Gonzalo López-Gallego’s APOLLO 18 isn’t just a fun potboiler but an unlabeled conspiracy tape hiding in the wrong VHS sleeve, a straight-faced, paranoid political thriller spawned by the unholy union of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and Wikileaks. Presented as a compilation of classified footage uploaded to a website, the film opens in the language of conspiracy docs and never lets go, building that ‘70s political thriller vibe through its jittery paranoia, invocation of Watergate, and the recurring symbol of the offscreen god-voice of a Defense Department deputy (not NASA) demanding blind obedience from his highly qualified dogs. The plot is naturally crawling with red herrings, but they’re not random surprises. Rather, the Cold War and the psychological tricks forcing us to wonder what’s real fuel the blood-red fire of APOLLO 18’s mission: a seething assault on the political overclass. It has its didactic moments—call-signs Liberty and Freedom, a shredded American flag—but no conspiracy theory was ever fertilized with subtlety. And this particular street preacher has a message beyond fire and brimstone: Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.
That’s not to ignore the genre elements, which take as freely from ALIEN and TWILIGHT ZONE as MISSION TO MARS and RED PLANET, resulting in a plot that never lacks for an adrenaline injection, no matter how cheap. The found footage conceit is merciful: Unlike PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, López-Gallego never wastes our time watching nothing, and unlike THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, APOLLO 18 doesn’t save its horror for one garbled final shot. The SAW camera-flash-strobe lights our way through two exciting EVAs, some mild Cronenbergian body horror starts a ticking clock, and López-Gallego delivers at least one breathtaking composition straight out of Lovecraft. Cynics who wait at the exit instead of getting on the roller coaster find the solution to the mystery dumb and the plot derivative, but of course they are. APOLLO 18 has no anxiety of influence because it has no pretension, openly embracing its close friendship with truthers and moon landing hoaxers. It’s free to soar precisely because it wants to be the sleaziest flick of the year. It believes in the unwashed as much as the masses.
But what the Cliché Chorus miss is just how deftly made it is. Despite its skuzzy feel, the film respects us with its amateur found footage style. The handheld is a bit floaty but never epileptic, and the stationary security cams show nothing only to tell us that all’s well (for now), not to trick us into searching for some grainy ghost. Speaking of old-fashioned filmmaking, APOLLO 18 approaches the transformation of digital into film with modesty, reveling in sparing, convincing lens flares and enough noise to keep George Lucas busy between re-releases but never obscuring or distracting from the visuals; there’s just enough print damage to keep us in the Deepthroat ‘70s. The compositions take advantage of the naturally expressionistic lighting and color palette of the moon, but the primary visual strategy is in security guard montage, floating among the five or six NASA cameras and a magical one that captures some excusably gorgeous wide shots. The film wants us on our toes as it disorients us, while the silence and the shadows and the dread erect the atmosphere of a spooky deserted carnival.
Of course, some of those clichés I defend help to sink the ending, which is uncharacteristically slack even before the typical horror movie twists arrive to partially validate the arguments the rest of the film rabidly rips apart. But one thing the film never relents on is its faith in the people. Our astronauts are American icons, headstrong, creative, and uber-competent, and no matter what happens, APOLLO 18 depicts these political pawns as a society who will risk everything to help each other. It’s a shame that faith becomes a punchline.
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Brandon Nowalk writes about film and television for the Maroon Weekly in College Station, TX and at his blog But What She Said and Twitter @bnowalk. His favorite films beyond the usual suspects include Henry King’s The Gunfighter, Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad, Orson Welles’ The Trial, Jan Nemec’s Diamonds of the Night, and David Lynch’s Inland Empire.
Apollo 18 is the low rent version of The Expendables. And the Expendables was uber low rent to start with. In both films, customers are attracted, or lured, to cliche ridden hack work through an appeal to their biases.
For the Expendables it’s an atavistic allure. The chance to revisit a politically incorrect past, where a man is a man, and killings are performed with relish and gusto.
For Apollo 18 it’s the chance to luxuriate in turgid, mind numbing paranoia about our fellow citizens and institutions.
In their attempt to plumb the depths of partianship, both films move 180 degrees in opposite directions, and meet at the point of idiocy.
That’s certainly the consensus, though I haven’t seen a pan as penetrating as yours! But…
POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR APOLLO 18
To me Apollo 18 isn’t paranoid about our fellow citizens. The guys risk their lives to save each other over and over, even after it’s clear that one of them is dangerous. The paranoia is firmly directed at the all-powerful, unseen institutions. Even NASA has been taken over by a more powerful, more deadly institution.
The problem for me is how that ending confirms the rightness of that institution. Instead of a big Paths of Glory thing where the pawns ignore their commands to die and help each other to live, it turns out the DOD was right because they’re all infected. We’re supposed to want them dead now to save the planet. It’s a step too far for me, and one that sinks it further the more I think about it.
Many a true word spoken in jest.