Apollo 18

Found footage have made it into the cinema once again. Paranormal Activity made lots of box office money, and every sequel seemed to hold the audience terrified. Now, heres a different kind of found footage, made into a movie. Were going into space in the 70´s, to see what happened on a austronaut journey. Is Apollo 18 the new generations Blair Witch Project?

December, 1974. NASA sends 3 austronauts to the moon, to place detectors on the planets surface. These detectors will help United States detect nuclear weapon attacks, from USSR. But while working, they find a russian Sovjet LK Lander. With no information about this, the team tries to find out whats happened. They find a dead russian cosmonaut. The team is told to continue their work, and ignore this by their headquarters. But something strange is happening outside their lunar model Liberty. Are they really alone out there?

To appreciate Apollo 18, you got to have patience. The storyline is slow, and you dont really see anything, or know whats going on for a long time. But thats a good thing, because most movies tend to giveaway clues too early. Of course im not buying that this is real footage, its simply made to look real. But from a entertainment perspective, Apollo 18 works just fine. Its fun to see director Gonzalez Lopéz-Gallego try to capture the feeling of beeing back in the 70´s with corny movie shots, as filmed by old cameras. It gives this movie some kind of originality, since not that many movies nowdays tell stories about NASA in the 70´s. Even if Apollo 18 is slow at some moments, it still lands as one of the better real footage horror movies this year, thanks to some original ideas. Remember what the Alien poster said? In space...no one can hear you scream.

Rating: DDD