Cinema is a rapidly evolving form of artistic expression. New techniques, methodologies and genres are devised and may ascend into popularity, at least on a cyclical basis. One of the more recent flavors to gain notoriety is the ‘found footage’ film. The identifying traits that define this technique include the following phase including in the advertising and the opening credits; "; the following was film discovered years after the events depicted". Most fans of the genre will readily point to the 1999 cult classic ‘The Blair Witch Project’. This may have ignited the most recent implementation of the style but experimental aspects of the format goes back to almost ninety years ago entering the mainstream movie industry through the efforts of the visionary auteur ‘Orson Wells in the seventies. In most modern incarnations of this practice are used to create a horror film. It is a natural usage. Even though the audience realizes the so called foot was actually found in the director’s editing bay the idea that is real provides a psychological excuse to give in to the story as reality. This can have the desired effect of heightening the sense of tension necessary to create the proper frightening atmosphere for horror. The movie being scrutinized here, ‘Apollo 18’ is an example of this sub genre although not a particularly stellar example. In fairness to the filmmaker, Gonzalo López-Gallego, this is an exceptionally arduous format to achieve successfully. This is his first English language movie adding immensely to the already significant degree of difficulty. Where the director fell short in accomplishment here he made up for with the courage of his dedication to his craft to try. Many of the truly great directors have had flops on their resumes as the fine tuned their stylistic footprint of their art. Much of the difficulty is a result of the filmmaker deliberately denies himself many of the cinematic tools normally available. He has to remain consistent with the premise of long lost film. The images have to be suitably scratched and marred as if by years of lying fallow. The lighting is imperfectly set and the camera either fixed or jaggedly hand held. These factors makes this way of constructing a film that is inherently extremely hard pressed to establish and maintain a proper narrative. The fact that the audience could ascertain the fundamentals of the story is a testament to the potential this director has.

There is a scene that is used to bookend the feature. It shows the astronauts; Commander Nathan Walker (Lloyd Owen), Lieutenant Colonel John Grey (Ryan Robbins) and Captain Benjamin Anderson (Warren Christie), are enjoying a pleasant summer barbeque with their wives and children. This economically translates to the audience the way life goes on as normal completely unaware of the deadly secrets our government conspires to keep from us. The plot here postulates that the biggest secrets ever are the foundation of the events here. This conspiracy is brought ‘to light’ many years sfter the mission of Apollo 18 in 1974. The whole world knew that the last manned mission to bring men to the lunar surface was Apollo 17 but the film offers a different truth. Apollo 18 was secretly co-opted by the Department of Defense ostensibly to install specialized equipment to monitor Soviet nuclear deployment. Because of this the crew was informed that no one on earth would know they were up there or what they are doing. While Grey remained in the command module, Freedom, Walker and Anderson descend to the lunar service in ‘Liberty’ and begin to collect rock samples and prepare for the installation. This is also a solid technique of starting the audience out with shots of activities already well documented and verifiable. This reinforces the necessary foundation of believability.

López-Gallego does build the suspenseful mood carefully with little glimpses of the terror that is waiting; the Astronauts discover an abandoned Russian Lunar excursion module finding the remains of its cosmonaut in the cold, dark shadow of a nearby crater. Little incidents start to accumulate with rock samples apparently moving when seen out of the corner of your eye. Then the traditional American flag planted at their landing site disappears and strange non-human tracks are seen amidst the footprints. The Americans realize they are a long way from the safety of home and they are not alone. The story continues to unfold we find the rocks are extraterrestrial life forms that are capable of infiltrating a human host resulting in a slow painful death. The film culminates in the ultimate betrayal of the Astronauts by the government they gave their lives to serve.

The problems with this movie are almost entirely attributable to the difficultly presented by this format. In an effort to stay within the parameters set by the motif the narrative is obfuscated making it a concerted effort to follow. This prevents the audience from entering in to the proper mindset for a horror film; suspending belief and surrendering to the moment. Too much mental acuity is devoted to piecing together the events into a coherent story to let you just sit back and be scared. The shame is this film does contain all the elements required to make a roaring good horror story but the ingredients do not meld together properly. For example the classic gothic horror requires isolation. The south polar region of the moon serves this function better than a deserted house in a remote country location. Electromagnetic interference adds to this but making communication intermittent conveniently enabled only to further the exposition. The foe is suitably inhuman and unstoppable providing the proper deployment of a Sword of Damocles scenario. This is paired with the natural plot device to imitate the ticking clock via the diminishing supply of oxygen and the hard deadline to escape the lunar orbit. The ability of the crab like creatures to disguise themselves as lunar rocks give the element of doubt to the settings and props; regular stones or deadly aliens. The final fright that the audience receives is the fact that President Nixon gifted 270 lunar rocks to people and only 110 are accounted for. The alien menace is out there and our government is concealing the truth.