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Apollo 18 (2011)
A space mission you were not supposed to hear about, a reason only to be expected. Apollo 18 joins the long line of found footage movies, but happily brings something new to the party.
It seems that it is found footage season! This at times interesting concept in horror movies began over three decades ago with Cannibal Holocaust, then was picked up again in the late 90’s by The Blair Witch Project and The Last Broadcast. Over the last ten years there have been several movies of the type, but now, suddenly out of the blue we have Troll Hunter, Atrocious, A Night In The Woods, and Apollo 18 all having a stab at what is at times movie gold.
Apollo 18 is a story based on a fictitious 18th mission, a mission that nobody ever got to hear about, because during that flight something went terribly wrong. The small crew launch out into space, with one flying over the surface of the moon the other two head down to the surface in order to carry out a range of missions set out by the American Government. When strange things begin to occur, they head off out across the moons surface looking for answers, what they find is an abandoned Russian space vehicle, a lot of blood, and a body.
I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of done with these found footage movies, I say that, but after watching Apollo 18 I’m thinking, maybe, just maybe I can tolerate a few more.
Apollo 18 works because it’s a totally alien (literally) environment, you can justify in your head exactly why everything is being filmed, you can also justify all the unexplained elements, after all its an alien landscape, and somewhere we know nothing about. Previous found footage movies have generally included cannibals, or ancient legends come true, this is a different kettle of fish. And while it stays faithful to the found footage genre, you can kind of look at it, almost as if its not.
Three is the magic number, as often is in these movies, you have three characters trapped by circumstance, for big horror movie fans this is fairly frustrating because of course it limits the amount of possible casualties. Like Blair Witch, A Night In The Woods, and to some degree Troll Hunter, three seems to be an important number, while I’m uncertain as to why, it seems that this odd number works in movies. That being said, with the exception of the start and the ended, this is very much a two hander, which works fairly well.
The atmosphere on the moon is what makes the movie, as is all the transmission problems, failure of cameras etc. This is not one of those movies you want to be watching on your own late at night, this is a daytime movie, or one in company. Not because it’s a particularly scary concept, but the fuzzy camerawork, and heavy breathing does kind of play on your mind a little.
For anyone who has not seen the trailer for the movie, I can imagine they will get one really good scare, the rest of the time however its all unhinging atmosphere.
The cast work very well, Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, and Ryan Robbins (all listed on IMDB as uncredited) perform their little hearts out, particularly Christie who is the audience’s clear lead.
Apollo 18 does not however re-invent the wheel, while like Troll Hunter it is a breath of fresh air, if any more of these sorts of movies are to be made, then they need to go further (I mean further into space), we’ve had everything we can on earth, now we have the moon, and I’d hate to see more of these moon mission type things, there simply is no room.
