About The Fourth Kind and the likes

The New York Times Stephen Holden

May be humorless, paranoid nonsense, but its biggest failure is its inability to scare.

Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf

Unfortunately, none of the subsequent noise is all that scary, and the striving for "Paranormal Activity’s" buzz is shameless.

Okay, the major problem about all these reviews is the criterion for "What's horror?". Personally I found both movies (The Fourth Kind and Paranormal Activity) quite horrible. I believe Americans and almost all of other people have the wrong sense of horror (-also that's why it became a tradition for them to ruin Japanese horror cinema). One doesn't need to hear a good scream or scary noises or see a distorted face out of nowhere, violins telling us something is about to come then BAM! a terrifying face on the mirror.

People should read real horror stories to know real horror. Like, Montague Rhodes James's Casting the Runes. Just bear with it and notice the last sentence of this short story.

It shouldn't be the voices on the audio tape or, it shouldn't be the recordings on the video tape. It should be what we can't see, or what the scene evokes in our minds that frighten us.

And, horror has nothing to do with the tempo of the movie.

On the other hand, I agree the following review:

Time Richard Corliss

Osunsanmi wants you to believe that everything he shows you that's not reenacted by professionals really happened, and is documented by the omnipresent video cameras. It's a device used far more successfully in "Paranormal Activity," which had the added benefit of being a good movie.

With the opposition that the movie doesn't necessarily have to be based on real events to be scarier; and it shouldn't deceive the viewer.

Lastly, I don't ever believe the extraterrestrials would be malicious, or malicious beings would use Sumerian language.

PS1: I found it ridiculous the movie merged 3:33am with aliens. The time period between 3:00am until sunrise (or the time of dawn prayer for Muslims) is considered a different thing.

PS2: Owls are beautiful animals and they are considered good in many cultures. For example, it's good seeing an owl in a dream etc. I don't quite like the fabrication of evil connected with a certain animal species.

PS3: Most of this list is not even horror.
Top 25 Horror Movies
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1676793,00.html