Apollo 17 was the last mission to the moon and 18, 19, and 20 were cut due budget cuts. Well, that’s just what the American government wanted us to think claims the new Blair Witch Project/Paranormal Activity style movie, Apollo 18.
“Apollo 18” is a conspiracy theory based movie, which provides the link, lunartruth.com, at the end credits. The website appears to be, supposedly, some sort of additional source material. However, as of Sunday September 4, 2011, it is a ghost site and does not exist, possibly in a strategy to generate the supposed plot of the movie. As if the government is going to shut down a website, but let a major motion picture with supposed footage, or at least reenactment of the footage, slip through the cracks.
Apollo 18 is about 3 astronauts who are sent on a space mission to the moon by the Department of Defense to test some type of new communication system. The 2 astronauts that make the moon landing find some odd moon rocks, an old abandon U.S.S.R. space pod full of blood, and the body of a single cosmonaut at the bottom of crater; both the Soviet pod and cosmonaut aren’t supposed to be there, as the Soviet’s space program hadn’t sent a manned mission since 1969. All along, there are some very odd occurrences happening with the communications equipment, and the motion cameras pick up a bunch of movement that you can hardly see.
The American flag gets smashed, and so does the landing pod. Strange footsteps show up, and the rocks seem to move around on their own. Then we learn the rocks can grow legs and get into space suits and government knew about it. Everything ends like a Greek-American tragic cover up.
There are parts of the movie that are unbelievable and silly, like the lunar-spider rocks, which in the denouncement states that 810 pounds of lunar rock has been brought back from the moon, passed out to a bunch of rich diplomats, and has all been reported stolen or missing. Well, if that’s so, that’s enough rock to bring about the apocalypse by the size of these things, which are smaller than a fist. However, if they transformed into crack-cocaine on arrival to Earth, it would explain the outbreak of the drug epidemic during the 1980’s. It may explain Spiderman’s origins too, but that’s a summer blockbuster away, and conspiracy theorists around the globe have failed to speculate so far.
Some of the cut scenes of the moon are cheesy looking too. You can tell the scenes have very little special effect and are made of clay or paper cut outs, or maybe even drawings. If it was aiming to give genuine appearance here, it fails. It really looks fake.
If there was one thing the movie does great at, it builds tension well and holds it throughout. And the actors do an ok performance. There are more than a few places that you might jump, but I dare not say it truly belongs to the horror genre. Apollo 18 is purely science fiction conspiracy. A conspiracy in filmmaking that has moved from the backwoods of Black Hills, Maryland to suburban homes were demonic spirits roam, and has now quantum leaped back in time to man’s final frontier.
