The Deadbolt Feature - The Fourth Kind and Abduction Marketing?

The Fourth Kind and Abduction Marketing?
by Reg Seeton

The biggest question surrounding the upcoming Universal Pictures release of The Fourth Kind is whether the "true events" within the fourth kind alien abduction film starring Milla Jovovich are real or whether the extraterrestrial events are the byproduct of a clever fourth kind marketing campaign. Interestingly, ahead of the November 6 release of The Fourth Kind, when you search the web for discussion about The Fourth Kind, moviegoers appear to be divided over a search for The Fourth Kind truth.

With purported archival footage from alien abduction psychiatry sessions with the Milla Jovovich character, Dr. Abigail Tyler, and alleged fourth kind disappearances relating to alien abduction in Nome, Alaska, The Fourth Kind has created new online extraterrestrial controversy. Some moviegoers feel as though they're being abducted by Universal under the guise of a fourth kind marketing campaign rather than getting accurate fourth kind information based on alleged true alien abduction events that supposedly occurred in Nome, Alaska. But why are some fans up in alien arms in fourth kind controversy about a potential marketing campaign for The Fourth Kind?

Many online discussions surrounding The Fourth Kind highlight the 1999 indie horror The Blair Witch Project as a similar marketing campaign tied to alleged "true events". Interestingly, in relation to potential marketing for The Fourth Kind - if it indeed is all a fourth kind marketing vehicle - The Blair Witch took in nearly $250 million at the global box-office off of a $60,000 budget. At the time, most people hailed Blair Witch as horror greatness and had no issue with the fact that the supposed "true events" weren't directly true.

With a mysterious, fictitious, puzzle-like back story, The Blair Witch Project was easily one of the most popular and successful movies of 1999 despite the fact that moviegoers, in fact, were duped by a successful fourth kind type marketing campaign. So why would some take issue with The Fourth Kind if fans are being abducted by a clever marketing campaign of the fourth kind? If you look back, The Fourth Kind isn't the first film to abduct fans via similar fourth kind style marketing.

In fact, with The Fourth Kind picking up momentum for Universal, the online marketing debate surrounding The Fourth Kind is much closer to the 1996 Coen Brothers film, Fargo, in which writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen opened the film with the line, "This is a True Story" and was later found out to be untrue. Are the events of The Fourth Kind untrue? We don't know. Despite the "true story" device, however, was Fargo a bad film? Did it entertain fans? Was the fourth kind Fargo marketing ploy morally right or wrong? That's up for you to decide as you head into The Fourth Kind. But as The Fourth Kind nears theaters, skeptics have been searching for the truth behind the alleged fourth kind abductions in Nome, Alaska and the real Dr. Abigail Tyler. Much like Fargo, not a lot of information exists to substantiate the alleged true events of The Fourth Kind.

Interestingly, the fourth kind abduction and Milla Jovovich - Dr. Abigail Tyler character discussions surrounding the accuracy of The Fourth Kind line up almost perfectly with Fargo. In relation to The Fourth Kind and information to support the fourth kind alien abductions and the events in the film, quotes about Fargo on Snopes.com tell a similar tale in a search for truth about The Fourth Kind. Since Fargo centered on kidnapping and a series of murders in Minnesota in 1987, the fourth kind marketing truth revealed that "... repeated efforts by the Minnesota media to unearth any vaguely similar real life case have proved entirely unsuccessful." To those researching The Fourth Kind, this may sound familiar.

But from what we can tell in various online discussions about The Fourth Kind and potential Fourth Kind fans searching for truth, the Snopes Fargo page elaborates on similar searches by media and fans in 1996. "Had they done any checking, they would have quickly discovered that nothing so much as vaguely resembling that level of carnage had occurred in Minnesota. Not in 1987. Not ever." As far as our own research into The Fourth Kind, there is something of truth to The Fourth kind. How much, or what it really is, we're not sure.

Are the events of The Fourth Kind true? That's up to you to decide. From our standpoint on The Fourth Kind and potential entertainment, more quotes found on Snopes raise a question of the fourth kind that straddles the line between abducting fans with a clever marketing campaign and events based on fact, "All movies are in some way fiction, so what does it matter?"

You tell us.

-- Reg Seeton