Apollo 18

hi there

well, with my beloved car off the road (again, i know) i am on an enforced lay off, and thus had the chance to catch up on yet another film that i've been wanting to see. this time around it was Apollo 18. i had received some warnings that it was "not that great" but it was the first thing i grabbed and anyway i wanted to see for myself.

this is going to be a brief review in order to avoid giving spoilers, but for the over-sensitive reader, avoid after the poster. in short, the film is well above average in the "found footage" genre, it's incredible looking for a US$5 Million budget and it's worth 80 minutes of the life of any horror / spooky / conspiracy fan.




the premise of the film is that the American space missions did not in fact come to an end with Apollo 17. in secret, and apparently at the last minute, Apollo 18 was given the "good to go" signal.

this is to the delight of the crew of the new mission, if not also to their confusion, as they figure surely NASA has more than enough rocks to be getting on with. anyway, off they go, collecting samples and....for reasons they are not given, setting up permanent cameras with motion sensors built in.




the two who venture to the surface of the moon find their sleep disturbed by some peculiar noises, which is odd since they are, after all, on the moon. they subsequently investigate and discover that there was apparently at least one other secret moon landing, and perhaps they are not alone.....




and that's all i am prepared to say, which may well be too much as it is.

as hinted at above, it turned out to be rather good. every now and then, i confess, my interest started to drop but was soon boosted with something or other happening. the use of different, plausible cameras for this "found footage" film was inspired - certainly a step up from the infamous Cannibal Holocaust and hyped Blair Witch in terms of plausible found footage rather than clearly staged. if you know what i mean.

the whole genre of "found footage" films seems to be getting a bit of a revival at the moment. and why not? they are apparently rather cost effective to make, tend to be far more creative than just sequels and remakes and, if done properly like this, can be jolly good horror films. coming soon, for instance, is a film called V/H/S, which has had rave reviews thus far.

the biggest frustration i found with Apollo 18 was that for some reason they have switched off the websites which were used to promote the film for its theatrical release. odd, then, that on the DVD they have left the web address thing there for you to try and visit but meet only with frustration. as the home video market is the natural home for a film like this, what a peculiar decision.

Apollo 18 is no masterpiece but it is also no waste of time. if like me you were curious but others had warned you off, ignore them and give it a try.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!