APOLLO 18 (2011)

Streaming on Tubi!
Directed by Gonzalo López-Gallego
Written by Brian Miller
Starring Warren Christie, Ryan Robbins, Lloyd Owen, Ali Liebert

Ohh, man, I really wanted this film to be good.

I remember seeing the trailers for APOLLO 18 and chomping at the bit to check it out. It seemed like such a cool concept and as the release date loomed closer, I found my interest in the film growing. Then the film was released and I heard absolutely nothing about it. Turns out APOLLO 18’s stay in theaters was pretty short lived and it’s most likely you missed it too. Since the release, I didn’t hear anything positive about the film and as time passed, my interest subsided until I recently had a chance to check it out.

Having done so, I have to agree with most of the criticisms of this film that it is extremely slow paced and once the monster is revealed it is pretty lackluster, to say the least. 2011 appeared to be the year of found footage with shaky hand-held cams replacing zombies in the top spot. Though I do admit to being sucked into POV films, you have to at least make the subject matter being focused on interesting for it to work.

Three astronauts are assigned to go on a secret mission to the moon. Though the public only knows of 17 missions to the moon, Apollo 18 is supposedly the reason why we never went back. Having seen my fair share of horror films, I know that the opposite would most likely be true and had monsters ever been discovered on the moon, it is most likely that more missions would be sent rather than less. It would have to be something pretty horrific in order to deter scientists from wanting to know more about possible life on the moon…

Well, according to APOLLO 18, not so much.

Too many tedious static shots and shots for the sake of capturing something spontaneous pop up in this film for any believability to be had. You can almost call out when the jump scares will happen as the camera goes quiet or zooms in or just stays static until –dun-dun-dunn—a rock monster moves a pile of rocks in the background. Though there is one nicely done scene taking place in a dark cavern involving a camera flashlight and a dead Russian astronaut, even that scene is contrived to ridiculous standards.

Though the three main actors are giving their all, the frights just aren’t there in this film. I was rooting for it but as the runtime ran out, my hopes of pants-wettingly good scares began to dissipate.

It seems POV style films are not going away. Again, these films often suck me in. But with APOLLO 18, I was just too bored to care.

Check out the trailer here!!