attackhorse

(2012-04-29 12:56:58)

Really Bad Movie!

This movie is bad enough that giving it a mark out of ten ismeaningless. On the pass or fail scale it fails on multiple levels.First half the movie is very slow. Sometimes in these type of movies,this is to be expected.Second half of the movie is creepy/shocking at some points but has noreal substance.If you're anything like me, you'll walk out of the theater wondering ifthe ending or the antagonistic forces could have been any more clichГѓВ©.We've all seen this movie before--it just wasn't on the moon and therewere way fewer digital effects to make it seem like the movie was shoton film.Paranormal activity was MUCH more effective at drawing the viewer in;skip this movie for now and thank me when you "rent" it.

thebrighteyes

(2012-04-29 11:55:07)

Half-Baked Horror

For a movie with what must have been a fairly low budget, the Apollo 18filming team definitely did a great job. The moon and space sceneslooked very realistic, and the director definitely knows how to film amovie in the "found footage" genre. The small cast of actors also did apretty great job. So what went wrong here? Overall, I think, the"horror" element of the movie seemed half-baked, and the monstersseemed tacked on.For example, with any good horror movie, the villain is given some sortof motivation - even if those motivations are left vague. But, askyourself, what were the motivation of these moon-rock spiders? Theywould simply attack these astronauts, make them slowly go crazy, themleave them to die. ...Even when they pulled the astronaut into the darkcrater, he re-appeared a little crazier but no worse for ware.For this and other reasons, it seemed that little thought was put intothe plot. Still, the movie was a good way to kill 70-minutes.

Solo2070

(2012-04-29 02:37:42)

Great idea, poor execution

I am a fan of the "found footage" concept. It is an interesting way toportray a story, that can really get to you. This film started off very good. There was the appropriate amount oftension, and just enough background information was given. While thefootage was not of the highest quality, I understand why they did it.It fits the timeline. It does take a bit to get used to to, but afterabout 20 minutes you don't even seem to notice it. The tension was building, and it was doing so quite well. There wassuspense, and the sound added a nice element to it. The problem cameabout 3/4 of the way in. The suspense began to disappear and it was just replaced with scenesdesigned to startle you. They could have held some camera shots alittle longer to build the suspense more, and they could have presentedsome scenes a little differently. Once we actually saw the "creatures," I just thought the movie became alittle dumb. First off, these creatures are something right out ofPirates of the Caribbean. Almost a flat out copy cat. Also, the problemwas that the creatures, and the situation was just too hard to relatetoo. After a bit, I just started to get bored. Some have compared it to the Paranormal Activity films. That is justsimply not a valid comparison. They are the same concept as far asfilming goes, but the styles and delivery are all different. This filmwas by no means as good as those films. I give this a solid 5 out of 10.

donutrock7

(2012-04-28 09:28:55)

No. Just. No.

I didn't like this much.If you like slow paced horrors with no horror except for like 2 scaryparts then fine. But that's not me.Why the heck were the aliens the rocks?! It makes no sense. I hate that I have to sit through this just because I rented it at redbox. The night didn't end all bad, after watching Final Destination 5. Moremy range of horror. But, the fact is, this movie was nothing compared to ParanormalActivity 3.Also, it was almost as bad as I thought Dead Alive was.I'd rather try to eat Shao Kahn's heart than sit through that again.

andell

(2012-04-27 22:30:00)

Beware of moon rocks that go missing...you might be in the sequel!

