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This chapter explores Nigerian American Olatunde Osunsanmi’s commercially successful film The Fourth Kind as African sf immersing the audience in an empathic experience of the Transatlantic Human Trade as described in Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative, and alien invasion and colonization as depicted in Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino. Analysis includes excavation of traditional pre-Christian Ifá symbolism in the film, such as the use of the owl to represent the quest for wisdom and humility of the god/dess Obatala, and situates Osunsanmi’s experiential achievement in relation to the legacy of H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds.

The self-sacrificing child in turn-of-the-twenty-first-century films risks safety or life itself to rescue a scapegoated child or loved one from suffering, to save a community from hardship, or to otherwise meet collective needs. The sacrificial child surrenders or substitutes its own innocence, suffering, blood, or earthly existence to ransom the scapegoat or alleviate his/her isolation. This essay analyzes the motives of and meanings implied by the self-sacrificing child.