First of all, the movie's gimmick is that it's really two movies -- one is "real" archival footage of the film's events; the other is Milla Jovovich and Colonel Dubaku from 24's reenactment of that "real" archival footage. Sometimes the two depictions are split-screened together and played simultaneously, I guess to show us how hard Casey from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (he's in this too) worked on his impression of the Real Life Psychiatrist (not a real life psychiatrist) his character was based on, but other times they just switched off screen time. That decision is a failure on many fronts. Even if the "real" archival footage hadn't already been pretty much proven to be completely fake by the press -- which it has -- it still seems pointless. Either go full-on Blair Witch and show me a fake documentary, or go full-on scripted and show me a horror film I can get invested in without having to switch gears from "fake" to "real (but also fake)" all the time. Furthermore, since I knew going in that the archival footage was a gimmick, reverting to it every few minutes was a constant reminder that all of it was just pretend. Most movies are not true stories -- I'm aware of that! -- but when you keep stopping the action to reinforce it with something I know to be phony I certainly can't believe the fake reenactment of that already fake footage enough to get scared at all.

Also, that fake footage? Even if I didn't already know it was fake, who would be dumb enough to believe it wasn't? First off, the people in it were so scared (of what, I'm not sure. I guess the aliens finding out they made a documentary about them and suing for slander?) that they insisted their names be changed -- but there faces weren't blurred. Makes sense! Also, the tapes are way too awesome for everyone not to have heard about them yet if they were real. People levitating and speaking ancient demon languages until their spines break and flying saucers sucking babies out of ceilings and crap, all caught on tape? Sure, I believe that's been under wraps until Milla Jovovich decided to show it the world.

And there are other little things at every turn that don't add up. The aliens speak the ancient language of Sumerian, even though they understand English, yet they never choose to communicate in English? Because Sumerian is scarier, I guess? Even though no one in the whole world except one guy at a university somewhere can translate it? Sometimes the aliens have very harsh and urgent words of warning to give, yet they choose to do so in a language their audience can't comprehend, even though they speak that audience's language and really seem like they ought to be smart enough to realize that. Just alien stuff!

There's also this awful, really irritating bad actor sheriff who functions as the guy who doesn't believe in anything, which I guess is necessary, but his whole character is negated in a scene where he keeps shouting at Milla that he doesn't believe in her psychologist mumbo jumbo black magic, but then turns around and accuses of her hypnotizing a guy into murdering his entire family two seconds later. Hypnotizing someone into murdering their children? You are a skeptic, sir! You either believe in the mind magic are you don't, sheffer. Make up your mind over there, screenwriter.

But the screenwriter never makes up his mind. About anything. Because this movie is awful. I like Milla as much as the next Zach Oat, but you'd really be better off renting Resident Evil 3 than paying (in this economy!) to see this.

Did you see it? Commiserate, please!