By now, I assume most people reading this are aware of the fact thatthis is a film that is apparently spliced together from footage takenby the crew of the ill fated "Apollo 18" mission to Mars. Of course it's a faux documentary, but I suspect if you can suspendyour disbelief until after you see the film, it may make the experienceif not more enjoyable, at least less boring! Three astronauts take off for the moon; two of them are to collect rocksamples from the moon's surface, while the third is in orbit above themoon. No one seems to question the need for scores of cameras...butneedless to say, cameras are set up all over the place, and the twoastronauts on the planet have a camera fastened to their space suit! On day 1 of their two day mission they encounter strange rocks thatfeel different...but they still bag them and tag them and take themback to their "lunar pad" if you will. That night they hear strangesounds around them...but they don't draw any conclusions about them.The following morning, they discover one of the rocks is no longercontained, but is sitting on the floor of the quarters. Thinkingnothing much of it, they set out on the second day, discovering aSoviet lunar ship that has landed, and the inside is stained withblood.Searching a dark crater, they find the remnants of the SovietCosmonaut, and decide to hole up until their mission ends. Attempts tofind out if NASA knew about the Soviet mission are quelched with a"need to know" provision.The next morning when they are preparing for take off, they are rattledfrom outside, and their communications are damaged. Unable to take offwithout fixing communications, one of the astronauts leaves the ship torepair the damaged equipment...and realizes something is moving aroundin his space suit.If this description sounds bland, it's because the film IS bland! Mostof the efforts made to keep the audience engaged include zoom shotsthat you can't really see anything in, sounds that seem to have beenselected to try to create atmosphere, and eerie shadow shots of theastronauts on the moon.It's the latter that is somewhat effective at creating the menacingatmosphere...but nothing is really done with it.In the end, none of the astronauts make it home, the government isimplicated in knowingly sending the men to their deaths (as per usual),and we learn that the moon rocks that were so strange are in fact arespider like creatures that, not unlike the aliens in Alien, seem to getinside your body, multiply, and cause you to explode in a washof...alien rock spiders! Oh, and we also learn that something like 500 tonnes of moon rocks havebeen brought back to Earth...most were given away as souvenirs andgifts to foreign dignitaries...and many are now unaccounted for!Duh-duh-daaaaahhh! In earnest, this is a very shallow imitation of the Blair WitchProject, except involving aliens and the evil government rather than awitch. My advice would be to save your money, and either watch "Alien"or "The Blair Witch Project." This is not a good movie!

blackmambamark

(2012-04-27 08:38:07)

To many damn assumptions....

Most people seem to hate the whole 'hand-held' horror movie. "BlairWitch", "Paranormal Activity". The majority of the people i encountersay they hate em'. I however, love the hell out of em'. They're new andoriginal. They offer something fresh to the horror market, becauselet's face it, i'm tired of seeing the same damn thing over and overagain. I mean for Christ sakes, they have 7 'Saw' movies, and 5 'FinalDestinations'. And is that wasn't enough, they're remaking all theclassics. No matter how many people hate on the concept, i will STILLgo and see every single one.Unlike the other 'hand held' horror movies i mentioned before, thismovie takes a much more different approach with it's style of filming.Since this is 'so-called' recovered footage from 1974, it's verygrainy, it's frame rate is very slow, and it's slightly damaged. From athird party perspective, that might sound intriguing, and in a way itis. But there were some portions of the movie that got kind of annoyingwith their jump cuts and white-out techniques. But once you pass the 30minute mark of the movie, you start to get use to the style they'reusing and you don't notice it as much.But the biggest problem i had with the movie was the story. You see, in'Blair Witch', they at least gave you a bit of back-story to what wasgoing on. This one is all assumption......which i HATE. You can get bywith this technique if you were covering something else like ghost, orevil spirits. Even though we know nothing of the subject, we get anidea of what the main characters are dealing with. But when you're inan unfamiliar place like the moon, and you're dealing with aliencreatures, you need to explain a little more, otherwise your audienceis left scratching their heads. And in this case, i was scratchingpretty damn hard. Mainly because i had no idea why they were there,what they were dealing with, and what the governments intentions were.Like i said, it was nothing but assumptions.And speaking of assumptions, you're going to have to assume what thesecreatures actually look like, because you never get that FULLestablishing shot of what they actually look like. You either get aquick 1/2 second glance, or the film is so damaged that you can't makeout what's on screen.Not only that, you never get the idea of how these creatures operate.What are their intentions? How do they live? What are they capable of?WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME SOME DAMN ANSWERS FOR THIS MOVIE!!!However, amidst all the confusion, there is one thing i did like, andthat was the level of intensity. There were certain sequences thatreally had me going. Throughout the entire movie, they did nothingbuild up more and more. So of course, i was expecting this super grandhorror finale'. But it ended in a pretty dull and abrupt fashion. Andonce again, left me with more assumptions.Bottom Line......i appreciate the movie for it's different style offilmaking. But the overall plot had more holes than the moon hascraters. I think if they explained more and brushed up on some of theannoying editing techniques, then this movie would have been somethingto marvel at. It was alright, i didn't hate it, but it's not the typeof movie i'd go raving to my friends about.

jbweldon

(2012-04-26 21:05:15)

A lot of the same, but still interesting...

