this instead: Watch This Instead, Ep. 44: The Fourth Kind

good job, Mike... one of the best WTIs we've ever done!

Rajorajorajo:good job, Mike... one of the best WTIs we've ever done!

...if you do say so yourself.

I'm a bit confused, Mike...you liked Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch, etc. etc. but this fake doc clearly offended you (i think you said as much). Is it a matter of degree, or are you blanketing against all fictions that purport to be docs?

Also, your fingers look weirdly skinny when held up against the green screen like that.

It is a matter of degree. Both Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch and Man Bites Dog is that the filmmakers a) implied that they were real and b) implied that they were real events that had, ultimately, no connection to anything real, at all.

What The Fourth Kind does is a) state explicitly in the body of the film, multiple times, that what we are watching is real and authentic and b) base the body/story of the film on actual, real events: in this case the high rate of disappearances in Nome Alaska (which the FBI is blaming on alcoholism and freezing weather). We now have real, actual families who have experienced an actual loss, and filmmakers stating that the person has been abducted by aliens or killed themselves over stress from repeated anal probing or whatever.