strange beauty on the backside…

Apollo 18 Rad! That is what I have to say about Apollo 18. The story of Apollo 18, the (secret) final manned moon landing in 1974. Culled from 84 hours of NASA/DOD footage featuring: interviews with the astronauts, cabin film from the orbiter and lander and film made on the surface. Odd how many cameras they had for this trip… Anyway, three astronauts on what would seem like a routine moon landing, except they have been instructed to lie about their activities… To not tell anyone that they are going to the moon.

Once there, they go about the regular business of driving their moon buggy, putting up the American flag, collecting samples, setting up transmitters and being filmed by the cameras. They even have a special transmitter that seems to be causing a lot of interference.

Apollo 18



When finding an usual sample against a background of interference, there seems to be something in the proverbial air… Yes something indistinct is out there, doing something. And it makes me nervous.

As their orbiters, um, orbit takes it around the back side of the moon, the two astronauts on the lander get their first, of many, tastes of being on their own up there. Which, in this case, is not a good feeling… Because, while they may be all on their own, it becomes obvious that they are not alone.

Apollo 18 is a great film! One of those low budget movies that doesn’t feel low budget. Scary, tense and engaging. A sci-fi film, a historical drama, a horror movie, a political thriller and a mystery all rolled into one. Are they in danger from Russia, the USA, aliens, each other, their minds, equipment malfunction, all of the above? Well, regardless of which it is, danger there is…

Apollo 18



I would like to watch it paired with Moon. Not because they are similar genres but because they are both movies that show you that it doesn’t take money to make a really superior film and they are also both superb, well made and tense films about betrayal, abandonment and a person trying to survive against the odds in the hostile environment of both politics and the surface of the moon.