Yup, it's another one of those found-footage, shaky-cam movies. Justlike Blair Witch, Quarantine, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity. AndI found that this Apollo 18 borrowed a lot of traits from those movies.We had the security cameras like PA2 and the infectious, bloodshot eyedisease from Quarantine.I know this is a poor excuse to back up why the movie was good, but itwas interesting to see this style of movie on the moon. I liked the waythis movie played with NASA history (similar to the opening ofTransformers 3). And in a way, this movie did what I wanted to see from"Dark of the Moon".But still, it was moon spiders. I was a little disappointed. I couldn'thelp but think of the song "Rock Lobster" when the aliens were revealedand from that point on, I couldn't take this movie seriously. This ideareally did have a lot of potential, but it did not use of all of it.As for the characters, they were about as 2 dimensional as you couldget. Nate's "infected" personality was disturbing, but only mildly.As for the scares, PA and Quarantine are definitely scarier. I calledjust about every single scare to my friends just before it happened,including the dead Russian in the cave. Very predictable.If this movie succeeds in the box office and they make sequels like thetitle card at the beginning (Missions 18, 19 and 20) implies, I'd bewilling to give this idea a second chance. It seemed there was a largerforce at work in the movie than just some spiders. I don't believe thespiders were capable of flipping the rover and security camera orpulling Nate into the Crater.If you're a fan of the found-footage horror movies, I recommend thisfilm. It's by no means perfect, but it's still fun.

mylucylumpkins

(2012-04-26 04:45:28)

Yet another missed opportunity.

I had mixed feelings of watching this film in the first place. On onehand, you have the concept of an alien invader in the classical JohnCarpenter's The Thing way, which leads one to believe that you mightcough up the big bucks and see it in theater. Then, you sit back andtry to think of when the last time you saw anything good in theaterwas, and it makes you change your mind. I did rent this one with lowexpectations, and I was not disappointed. I knew it was most likely notgoing to be a strong enough plot, nor cast, nor film making to be theleast bit intriguing, and I was right. The film is another one of thosethat could have been a great film if the concept was put into the righthands, unfortunately it wasn't. The actors were a little over the topon more of a solider character kick instead of one which is sciencebased. Not to mention that it took so long to get into anythingremotely interesting that I felt that I was traveling the light-years.Also, I understand that it was supposed to be the 'lost footage,' butthere was still room for improvement in the camera movement. Then, thebig reveal... an aaallliiieeeennn.... spider? Really? What a waste of$1.07.

ws-dm

(2012-04-26 08:20:22)

Thought provoking.

I found Apollo 18 thought provoking. The alien rock creatures(spider-like creatures) kept the "what if" conspiracy theory frombecoming "I believe that may have happened;" it countered realism withsci-fi.It did make me consider some things. Would a government conceal thetruth from the populous? Would an agency send someone on a missionconcealing the real purpose of the mission from them? Are servants ofthe state true sons, willing to give their life for the welfare of thecountry? I saw the correlation between God sending Jesus to earth, withman sending men on a mission (in this case, man sending men to the moonwith a hidden agenda kept back from those sent).God was willing to send His Son (Jesus) to Earth. Yet, Jesus fully knewHe would give His life for all mankind. He was fully aware deathawaited Him at Jerusalem; "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Sonof Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes,and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to theGentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third dayhe shall rise again." Matthew 20:18-19. At the age of twelve Jesus knewHe "must be about His Father's business." Luke 2:49 Some young men mayjoin the military; they may join to get a job or to get away from home.They may not know their father nor know their father's will. (fatherbeing who they are now under authority to). Their father may send themon a mission, even a mission that they do not fully understand, or amission unto death. Some go because they are under authority, others goblindly, some may be willing to follow their father even unto theirdeath.God was willing to send Jesus for the salvation of all mankind. Jesuswas willing to come and give His life for the salvation of all mankind.When upon the cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why hast thouforsaken me?" Matthew 27:46.In Apollo 18, there came a moment when the crew realized the truth.They had been sent on a mission without full disclosure of knowledge onhand. They realized they were going to be sacrificed for the welfare ofthe nation. NASA was not going to bring them home. In that moment ofunderstanding their reality, they understood their "fathers" wereabandoning them. The "fathers" were willing to give up the "sons" forthe good of many.God answered Jesus' outcrying of "My God, My God, why hast thouforsaken me" when after Jesus yielded up the ghost, the veil of thetemple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. Matthew 27:46-54Jesus opened the way for man to approach unto God; Jesus, the GreatHigh Priest, done away with earthly sacrifices that could never takeaway the sin of man. God allowed Jesus to die for all man, but God didnot leave Jesus in death; God raised Him up; and all who believe areraised up with Him.I see a correlation between God the Father and man as fathers, with Godbeing the greatest Father in whom we can trust.I found Apollo 18 to be thought provoking.

