Apollo 18 (2011)

 If you buy in to official statements, Apollo 17 was NASA's last manned mission to the moon. But what if found footage of a secret Apollo mission that had taken place the following year could prove otherwise -- and explain why we haven't gone back?

In what may be an overused statement with nearly every one of these releases, all of these found footage films all seem to follow a pre-determined path because they are forced to because of the style they choose. Things begin on high hopes, strange things start to happen, something happens to the filmmakers and all that is left of their “experience” is the footage that they shot found by some unknown person who decides to make it into a movie. Apollo 18 follows this path pretty much too a tee, but all things considering, it might be the most ambitious films I have seen from the genre.

The idea that there was something on the moon that prevented us from wanting to go back is an attention grabber. That’s the film rope to try and reel you in, but what they do next is either going to keep you guessing or turn you off from boredom. In a really slow process, the astronauts quickly arrive on the moon, and once there, they begin to do their mission of setting up surveillance equipment to spy on the Russians, but slowly they begin to realize that was never their mission. They were brought up there to discover the moons best kept secret.  This process is very slow and I realize some maybe many (according to the RT score of 24%) become bored of this routine and setup, but the people that will enjoy it witness a very authentic feeling story that is carefully constructed to make it feel like its actual found footage. The mystery on the moon isn’t copped out with them revealing full circle what it is, but what many people including me will be left in the dark on everything about the mystery. It answers absolutely no questions one might ask.

As for the actors themselves, they are all relatively unknown actors into the roles which make the film feel more authentic. They did a pretty damn good job. Typically there is one annoying character in all of these films, but with only three actors shown throughout, they all made due on their screen time. The lead, if you’d like to call him that, Ben Anderson did a great job of establishing his character and made you root for him and feel the weight of the consequences that came due to the choices he makes. To me, he felt like a real astronaut, a real husband, and a real friend.

The department that comes down to the biggest disappointment is its horror aspect. It’s simply not scary. It can be tense in a few of its moments and being stuck in space with small spaces and low oxygen, these are terrifying scenarios, but in terms of actual jumps, I can count on one hand how many times that happened. If you’re looking to watch a highly ambitious film that falls a little short, but can still appreciate what it tried to accomplish, Apollo 18 is a real winner. Its not the best, but is probably my personal favorite found footage film.

Overall Score: 6.5/10