Plot
Decades-old found footage from NASA's abandoned Apollo 18 mission, where two American astronauts were sent on a secret expedition, reveals the reason the U.S. has never returned to the moon.
Release Year: 2011
Rating: 5.3/10 (19,112 voted)
Critic's Score: 24/100
Director:
Gonzalo López-Gallego
Stars: Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins
Storyline Decades-old found footage from NASA's abandoned Apollo 18 mission, where two American astronauts were sent on a secret expedition, reveals the reason the U.S. has never returned to the moon.
Cast: Warren Christie
-
Ben Anderson
Lloyd Owen
-
Nate Walker
Ryan Robbins
-
John Grey
Michael Kopsa
-
Deputy Secretary of Defense
(as Mike Kopsa)
Andrew Airlie
-
Mission Control
Kurt Max Runte
-
Lab Tech #1
(as Kurt Runte)
Jan Bos
-
Lab Tech #2
Kim Wylie
-
Laura Anderson
Noah Wylie
-
Ryan Anderson
Ali Liebert
-
Nate's Girlfriend
Erica Carroll
-
John's Fiancée
Taglines:
There's a reason we've never gone back to the moon.
Filming Locations: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Box Office Details
Budget: $5,000,000
(estimated)
Opening Weekend: $8,704,271
(USA)
(4 September 2011)
(3328 Screens)
Gross: $17,686,929
(USA)
(20 November 2011)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
Not screened in advance for critics.
Goofs:
Factual errors:
Quindar tones (the famous "beeps" that are heard during radio voice transmissions from Houston) are heard in the film. However, the actual Quindar tones of Apollo were only audible to Earth-based listeners of the transmissions; astronauts did not hear the tones.
Quotes: Nate:
Get it out. It's so cold. Get it out, Ben. Get it out, get it out! Damn it Ben get it out!
User Review
In space, no one can hear you yawn....
Rating: 3/10
...and I hope the people next to me in the cinema couldn't hear me
yawning, which I started doing after about half-way.
These 'found footage' movies have varied over the years, since The
Blair Witch Project kicked it all off. I had mixed feelings about that,
but overall I felt it was an effective chiller: what's NOT seen is
often so much scarier. Cloverfield, for me, remains at the top of the
list, while the PA films are way down.
Apollo 18 isn't far from the bottom, either. The premise was
intriguing, and I genuinely expected some sort of development in the
genre - something like a cross between Blair Witch and Alien. What I
got was 90 minutes of predictability and disappointment. The sense of
isolation and claustrophobia was well done, but little else. I felt
some sense of a tension build-up for perhaps a half-hour - but then it
dissipated once the nature of the 'horror' became apparent.
I came away feeling that here was a great opportunity missed. It's
worth seeing for the technical excellence and attention to detail. Just
don't expect to see anything new - or anything that'll frighten the
pants off you.
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