Scare de lune: Paranormal moon activity
A thin but fairly diverting entry in the low-fi fakeumentary horror genre, Apollo 18 explains what's really on the moon and why the U.S. space program decided against further study. Why? Because a Blair Witch Project filmmaking seminar set up camp there first, that's why!
A thin but fairly diverting entry in the low-fi fakeumentary horror genre,
Apollo 18
explains what's really on the moon and why the U.S. space program decided against further study. Why? Because a
Blair Witch Project
filmmaking seminar set up camp there first, that's why!
Spanish director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego's exercise in "found" footage scares was produced by Timur Bekmambetov, who directed the popular assassins melee Wanted, which I hated. I didn't hate this one at all.
Like Blair Witch and the Paranormal Activity pictures, Apollo 18 offers zero characterization and very little narrative. It's only about its own DIY aesthetic taken to extremes, and to the limit of the audience's interest and patience.
Many will find Apollo 18 silly and derivative. It is. Yet it's also a break from the usual hyperbolic, down-your-throat brand of silly and derivative scare movies.
Under cloak of super-secrecy, three astronauts played by Lloyd Owen and Warren Christie and a third, uncredited actor - that's how super-secret the mission is - embark on a moon mission to plant some sort of antimissile defense system up there before the Russkies do. The time is 1974. But there's something up there, something besides the remnants of something human. I will say no more about it. The movie, written by Brian Miller, contains only a wee handful of surprises.
Post-Blair Witch, it's remarkable anyone can pull out these old home-movie and security-camera tropes to any sort of decent result. The reason, I think, the Paranormal Activity films in particular succeed is simple. They take their time before sticking it to you. Precious little in our popular culture today takes time for, or with, anything. Apollo 18 cannot satisfactorily answer the question "Wait - who's supposed to be filming this part?" Yet Lopez-Gallego handles the sequences set inside one of the moon's craters well enough to suggest he may have a lot of talent, some of which is on view in this green-cheese outing.
Apollo 18 **½ (out of four stars)
Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego. With Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, and Ryan Robbins. Distributed by Dimension Films.
Running time: 1 hour, 28 mins.
Parent's guide: PG-13 (some disturbing sequences, profanity)
Playing at: area theaters
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