Apollo 18 (Blu-ray)

Good cheesy horror movie

Campy NASA. Work an evening watch.

I know it’s hard to do, but try to imagine that the U.S. government would actually lie to the American people. Apollo 17 was not the final lunar mission, after all. In 1974, Apollo 18 was launched as part of a top secret Department of Defense mission – ostensibly, to put some kind of fancy new radar tracking equipment on the South Pole of the moon. The three astronauts could tell no one about the mission – not even their families. Unfortunately, shortly after making a successful lunar landfall, the astronauts discover that they aren’t alone up there – and that the government already knew about it. The best of America’s best reached the pinnacle of their dreams, only to find out they were nothing more than expendable guinea pigs for a circle of lying government officials. For me, Apollo 18 represents the ultimate “found footage” concept. We’re talking about a secret lunar mission here, and that pretty much trumps any concept involving teenagers falling victim to some unknown force out in the middle of the woods. It just doesn’t get any more isolated than sitting on the moon without any comm signal to Earth or even to the lunar orbiter. I can’t say that this movie met all of my lofty expectations – but it does represent a pretty darn good and certainly entertaining attempt.As the story goes, everything about this mission was indeed secret – until recently, when someone uploaded dozens of hours of footage to a website called lunartruth.com. This movie, we are told, comes out of that extraordinary footage. The filmmakers do a good job in terms of special effects, making the various pieces of footage look as if they came from different quality cameras. You don’t see these guys bounding across the barren tundra because of the reduced gravity, but that would have been difficult to recreate – especially in those bulky vintage spacesuits – anywhere but the surface of the moon itself. The astronauts are fairly stoic, as well – certainly much less so than some of the real Apollo astronauts were. They’re committed to the mission, though, installing the DOD scanners and cameras and searching around the area. That all changes when they find someone else’s footprints in the sand. Those tracks lead them to some rather extraordinary discoveries. They demand answers from the guys back on Earth, but few are forthcoming – and then they lose all communications whatsoever. The only thing they do know is that people from the DOD – and presumably at least some of their NASA bosses – knew what they would encounter but didn’t share any of that information with them.The movie isn’t all that scary or creepy, but there’s plenty of mystery and suspense on hand once things begin to fall apart. The acting is superb, which contributes to the sense of realism the film holds throughout its running time. In the end, while the story may be pure science fiction, it’s all too easy to believe that the government would actually do something like this.

When I saw this on opening day in a theater with about a dozen other people present, I found it to be both not as bad as I had feared, and not as good as I had hoped. Credit must be given for the cleverness of combining the seemingly exhausted found-footage horror genre, with the realistic historic space exploration genre, while using a significant amount of real archival footage and using mostly period-accurate equipment to capture the new footage. The result is something that costs very little to make, yet is fairly convincingly real more often than expected. This is also clever in that it appeals in different ways to the established audiences for found-footage horror, science fiction, docudrama, and conspiracy theory drama audiences. With just a modest initial weekend draw on each of those special-interest audiences, the film easily made back it's estimated 5 million dollar budget. Two big caveats which may be very specific to a very small population other than myself: I am a sucker for anything Apollo-related, and I don't care that the film was never for even a moment even slightly scary. I don't go to movies to squeal like a schoolgirl at cheap scare tactics, so I was not disappointed when my pulse remained steady. And after all of that rather jaded criticism, I must say it really was an honest and mostly successful attempt to make an interesting and involving film. No offense to the director, but this is very much a film created through a combination of many hours of largely improvised performances from good, understated actors, and a very fast-working and creative editing and audio post production team. The only significant failure of this film was in not conveying any real sense of just how terrifying it must have been for the real Apollo astronauts, even on missions that went mostly by the book. It is hard to imagine just how absolutely hostile to human life the environment outside of those tiny spacecraft and EVA suits really is. The unusually lengthy selection of cut, extended, and alternate scenes on this DVD/Blu-Ray release are an enjoyable diversion, giving much insight into the process of making the film.

