Review of Apollo 18 (2011) by Joe C — 29 Jan 2012

I would imagine that when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, there would have been some who wondered if they were going to encounter Aliens. This film plays with the fear of being in an isolated, unknown environment.

I'm not much for 'found footage' films. However I did rather enjoy this for the concept. Also, because the cameras were often mounted and therefore fixed, I didn't get motion sickness from every scene.

There were a number of issues I had from a technical point of view.

First of all, the low gravity wasn't really shown. The astronauts walked around fairly normally, and didn't bounce like the Apollo 11 crew did.

Secondly there was too much sound. When outside it should have been completely quiet. The breathing sounds were fine, but there was a lot of sound that shouldn't have been there.

Thirdly (spoiler alert)...

How did the Aliens get into the suit of the 1st guy without creating a hole? I don't get that. It should have depressurised his suit.

Fourthly, no score. Whilst I get why, I would have liked some musical score to this film. I think it would have helped keep the attention a little more.

The creatures were an interesting concept, but they seemed to be simply a crab walking on the camera. Mind you, it was clearly a low budget film.

Worth a look for those who like these sorts of films. Not a lot of tension, but if you try to imagine the isolation factor, it can help you be more involved with what the characters are going through.