User reviews

Okay here is what u need to know about this movie. Not worth paying for at the movies. If I had to sit in a theater for this I'd be mad but at home OK. BUT worth it for Pay per view or to rent. If you liked Blair witch and like science fiction, you will like, not love, this. If you're older and hate Blair witch, the nostalgia of the moon landings will carry you thru. pretty good movie tho not great.

my goal is to give reviews that let u know what your in for, not nitpick and discuss film techniques,directors, or show my "expertise" in film making. just tell ya if it's a stinker or not.

and to make my minimum ten lines it's good not great. time killer but worth watching.

I was nearly put off seeing it by some of the reviews here.

SO I thought twice about seeing it, however I like sci-fi so had to watch.

The plot is well covered in other reviews.

Yes the style is different but it is in keeping with the moon landing and pictures taken at the time. Its all filmed as though done through the hand-held moon cameras.

Some reviews said actors were wooden but that is the whole point, they are supposed to be normal people (well as normal as any astronauts ) can be.

The test for me is :-

Would I watch it again, yes

Framed as leaked "found footage" from the era of space exploration in the 1970s, Apollo 18 is an attempt to out conspiracy the already rife conspiracy theories concerning the lunar landings. The trouble with framing something as being documentary style footage is you have to get the science right and be free from any loopholes that might break the audience out of the illusion. Apollo 18 falls short on this count. López-Gallego manages to recreate to a certain extent the lunar missions. Portrayed through the various cameras feeding live footage back to Earth we have a Big Brother style look into the doomed from the start space mission. The two man crew of the lunar lander also film themselves on 16mm cameras. Herein lies some of the flaws in the director's logic. We need to get into the character's perspective to relate. This is solely done through these 16mm cameras. They film themselves on the moon's surface as well as personal records in the module. The rest is all caught on remote cameras, the audience being allowed to see the threat before the crew do, privy to the danger the Department of Defence has exposed them to. The live footage makes sense to have been documented; however the 16mm film rolls do not make it out, they share the crews dire fate. How then are we seeing the actions of the crew amidst this found footage? It makes no sense pulling any reasonably astute watcher beyond the line of suspension of disbelief.

It seems clear López-Gallego wants us to care about the cast. We need to care for the conspiracy theory to resonate. The story very directly harks into the era of Watergate where the powers that be cannot be trusted. But his illusion of found footage does not stand up at all well. Does the story really fail on this account? No. It's actually fairly entertaining as it goes. The tension builds; the threat is revealed and played out. However the conspiracy theme and the documentary framing lend the film no real benefit and do not pay off. While there is reams of data on the films website to build the conspiracy it is not present enough on screen to sideline the notion we are victim to a none to subtle slight of hand.

What the film did do with the early footage was remind me why, as a child, I was so fascinated with space. It shows with sufficient realism what the actual Apollo astronauts did and how we as a planet reached for the stars. This is not history as it tries to suggest, but it is a reminder, to me at least, of how sad it is that we no longer pursue such epic destinations as the moon or beyond.

Seen this now, i don't know why, I have been avoiding this one over the year. I was expecting it to be really dull and boring movie..

It was not as boring as I thought it was going to be, well start of slow like all the other found footage movies then gets going before the half hour mark.

I found really enjoyable for most of part of the movie, there was decent amount of Jumps scene in this movie. some jumps scene worked and some missed the mark a little.

The acting was really good from small cast crew, the ending was really predicable.

As I had low expectation of this movie, I found it much better then thought it was going be, not one of best Found footage movies, Decent movie for this genre 5 out of 10

I'd been looking forward to this film for months after seeing a poster for it. The concept of a secret 18th mission to the moon drew me in instantly. After hearing a few mutterings from critics though, I was a little worried it might not be quite the film I wanted it to be. However, after seeing it tonight I'm happy to report that it's just what I expected :)

I'm a fan of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity and this film fits into that genre.

The special effects are brilliant. At no point did I believe they weren't on the moon. Which is daft, but honestly, they were great. The feeling of impending doom and isolation was quite palpable and I tell you this, I can't remember jumping back in my seat so much in ANY film before at certain bits!

All in all a good solid film.

OK but not great. The overall concept isn't that original - sort of The Blair Witch Project on the Moon. The plot itself is original, but relatively predictable.

While the direction gives the movie a realistic feel, it can be a bit irritating at times. The jagged, broken photography is jarring on occasion.

Performances are OK.

Reading the negative reviews for this film, it seems to me that the majority of reviewers who thought this was a poor movie didn't actually follow the plot very closely. There are no major flaws in the story that I could detect, and while the movie does require attention on the part of the viewer to follow what's unfolding, it's hardly rocket science.

The cinematography was fantastic, evoking a real sense of a moon mission, and as such, this is one of the few "found-footage" films (along with "REC") that provides the principles with a believable reason to document what occurs out-with the questionable "I-must-film-this-for-posterity" nonsense served up by the likes of "Cloverfield".

The small cast do a sterling job, and I don't quite follow how some other reviewers found the characters "unlikeable". The performances in the film evoked my interest. I found myself sympathising with their plight from the outset, and my involvement increased as the film continued. Much of this came from the terse script which was pleasantly free from filler and the baggage of back-story.

I thought the pacing of "Apollo 18" was excellent, creating an edge-of-the-seat uneasy tension building to absolute horror. I think fans of "Paranormal Activity" will enjoy this film. Those who didn't enjoy "Paranormal Activity" will most likely not like "Apollo 18". In the end, I guess it all depends on what scares you. "Apollo 18" scared me. That makes it a successful horror movie in my opinion. But horror, like so much else, is a relative concept.