TheLittleSongbird

(2012-04-26 00:59:29)

Seemed intriguing, but never takes off

Apollo 18 actually did seem interesting, it was a good concept and itis the kind of movie I do like watching. I have seen worse from thegenre and I have seen worse movies, both from this year and ever. Iwill give Apollo 18 for the visuals, they are absolutely great and thebest and pretty much the only redeeming value of the movie. However,the movie is badly written in that scenes and bits of dialogue don'tflow very well from one bit to another. Also the ending, it was far tooshort and too rushed. The acting was okay I guess, but the actorsdidn't have much to work from and the characters I just couldn't careabout. Just like how some of the film is constructed thecharacterisations seemed very shallow and clichГѓВ©d. The story is notjust predictable, it is also really flabby, it starts off good, slowsdown in the middle, grinds to a halt and by the time the ending comesthere was not much time left and they rushed it off. Consequently, thetension and suspense levels are disappointingly low. In conclusion,never takes off and very disappointing considering the potential. 2/10Bethany Cox

SilentRater

(2012-04-24 15:56:59)

Oh My...

First Post: I have never posted about any movie here nor ever, untilnow.Because this movie has a deceiving rating. It should be Minus-7.6.Budget: $5,000,000. Yeah right. There's no way this movie cost over theprice of a cheap "web cam" and some pc video editing software. and noteven an HD web cam at that. oh and the space suit rentals.I'd rather watch Blair Witch a hundred times in a row than to watchthis ever again. Save yourself the time with this movie, And just watchthe trailer. It's much better. I could make a better movie with an HDweb cam and my pc. The acting was OK I suppose, but that was about it.Unfortunately they did the better work on the trailer.Man o man.. what some phony ratings on this movie.... I will be readingmore comments next time around and not just look at ratings. The moviecreators must have been voting for themselves on this one. LOL! Orpeople were voting on the trailer. Disappointment Rating:100+

ArtandJoyofMovies

(2012-04-24 13:10:54)

Pure Space Junk

What a terrific piece of junk. This was clearly the worst excuse for amajor motion picture release I have seen since Paranormal Activity 2.Take a huge piece of crap like Paranormal Activity 2, mix it with atotal waste of time like Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011), toss inyour very worst Super 8 home movies from the 1960′s, add a pinch ofstupid campfire stories and you will still end up with better qualitythan Apollo 18. It is such a bad a film, it's insulting.For starters, the actual filming was awful. When I go to see a majormotion picture release, I expect quality cinematography. It is fine ifthe director wants to toss in a film reel or two from 1972 NASAarchives, but even old NASA footage is of much better quality. TheBlair Witch Project (1999) had better editing and camera work. Why doesthis entire film look like it was filmed with a rusty Super 8 homemovie camera? Terrible acting, worse writing and a stupid plot—it's asure fire ticket to oblivion. This film should get targeted in aconsumer class action lawsuit for fraud.This only positives were that it was over before I died and it had a0.0 P Factor. Trust TMG, do not waste your time or money. Find an oldtube television that does not work and stare into it for an hour and ahalf in a dark closet while eating popcorn. You will get the sameeffect.

zetes

(2012-04-24 22:25:39)

Decent found-footage horror flick; if you like that genre, you should like this

A found-footage horror movie that purports to have been recovered fromNASA's secret final moon mission in the early 1970s. If you're a fan offound-footage horror movies, this one is definitely worth seeing. Itfollows the formula a little too closely, and in the end it's a taddisappointing. But, I must say, this is the only genre of horror moviesthat pretty much always scares me. It's all about keeping the threatoff screen for as long as possible, giving only hints of it until thefilm nears the end. They rely mostly on boo! moments and loud noises,but it generally works, at least for me. There's a nice sense of dreadfor quite a while in the film, and, like The Blair Witch Project orParanormal Activity, I was watching it with my eyes slightly avertedfrom the screen. The ending of this one is pretty silly, and it deniesus a final twist that it hints at frequently. Like those previous twomovies I mentioned, I'll never watch this again, but I was quiteentertained while watching it.

andy-hart15

(2012-04-23 23:19:50)

