Apollo 18 Review

Oh, Fergie. What a soothsayer you are. Did you have any idea that the catchy lyric you threw out in the Black Eyed Peas song "Boom Boom Pow" would essentially become an anthem for the whole "found footage" theatrical genre? Indeed, while Apollo 18 is a noble effort in trying to carve out a niche for itself within this motif, it is -- if truth be told -- "so 2000 and late." Sci-fi and thriller elements aside, what the film does have going for it is an authenticity to what real space mission broadcasts played out like in the '60s and '70s. And that's something for all you NASA enthusiasts out there, huh?

A Look at Apollo 18

While a typical conceit for low-budget horror films (i.e. The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, [REC], et al), the concept surrounding Apollo 18 (produced by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, the only real name attached to the project) is indeed refreshing. Officially, Apollo 17 -- launched December 7, 1972 -- was the last manned mission to the moon. But a year later, in December 1973, two American astronauts were sent on a secret mission to the moon funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. What movie-going audiences are watching in theaters is the actual footage of what those astronauts encountered while on that mission, leaked to ApolloTruth.org. (It would seem there are more than just moon rocks on the south pole of Earth's satellite.) While NASA denies its authenticity, others say it's the real reason why humans have never gone back to the moon.

The fact that the "found footage" motif is being applied here to a sci-fi premise elevates the project above the "dime a dozen" entries currently crowding the marketplace. But it's also a major obstacle to the film's success -- its core theme just isn't all that original. In fact, the Norwegian film Trollhunter is really the only recent movie to break that mold in this writer's opinion. But let's start by looking at the faux documentary conceit of the project itself.


Perhaps a backhanded compliment which I can't take credit for as it was another critic I overheard making the comment while walking out of the theater, Apollo 18 really does play out like the old NASA broadcasts our parents might remember airing on national television during the heyday of the space exploration program. The movie is slow, sterile and scientific in its delivery; an attention to detail and authenticity that, if intentional, are definitely worthy of recognition.

But that, unfortunately, is also one of the fundamental problems with the film: Its pacing is just way too sluggish. Aside from the small twinges of tension sure to creep up on audiences (there are, after all, inherent dangers in space travel), it takes viewers until the final act of the film to get to the point where they begin to feel any kind of real extraterrestrial threat (this is a sci-fi horror film, after all). Perhaps had the tension kicked in earlier, it wouldn't have felt so tiresome.

To the Moon! Watch Some Apollo 18 Clips

As for the scares themselves, they were ultimately kind of tame. The fact that astronauts are trapped in space -- their lives in a very real kind of danger -- already creates a certain amount of tension. But the creature scares just weren't there. And this is a genre that really doesn't rely on big effects shots to create fright. I guess shots of a zoned out Mike standing in the basement corner of that creepy shack in the woods and Micah getting yanked from his bedroom by an unseen entity has desensitized us to the kinds of low budget scares these movies have become reliant on.

At the end of the day, Apollo 18 is 86 minutes of "been there, done that" low-level scares sure to frustrate even the most discerning horror fan. Audiences looking to quench any kind of heart-pounding NASA fix they may be feeling this long holiday weekend would be better served dusting off the big-budget retelling of Apollo 13 from their DVD racks.

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