# Apollo 18



## groph (Sep 3, 2011)

*mod edit: spoiler tags, use them*

Just saw Apollo 18. Total garbage. The following is a total spoiler.




Spoiler



It's 1974, and NASA is planning to launch a top secret mission to the moon, Apollo 18. The purpose is to plant an early warning ICBM detection system, as the Cold War is still going on. The astronauts, because this makes total sense, are instructed to put motion detecting cameras around their landing site. They go off in the Lunar Rover, doing typical astronaut things, like looking at rocks and picking some of them up. Weird shit starts happening. There's radio interference coming from somewhere that is making communication with home base next to impossible. One of the space rocks that one of the astronauts collected has mysteriously ended up on the floor of the lunar module (they keep meticulous track of such things). The astronauts explore some more, and discover a Soviet lunar module, to their total disbelief. The Soviet cosmonaut is found dead as fuck nearby in a crater and the interior of the module is badly damaged, scratched, and covered in blood. The American landing site starts getting interfered with, the flag gets torn down, the Rover is flipped over, and the module gets damaged. One astronaut goes outside to inspect things and it is then that he discovers non-human tracks in the dust of the Moon. Throughout the movie you see footage from the cameras they set up, slowly zooming in on ...moon rocks. That start moving. Let's just get this out of the way. The aliens are crab-like things that live inside of moon rocks, or maybe they're some sort of shell, and they burst out of them and cause mayhem. Some of them are big, but we never really see one. They're mostly little hand-sized crab things that can burrow inside of you and give you a nasty infection. That misplaced space rock? It found its way into one of the astronaut's space suit, and it attacked him when he went out to inspect things. He starts going slowly crazy, and all the while it dawns on the other astronaut that Mission Control was lying the whole time, they weren't going out to plant an early warning system, they were pretty much being used as bait for aliens. Life support starts running low in the module so the two astronauts are forced to go to the Soviet lander, which still has lots of fuel and oxygen. The infected guy is snatched away by one of these crab things and the last remaining astronaut gets into the lander. He is about to take off when the infected astronaut comes back, totally batshit crazy, and he's trying to smash the door open with his pick axe. The lander manages to take off, but a bunch of crabs made it on board so buddy got fucked. The lander collided with the craft orbiting the Moon (Apollo missions consisted of a module that orbits the moon and acts as communication, and a module that actually lands on the surface) so everybody dies.

The movie is shot in that "found footage" style, like Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project. It tries to pass itself off as being edited together using the footage the astronauts gathered during the mission. Some actual stock NASA footage is used in the movie but the entire thing is really grainy 16mm film from the cameras the astronauts carry with them the whole time. There are extreme amounts of camera cuts. The movie almost gives an effective feeling of suspense but it really relies too much on sudden shocks, like loud noises or things jumping. It's a great idea for a movie and it had a ton of potential. The scenes which show footage from the cameras they set up around the site could have been the key to making this movie fucking terrifying, and the extreme claustrophobia of the lunar module could have been played up a bit more. Really, it's two men on a giant chunk of rock in a tiny little lander. The lunar surface is bleak, and nobody will ever be able to help them if something goes wrong. It's a great setting for a more psychological horror, but they insist of having things pop out at you. The aliens are also completely fucking stupid. Crabs hiding in rocks. We see a brief shot of a large crab in one of the outside camera shots, but the ones that actually get on screen are these little tiny things. If the aliens were even just more traditional, like humanoid Signs-style things, it would have been monumentally scarier and if we got more outside motion detecting camera shots that lingered some real suspense could have been built up. There are also tiny windows in the Lunar Module so if something were to appear in one of those in the background, not as a pop out but if say, an alien was standing there for the entire shot but it's barely noticeable until it moves away or something, pants could have been shat. Tiny space crabs just aren't scary. They're totally implausible. The end of the movie is all like "DEEZ ASTONAUTS WERE "OFFICIALLY" SED TO HAEV BEN KILLED IN VARIOUS ACCIDENTS ADN THEIR BODEES WER NEVER RECOVERD LOL. NASA RETEREIVED 800 POUNDS OF SPAECE ROCKS, SOME WER GIVEN TO WORLD LIEADERS N A BUNCH HAEV GON MISNG, WAT DO?" and then we get a plug for a "www.lunartruth.org" so basically you get trolled by conspiracy nuts. Of course there are a ton of conspiracies surrounding the Moon missions and apparently the government is hiding evidence that we have made numerous contacts with alien life, but this movie hardly blows the cover open. Space crabs fucking ruin everything. It would have been so much cooler if there was an army of infected Russian cosmonauts and the last surviving astronaut has to fight them off. Zombies on the Moon.


----------



## Chickenhawk (Sep 3, 2011)

Thanks for the review

I shall spend my money and time on something else.


----------



## simulclass83 (Sep 4, 2011)

I just saw this, and I don't even like horror movies. It was scary, but maybe I'm just a pussy. I agree with the point of the potential of the movie. There were a bunch of shots of from the orbiting craft they could've made use of.


----------



## groph (Sep 4, 2011)

Yeah, my heart rate was skyrocketing but I fucking hate aliens and I don't really enjoy having the bejeesus scared out of me thanks to startling scenes. Horror is more effectively produced in actual frightening plot concepts, not a bunch of shit jumping at you. The quarter second long frames of Captain Howdy's face in The Exorcist spliced in are fucking terrifying, though. 

I couldn't relax and enjoy the movie because shit always jumps out. They could have done so much more.


----------



## SilenceIsACrime (Sep 4, 2011)

groph said:


> I couldn't relax and enjoy the movie because shit always jumps out.



I can't help but feel that relaxing isn't really the reason people watch horror movies.... 

Also, I just saw this and honestly I thought it was pretty alright - nothing spectacular but was still a fun little space romp. I thought the lack of showing things made it more suspenseful; when you keep seeing screens pop up of what's outside the lander it's like "Is this the time we see something? Was that rock there before? Oh shit...."

I would probably say it's worth renting over seeing in theaters.


----------



## Ryan-ZenGtr- (Sep 4, 2011)

By paying to see this type of film you encourage them to make more; now that is horror.

*sigh*

Any way, it's all wrong, it's not space rock herpes aliens, it's Nazi's on the moon;


----------



## shredguitar7 (Sep 4, 2011)

i liked it


----------



## groph (Sep 4, 2011)

It'd be super cool if someone showed me how to use spoiler tags, or directed me to the part of the site where it says how.


----------



## Chickenhawk (Sep 5, 2011)

[ spoiler ] [ / spoiler ] 

no spaces.


----------



## gilsontsang (Sep 12, 2011)

terrible movie, agreed.


----------