Why has man never returned to the moon? Apparently we have. In Apollo 18 we learn that NASA and the Department of Defense sent a secret manned mission to the moon in 1974 in order to install a device to spy on Russian communications. The men were outfitted with Kodachrome hand-held cameras in order to document the mission. They never made it back to Earth. A space conspiracy website called “The Lunar Truth” somehow obtained 84 hours of footage from this mission and edited it down to 90 minutes before uploading it onto their website. Apollo 18 is a found footage movie detailing the fate of the astronauts.I love stories that take place in isolated settings and the surface of the moon is about as isolated as you can get. Apollo 18 is yet another “found footage” tale and a fairly effective one at that. The isolation of the moon combined with the claustrophobic interior of the space capsule heightens the tension once otherworldly dangers are encountered. Apollo 18 takes a while to get going and in the interim we watch the 3 astronauts go through the machinations of their job while exchanging stilted conversation about their lives back on Earth. The scares are mostly of the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night variety but they work well here. The final 10 minutes are especially tense/gripping. The found “footage” looks terrific and matches the look of real moon landing footage that we have seen all of our lives. I know that some of you do not enjoy found footage movies (I love them) but for those who do this one is fun.

Explica una de las teorías por las cuales la humanidad no ha vuelto a la luna.Recomendada para todas las personas a las que les guste la ciencia ficción.

La versione recensita è quella inglese della "InVideo Entertaiment". Film girato con la tecnica del falso documentario realizzato mescolando filmati d'epoca (forniti dalla Nasa) con girato originale "invecchiato" artificialmente (cosa che rende un pò inutile l'uso del formato BD). Opera davvero piacevole che costruisce gradualmente la tensione e il senso di isolamento senza mai arrivare ad un vero climax ma, forse proprio per questo, costringe lo spettatore ad un'attenzione costante. Lo stesso utilizzo del gergo tecnico da astronauta (privo di spiegoni scientifici grazie al cielo) non infastidisce ma aiuta ad immergersi nell'atmosfera del film. Buona la resa video e sonora mentre risulta decente la sezione dei contenuti speciali (commento del regista, scene eliminate e finale alternativo tutti e tre privi di sottotitoli). Film da vedere specie se amate la fantascienza classica, l'horror o le teorie complottiste. Le tre stelle sono dovute alla presenza di trailer pubblicitari posti prima dell'avvio del menù principale. Ora, non solo sono fastidiosi e invasivi (ho pagato per un prodotto da mettere in videoteca, se aggiungete la pubblicità almeno fatemi lo sconto che diavolo!) ma anche "estranei" alla tipologia di film cui Apollo 18 appartiene (come comprare il BD de "I ponti di Madison County" e doversi prima sorbire i trailer de "La cosa", "Nove settimane e mezzo" e "Il giustiziere della notte"). Se la pubblicità becera e invasiva non vi disturba aggiungete pure una stella al totale.

字幕なしの商品に挑んだが、やはり自分の英語力では、ついて行ききれない感じ。やはり生半可な語学力では字幕が必要。無念！

Questo film non ha avuto una grande diffusione, ma nel suo piccolo è stato un successo al botteghino. Ha incassato venticinque milioni di dollari, cifra non elevata ma che rappresenta il quintuplo di quanto speso per realizzarlo; sono pochi i film che possono vantare un simile successo.Ottima la sceneggiatura che non annoia mai lo spettatore. Molto convincente la recitazione degli attori. Originale (per un film di fantascienza) la realizzazione che sembra il montaggio di filmati d'epoca che sarebbero stati forniti di sottobanco da qualcuno che abbia lavorato alla NASA. Il fatto che gli attori sono sconosciuti in Italia rende ancora più credibile la finzione che si tratti di veri filmati.Da vedere e rivedere

Como aficionado al género de "Ciencia Ficción" he disfrutado con este BluRay.Por otra parte, la calidad del mismo cubre mis expectativas.Les seguiré confiando mis compras.Gracias