'The Fourth Kind' (PG-13) (out of four)

The marketing folks behind the low-budget hit "The Blair Witch Project" did a masterful job in hyping the idea that the scary "documentary" footage seen in the film was real. Of course it was all staged, but it took weeks for that fact to finally sink in.

Now, Universal Pictures is trying the same tactic with the much higher budgeted horror movie, "The Fourth Kind." Unfortunately, the film fails on so many levels that the purported "actual" video footage and audio featured prominently throughout the movie quickly loses any kind of effect.

Milla Jovovich ("Resident Evil") plays Alaskan psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler who, as the actress tells the camera, is a real person. Of course she is: We keep seeing "actual" videotapes of her in television interviews and in sessions with patients.

However, the good doctor is having a run of bad luck, as her husband was brutally murdered while lying in bed next to his wife. She tries to get over his death but is having trouble doing so. She's not getting any help from her annoying son, who sarcastically asks his grieving mom, "Can you accept it?"

The movie momentarily flickers to life when she discovers that multiple patients are having the same experience during the night -- they all see an owl that stares at them with not-friendly intentions. Some of the patients are put under hypnosis, in scenes that are cross-cut with the "actual videotape" of their sessions. (The filmmakers constantly post the "actual footage" label on-screen, just in case the audience manages to forget every five minutes.)

I quickly started having my suspicions that the "real" Dr. Abigail wasn't-so-real because of her monotone delivery of lines that seemed badly written. I really started to wonder with other scenes, like the one in which one of her freaked-out patients is holding his wife at gunpoint inside their home. The "actual" videotape of that event that is supposed to be from a camcorder inside a police car parked in front of the house. But somehow, that camera is able to pick up all the audio of the people inside ... how odd.

The doctor begins to suspect that aliens are somehow involved with what her patients are going through. (Although none of them seem able to blurt out the word, "Aliens!" They all mutter things like, "It's the worst you could ever imagine.")

Dr. Abigail gets some help from a fellow shrink played by Elias Koteas, but finds a hostile adversary in the local sheriff. (Embarrassingly over-acted by the usually effective Will Patton.) The cop seems to know very little about the law, ordering the doctor arrested on charges lacking any real evidence and then bizarrely prohibiting her from leaving her home. Where's the Alaska ACLU when you need them?

The script was written by Olatunde Osunsanmi, who makes his directorial debut after being the assistant to filmmaker Joe Carnahan ("Smokin' Aces"). Taking an ill-advised page from M. Night Shyamalan, Osunsanmi appears in the film as himself, doing the "actual" TV interview with the doctor.

At least those cameras worked. Whenever something really interesting is about to happen, the "actual" camcorder video of the event goes all fuzzy and the camera malfunctions. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that those events would have required expensive special effects.

The title, "The Fourth Kind," refers to the different levels of encounters with space visitors. The first kind is a sighting, the second is evidence, the third is contact, and the fourth is abduction. The most disappointing thing about "The Fourth Kind" is an unsatisfying ending with no payoff.

But that's not the end of it: Rep orters have been digging into the events and people portrayed in this story. One newspaper reported that no medical associations in Alaska have a record of a doctor named Abigail Tyler.

Some old articles attributed to her were found on the Internet, but one reporter discovered the Web site they were on had only recently been created. Sounds like a hoax of the "Fifth Kind" -- where the audience's ticket money gets abducted.