Film Sponge

The “found footage” Horror film Apollo 18 launched into theaters last night. Just in case you were uncertain (by which I mean, ridiculously undereducated) NASA media liaison Bert Ulrich wants to make sure you know:

Apollo 18 is not a documentary. The film is a work of fiction, and we always knew that. We were minimally involved with this picture. We never even saw a rough cut. The idea of portraying the Apollo 18 mission as authentic is simply a marketing ploy. Perhaps a bit of a ‘Blair Witch Project’ strategy to generate hype.

Well that’s a relief! Seriously, NASA, don’t be ridiculous! Were they really concerned that someone might be confused, or were they just jumping at a chance to seem relevant now that we’re losing the space-race? By the way NASA, referring to The Blair Witch Project is so 1998. Get over yourselves!

Read my review after the jump. WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS…

In space, no one can hear you sucking.

Okay, perhaps that’s a low-blow considering I was reasonably entertained. But Saucy Josh is a complex and (somewhat harsh) movie critic who demands excellence on several levels. Apollo 18 is a solid Horror movie, great for conspiracy theorists, sci-fi heads, and those who feel a deeper connection with “La Luna”. Unfortunately, Apollo 18 is a terrible found footage piece as it is utterly unconvincing as a documentary.

I guess Apollo 18’s target audience is too young to realize that, almost 40 years ago, cameras were humongous, bulky monstrosities with no streaming capabilities, that required a medium for recording (film). Yet somehow, we have a found footage Horror movie with hundreds of camera angles that would have required crates of tape. Like NASA would really have had a dashboard cam on the rover to record the astronauts’ faces!

Apollo 18 claims its footage was culled from dozens of hours of recordings, recently released via an organization known as LUNARTRUTH.COM (but don’t bother verifying this source. My computer timed-out after trying to connect to this website for over 10 minutes). Now explain why, with so much material at your disposal, you would choose to show us so much boring, mundane bullshit? And what’s up with that speed-freak, rock video style footage of the Captain sleeping in his hammock? In all, Apollo 18 has just 5-7 “money-shots” with at least 3 of them having already been released in trailers.

A huge reason why intelligent aficionados will find it difficult to connect to Apollo 18 is that there’s an obvious difference between the vintage (real) NASA footage, and the film itself. Despite the 1970’s camera effect, the film is still so high-resolution a viewer can read 16-point font on the equipment, and see individual stubble on the men’s faces. Clearly, Director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego hopes his audience hasn’t seen much actual footage from the early 70’s, because even the best of it wasn’t that good! (Again, we’re talking about transitions recorded on equipment that would now be considered antique!)

Now get this: By leaving the film’s biggest question unanswered, the producers have set themselves up perfectly for a sequel. The biggest question being: “How did all of this footage make it back to Earth?” As Captain Walker himself explains, “They need us alive. They need this footage”. Well since you guys never made it back… someone else must have gotten it. I’m calling it now: Apollo 19—straight to DVD.

This film makes NASA’s official statement all the more ironic, ‘cause if you actually believed anything in Apollo 18 was real, I’ve got a bridge in San Francisco I’d like to sell you. In the end, Apollo 18 broke the cardinal rule of found footage Horror: They cued up a piano solo and rolled the credits. So even if an extremely gullible viewer watches this film, thinks it might be real, and begins to worry that morphing space-spiders may be scurrying around Earth on the lose, the fact that we know who designed the costumes and who did the stunts should finally put your mind at ease. What a relief!

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I probably would have had more fun reviewing Shark Night 3D (also released yesterday). At least I’ll be seeing that one with low expectations.

2 1/2 out of 5 Skulls!

Poster:

Saucy Josh writes a blog for intelligent Horror Movie aficionados called Blood and Guts for Grown Ups: https://bloodandgutsforgrownups.wordpress.com/

Source: [LATimes]