Movies such as “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity” rely on the power of suggestion in order to generate the feeling of suspense and of a frightening situation. “Apollo 18” takes the same gimmick and suggests that the film has been edited from 84 minutes of actual footage uploaded by an “unknown someone” on the internet. The film suggests that it is real, and that you are about to see some real footage much like what “The Fourth … more
*1/2 out of **** Creepy is as creepy does. You may find what I call "cheap jump scares" to be the real deal, while I consider them to be...well, cheap jump scares. It's all a matter of opinion (or interest, or taste, or all-around decency) whether a horror film truly scares the viewer. There are horror films that I dislike that many others have enjoyed, and oh, I would have loved to love them too. But I can't lie; critics simply cannot do so. However, casual viewers might … more
Apollo 18 This is a movie with tremendous potential. Unfortunately, it was ruined by an insistence upon making the entire movie appear as bad as the actual videos sent from the moon were in the early 1970s. There was no reason for this. Ron Howard didn’t have to do that when making Apollo 13. He understood that it was a film meant to entertain. That purpose cannot possibly be served by making every scene virtually unwatchable. … more
APOLLO 18: As I’ve said elsewhere, I think it’s hard not to enjoy a quality conspiracy, and mankind’s only manned off-world moon missions have been the subject of quite a few. First, there’s the one that claims that the United States never went to moon, that it was all faked, shot on a soundstage somewhere in California, Arizona, or New Mexico. Then, there’s the one that claims the Apollo missions were actually the cover story; what … more
Star Rating: During the 1960s and ‘70s, several missions of the Apollo program were cancelled by NASA. These included Apollos 18, 19, and 20 – the Moon-landing missions. The official reason was budget and scheduling constraints. Apollo 18, the newest discovered-footage mockumentary, is founded on the premise that the Apollo 18 mission actually was launched in December of 1974, only for the crew to never return and for the American government to seal … more