Apollo 18
Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego
Writer: Brian Miller
Cast: Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins

Plot:
In 1973 the formerly cancelled moon mission Apollo 18 is restarted by NASA but under the cover of complete secrecy. The three astronauts Nate (Lloyd Owen), John (Ryan Robbins) and Ben (Warren Christie) are sent to the moon. While John stays in orbit, Nate and Ben get down to the surface. Soon they discover an abandoned Russian space ship on the moon and things keep getting weirder and weirder.

I don’t know why I let myself get drawn into those mockumentaries again and again. I have no love for them, but I do like horror movies, so I guess that’s where I usually go wrong. Anyway, Apollo 18 was okay but it really was nothing to write home about.

[SPOILERS if you don’t know how the aliens look like]

What was actually really good about the film was the cinematography. Felt very real and very time-appropriate. I liked it. And yes, I’m totally surprised, too, that the best thing about a mockumentary is the camera work. But there it is.

Other than that, the film was pretty much unremarkable. (Well, except for Ryan Robbins’ hotness which is always remarkable.) The story progresses in the absolutely classic way without any surprises or anything that departs from it even in the slightest.

There are a couple of slumps in the pacing but then López-Gallego racks the tension up again and some scenes work really well. Like when they discover that there’s a stone that’s not really a stone inside Nate.

But I have to admit that the creature design would have worked a lot better for me if the stones hadn’t grown spidery legs. I just kept hearing MOONSPIDERS or THE MOST TERRIFYING SPIDERS… FROM THE MOON in my head in the most dramatic trailer voice every time they showed up. [I’m not exactly sure how that happened.] Also, I think it would have been more terrifiying if they had remained stones.

Summarising: pretty average.