Spiders from Mars

This review contains spoilers.

To be honest it is difficult to spoil a film as bad as Apollo 18. I don't know if you would even consider it a spoiler; probably more accurate to term it a warning. I wish someone had warned me. I mean I asked Twitter-folks what they thought of the film a couple of days ago and not one person thought to contact me and say 'Hey, dude, probably not the best use of your time to be honest'. For that, I can't forgive you.

Apollo 18 uses the premise of the found-footage genre to depart its misery upon us. It is not so much sold to us as found as it is released/leaked footage. As a kid I remember being drawn to anything resembling a conspiracy theory and although the weariness of age has somewhat dimmed that passion I do enjoy the stories of how the moon landings were faked. I remember a particularly good Sci-Fi Channel documentary presented by that guy from the X-Files which was quite convincing and picked holes in the government version. My favourite contributions came from the NASA employees and former astronauts who replied with variations of 'it's no faked, right. Now shut it'. Hope this isn't booking me a visit from the ol' men in black. If Will Smith is intending a visit then I would much prefer he come with Jazzy Jeff so we can get our party on. Alright Will? So back to the film.

The astronauts take us with them on their secret voyage to the moon. Why this mission is so secret is kept from the astronauts in the main and is billed as further reconnaissance/rock collecting. It quickly goes wrong with interference on the communication equipment and rapidly descends further from there. I found that the film offered little in terms of suspense as it was clear the route we were taking almost as soon as the astronauts landed. It did however offer a few jumpy moments but it was the kind where you are angry at yourself for getting a fright because you absolutely knew it was coming. The space setting is perfect for this type of film, the failure is probably more in the execution as opposed to the premise as far as I'm concerned. The shadows and dark of the craters, the silence - none of this is utilised to its potential. The sheer volume of cameras that the astronauts seem to have available is excessive but the reason for this becomes clear as the film progresses. There is little in the way of character development and the nature of the mise en scene leaves the film with a disjointed feel which does not lend itself to viewer enjoyment. There are a couple of moments of short suspense but these are not given time to develop enough to become as effective as one would hope.

What is more unsettling about Apollo 18 is that fact that someone saw fit to throw 5 million bucks at the production. Did they know they could read the script prior to agreeing to fund this atrocity? My favourite quote about the film comes from head of Dimension films Bob Weinstein who said that "We didn’t shoot anything, we found it. Found, baby!”. Even he didn't want admit to playing a part in this being made. Distancing yourself by trying to convince us you found the film is low Bob... real low.

A distinct lack of advance screenings and a review embargo, alongside multiple release date changes, are some of the most explicit examples of a lack of confidence in the film. I was genuinely looking forward to this but was disappointed by the derivative nature of almost every aspects. The 'aliens' were straight out of Aliens (funnily enough), the night time camera angles like Paranormal Activity in space, the nostril shots straight from Blair Witch etc. etc. and etc. For this reason there is not much merit in the film. It adds little to the genre which is becoming slightly tired by the sheer volume of films of this type being released. I remember how fresh the genre was around the time of The Last Broadcast/Blair Witch Project and i think it could be time for the genre to take a wee rest, a nap of sorts, so it can return refreshed. Do we need Paranormal Activity 3 this year? And even more importantly, is the next Friday the 13th installment really going to be a found-footage film? Surely not but that's what the sources are saying.

One bit of humour I found in the film was picturing the pitch to producers... 'It's like Blair Witch... in space. Wait, that's not all. There are rocks that turn in to spiders'. Sold.

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