Calling Apollo 18 a “found footage” film is a slight misnomer, since this isn’t really a Blair Witch Project, Rec or Paranormal Activity-style movie. The film is designed to visually resemble “real” (video) footage—shaky-cam, drop-outs, blurred scenes—but there is little or no formal attempt to make Apollo 18 seem reconstructed from such sources, as some other movies made in this style have done.
This isn’t a complaint. Although an interesting project could be made about the recovery of “lost” footage and its subsequent assembly into a film that reveals dark secrets, Apollo 18 instead opts for a relatively linear narrative utilising images which merely look raw and unprofessional; the result is a fairly engrossing, if formally conventional work of horrific science fiction.
In the late 1970s, three astronauts are sent on a classified mission for the Defense Department (something about installing an early-warning missile defense system on the Moon). One man (Grey) remains in orbit while his two companions, Walker and Anderson, pilot the lunar lander down to the Moon’s surface. At first the mission goes smoothly, the equipment is set up and rock samples are collected, but soon…strange things begin to occur, unusual tracks are spotted, a Russian lander—complete with a dead cosmonaut—is discovered, interference disrupts radio communication with Earth and the orbiter, then Walker collapses while on a moon walk. He is rescued by Anderson, who discovers his partner has suffered an odd wound caused by something that did not penetrate his spacesuit from the outside. Not wanting to spoil the whole story, I’ll simply drop a few key words: moon rocks, alien spiders, psycho astronaut, military conspiracy, Cold War oneupmanship, expendable NASA personnel can’t come home, government cover-up.
Apollo 18 effectively conveys the fear and isolation of the astronauts: the scenes on the Moon and in the lunar lander have a sense of verisimilitude which is, ironically, greatly enhanced by the “inferior” quality of the photography. If the film had been shot in the usual slick, glossy manner—think of Moon, for example—the impact would have been considerably less. The mission of Apollo 18 turns into a horrifying nightmare for the astronauts, and our inability to clearly see what’s going on is frustrating but at the same time adds to our unease. Brief, fragmentary images of…something…build suspense and while there’s no final “reveal” or payoff, the film is not unsatisfying (if we’d been given a clear glimpse of the “monsters” and/or had some sort of “explanation” provided, the odds are about equal that this would have been silly or great or… meh). Instead, a lot is left unexplained. But it seems to me the point of Apollo 18 is the feelings it evokes while one is watching, rather than a clever or controversial plot (or plot twist) to be discussed and dissected afterwards (compare this to Red State: while that film is certainly entertaining to watch, it’s even more entertaining to think about and discuss later).
The commenters on IMDB bring up many issues which, objectively, make Apollo 18 seem rather silly and illogical in retrospect. To mention just one: the mission is top-secret (even the astronaut’s wives were told their husbands were training in Japan) yet there is footage of an apparent press conference or documentary or something, a special “mission patch” is displayed, and (perhaps most damning) how can one “hide” the launch of a moon rocket?
But none of these occurred to me as I was watching Apollo 18, and they wouldn’t have bothered me seriously even if they had. And I’m not that forgiving when it comes to logical fallacies in film scripts. However, in this particular instance I was caught up in the eerie mise-en-scene and the horror-mystery aspects of the plot, and I let the other stuff slide. Apollo 18 produced moments of genuine suspense and unease, and a film which can generate that sort of sincere emotional reaction in its audience—as opposed to merely startling people by manufacturing cheap “scare” moments with loud noises and jump cuts—deserves a favourable nod.
The production values of Apollo 18 are adequate—the picture probably didn’t cost much to make, but it doesn’t appear cheap or shoddy (once again, the “raw footage” look covers up a lot, but that’s no sin, and the scenes on the surface of the Moon are extremely evocative of actual, archival images). The direction (by Spanish director Gonzalo López-Gallego), editing (by Patrick Lussier, himself a director, cf Drive Angry), and photography are generally effective (with a few exceptions late in the movie, when the sense of time & location gets confusing).
The acting is also satisfactory: basically a 3-character film (with most of the screen time devoted to Anderson and Walker on the Moon), the film thus relies heavily on the ability of its actors, and the performances by the principals are fine. Trivia note: Apollo 18 stars a British actor, an Irish-born Canadian actor, and another Canadian actor as Yanks (the picture is a Canadian-U.S. coproduction, apparently), but nobody slips and says “aboot” or “oot” (as far as I could tell).
Overall, particularly given my trepidation regarding “yet another found footage movie,” I was pleasantly surprised by Apollo 18. It’s not great, but it wasn’t a waste of my time either.