I have friends who didn't enjoy "Paranormal Activity", and I can understand why: it simply didn't poke them in their scary-bone. Me, I ended up sleeping with the light on after watching it. "Apollo 18" is one of those films - if it's going to scare you, it'll really scare you; but if gradually-rising terror isn't your thing, it'll probably disappoint.

Despite being a low budget production, there's nothing amateur about the delivery. I think "Apollo 18" is a taut and disturbing horror story that puts bigger budget disappointments like the cliché-filled "Cloverfield" to shame. Think "Moon" meets "Paranormal Activity". If that sounds like your type of movie, then don't let this one slip under your radar.

...and I hope the people next to me in the cinema couldn't hear me yawning, which I started doing after about half-way.

These 'found footage' movies have varied over the years, since The Blair Witch Project kicked it all off. I had mixed feelings about that, but overall I felt it was an effective chiller: what's NOT seen is often so much scarier. Cloverfield, for me, remains at the top of the list, while the PA films are way down.

Apollo 18 isn't far from the bottom, either. The premise was intriguing, and I genuinely expected some sort of development in the genre - something like a cross between Blair Witch and Alien. What I got was 90 minutes of predictability and disappointment. The sense of isolation and claustrophobia was well done, but little else. I felt some sense of a tension build-up for perhaps a half-hour - but then it dissipated once the nature of the 'horror' became apparent.

I came away feeling that here was a great opportunity missed. It's worth seeing for the technical excellence and attention to detail. Just don't expect to see anything new - or anything that'll frighten the pants off you.

A found-footage horror movie that purports to have been recovered from NASA's secret final moon mission in the early 1970s. If you're a fan of found-footage horror movies, this one is definitely worth seeing. It follows the formula a little too closely, and in the end it's a tad disappointing. But, I must say, this is the only genre of horror movies that pretty much always scares me. It's all about keeping the threat off screen for as long as possible, giving only hints of it until the film 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 dread for quite a while in the film, and, like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, I was watching it with my eyes slightly averted from the screen. The ending of this one is pretty silly, and it denies us a final twist that it hints at frequently. Like those previous two movies I mentioned, I'll never watch this again, but I was quite entertained while watching it.

My husband I looked forward to this movie for a long time. The day we went to go see it, curiosity got the better of me and I looked up some reviews, about 75-80% of which were bad, so I warned him and we went in with some low expectations. I think it is because we had pre-adjusted the expectations that we weren't more disappointed. We did leave the theater feeling unsatisfied and just really underwhelmed.

Our main issue with the movie was that astronauts are chosen for their intelligence (obviously) as well as their ability to hand extremely stressful situations, and the characters in this film failed at both of those things. They were faced with several serious choices throughout the film, and we both felt like the choices they made were so poor that even WE would have done better. Add onto this major suspension of disbelief issue a lot of boring 'what the hell is going on' footage and very few actually suspenseful moments, and top it off with a really badly cg'd sequence at the end of the film that just flat out wasn't necessary, and you've got this movie.

The acting wasn't bad, and the sets were fine, just the plot had trouble getting off the ground, kind of flopped around like a dying fish, then finally died. Even during the tense parts I did find my mind wandering in the direction of 'what time is it? How much longer?'

Have to admit i've been excited about the concept of this movie since i read about it about 7 months back... However, i also have to admit that, given it's release date, I was a bit worried that it would wind up a stinker...

I went in with adjusted expectations, wanting to enjoy it but also preparing for the worst..

I'm happy to say that it winds up a pretty effective little conspiracy- theory chiller..

The producers really do a great job of building tension in this closeted, isolated atmosphere, to an agonizing crescendo and then delivering with some truly horrific imagery.

Really wound up liking this one.

This is not a summary of the film, this is a review.

Before I watched this, I believed 2002's Gerry was the most boring film ever made. It took Hollywood 9 years to free Gerry from that title. Apollo is the most stretched out cliché story ever and without a climax to make it worth your time. The story is supposed to grab you and you are supposed to feel for the characters, but I felt nothing and people call me over sensitive. I am sure the actors are wonderful, but they did not get the chance to show their potential talents in this film. One can only hope that they'll get another chance to prove themselves because with this film on their résumé, they won't impress anyone any time soon. The only reason we watched the entire film is because a friend recommended the film to us and we were hoping the film would pick up at some point... it did not.

Spare yourself the disappointment and the realisation that you wasted 86 minutes of your life which could have been spent doing something more exciting.... like watching paint dry.

Before explaining my impressions, a brief summary: footage presumably found of a non previously known apollo mission and it's fate (Blair witch style of camera story).

A lot of times, discrepancy comes along with certain movies. Some because they are innovative, some due to the complexity of the script, others because they disappoints our expectations (with false promises rising from the trailers or media). None of that will be found here (it's not a profound movie), but we still got discrepancies in the reviews. Why?

The first thing we must remember it's to see it for just what it is: a found footage style of filming. In outer space.....OK? It's not Dogville...

A lot of criticism came out (away) of this premises; and that is the point of misleading data here: It's not Shakespeare, the reactions of the astronauts are limited (everyone who has seen the real footage of apollo, even those of the quiet translunar stage, knows there's no displays of emotions). I do agree that the script could have been strong, but it does the trick.

For a Moon exploration type of movie, the spacecrafts, the suits, the lunar soil and even the cameras are totally believable, more than i expected. The obvious errors (sound in space, the absence of lunar gravity effect on walking) doesn't have a mayor impact on the story.

If you watch this movie for the purpose of entertainment, with the appropriate amount of ''suspension of disbelief'', you won't be disappointed, even though holds not very surprises o scares. But it kept me interested enough until the end,which is not great but still believable.

You won't be left with a sense of fulfillment after it, but it does entertain enough for this type o movie.