A truly stupid film

OK. So i can see why they would make a movie that has an interestingpremise like it does, but the "big twist" in the film is so incrediblystupid. They show it in the preview! And they SHAMELESSLY copy fromParanormal Activity when one of the astronauts stands up and stares atthe other while he sleeps. This movie had NO originality. Thank God Ionly paid $5 for it, but it was $5 too many. And then the film makershave the gall to make you think it's real by putting a web address atthe end. I know they tried to make it look older (the film takes placein 1972 i believe) but they went a little overboard with the cameras.The cameras were like modern day cameras with after affects put on tomake the film look older. It REALLY didn't seem like they were trying.The ending makes you say to yourself, "Are you F**cking kidding me". Myfriends and I were hoping that if the movie had been bad, it would atleast be the kind of bad movie that we can laugh at, but it wasn't. Itwas just terrible. This has been the worst movie I've seen all year.

rowanlc

(2012-04-23 01:22:57)

Apollo 18 Short Review

Interesting and realistic-feeling setting with good psychologicaleffects. Early reviews were negative saying it was predictable andnon-scary but yes some parts were predictable, but only if you stoppedpaying attention to the film and thought about it. There are goodscares, even though they are "jump scares". But this was a film when itdoesn't matter if it was predictable and had obvious scares, it wasjust a fun scary intense film that makes you think. If you enjoy filmswith a good government conspiracy or found-footage films then youshould enjoy this. Imagine it like a Blair Witch Project except it'souter-space and instead of any witches its aliens that do get seenbriefly at a few points

cfb-150-652465

(2012-04-22 17:02:28)

Save your money

The most redeeming aspect of this movie was that it lasted only 1 hourand 26 minutes. It seemed like an eternity. I am not a big fan of thehand held camera style of Blair Witch Project, etc. This movie was noteven that good. The plot was weak and predictable. It left you onlyglad it was over. There was no real acting involved and the acting thatdid exist was lack luster. This was no fault of the actors (all threeof them), but the writer and director gave them nothing to work with.It's portrayed as real events, though we all know that it's simplyfiction. Some people might actually believe it. I pity them. My groupof 4 saw on (the smart one) walk out after 10 minutes. I need to seeanother movie just to get the memory of this one out of my brain.

terrycopter

(2012-04-21 16:29:37)

secret mission to the moon

this movie is attempting to portray an actual event and is shown indocumentary style. i found it to be incredibly boring from start tofinish and any person who thinks that this is a watchable movie iseasily entertained the premise of the movies is that it was a secretmission to the moon for the DoD but as the movie unfolds ..... the socalled special effects were no better than watching an episode of themuppets and the futile attempts to instill fear in the audience werelaughable at no time was I on the edge of my seat screaming at thescreen to tey and stop the cast form doing something they shouldn't Atthe end i realised that will be 3 hours ( oh thats right it wasn't thatlong - although it felt like it) I wont get back

ayaka-2

(2012-04-21 12:16:29)

Do not go

t may contain spoilers. Well my review will be very short. This moviewas done very badly. The only saving grace of this movie was theequipment and technology of the time.The Bad: The Blair Witch Project angle is over play, if I wanted to seehome videos I go to LiveLeak.com. The aliens had no bases; I understanda horror flick is not base in reality, but man this was done verybadly. We all may have hope in being a writer for movies. So in shortdo not waste your time in any way to see this movie, rental, theater. Icover the good in my introduction, so please no more Blair WitchProjects.

mm-39

(2012-04-20 20:18:05)

Another Blair Witch style of movie!

I liked Apollo 18! Apollo 18 is another Blair Witch documentary stylemovie. What worked for Apollo 18 is the story. The moon mission is ablack opts mission run by the defense department. What the astronautsdo not know, and my guess the Defense Department did, was their landingsite is close to where a failed Soviet mission landed. Events for theAmericans go from strange to bad over time. By the time the Americansfigure out what is going on we have a very exciting ending for themovie. I give Apollo 18 7 out of 10. I found the story with the moonlanding pictures exciting and worth watching. Nothing beats a goodstory.

crimpit

(2012-04-20 05:36:43)

Dull and uninspiring

This film is best summed up by my comment to my brother when he got upto go to the toilet and asked me to tell him what happened. 'I don'tthink you'll miss much' I said, and was correct. To be fair, I wouldhave been correct if he hadn't bothered coming back, or even hadn'tcome in the first place.Very poor character development. Practically no suspense developedthroughout, and even poorly faked. High def images overlaid withcine-camera 'crackle', anyone? Compare this with the more traditionally filmed, and more obviously scifi 'Moon', and I don't think anyone will prefer Apollo 18.