Found Footage February Day 8 APOLLO 18!!!

Day 8

Apollo 18

The premise of this film, reminded me immediately of a comedy skit from Eddie Izzard. Where he talked about the missed opportunity astronauts had to fuck with earth, By having the first moon landing ruined by an astronaut wearing an alien mask and chasing Armstrong. It was funny as hell and any time I am reminded of that comedy special well. It’s time to feel special.

I enjoy the period peace found footage and so far we’ve had some luck with it. So here’s hoping this time around as well. I love space and space travel.

Honestly one of the most intense feelings I had was when a friend took me to a Star Wars exhibit in Seattle and they had a full size cockpit of the Falcon you could sit in. It played a cool short about space travel and the screen just filled up with beautiful stars and simulated flying through them and stopping at various nebula and planets. I was feeling really down back then and it was a bit after a pretty nasty break up. For some reason just sitting in that cockpit and seeing the stars all around, the sound of engines around you and the idle rumble while the ship passed through space just. It gave me this overwhelming sense of feeling at complete and total peace for once. It felt like home, which is the one and only time I’ve ever been able to say that about any place. It was a serene moment and something I still fondly think back on and wish like hell I could get that feeling back.

So space films hit me, period based films do too. Combine the two into a horror film setting with found footage involved? You now have my ass in a seat and ready. So let’s gooooooo!

Please be good you bastards.

The Film

So of course this is going to be a fun silly ride. I mean what else can you expect from a found footage film made while on the moon during a classified trip out. We’re either getting giant monsters. Crab people, or aliens. I kinda hope for space hillbillies, but that’s asking too much. Maybe Troma could do it, I don’t know.

What I do know, is what the film tells me. Which is, in 2011 over eighty four hours of classified footage was uploaded to the website www.lunartruth.com, that the film we are watching was edited from that footage, and this was, an undocumented until now, Apollo 18 flight.

We begin with interviews of our crew, starting with John Grey our flight commander, who informs us how happy and quick he was to accept that Apollo 18 was back on the flight list, but it would be a DOD mission, off the books and nothing televised. Man didn’t care, he wanted to get his ass into space! So he signed up

Next we get Mission Commander Nathan Walker, who wonders why they want to go back up to gather more moon rocks. But NASA also has plans to have them setup cameras and highly sensitive equipment, early missile launch defense systems, radar and such. Because this was during the time we had to keep our eyes open for red in our cereal, and neighbors who could be communist. Though he questions the reason for our sending another flight up there, he also isn’t going to turn down the chance to walk on the moons surface.

Same with our Lunar Module Pilot Benjamin Anderson. A Man with the most American sounding name next to James McDonald and Max Freedom.

He is a little unsure about going just because no one will know where he went. He tells us how he, like the others. Had to lie to their families and friends. Tell them they are off for special training elsewhere. But they all signed up for this, and they’re proud to get up there. Nasa signed on a lot of astronauts back in the day, and put them through hell to see who would be the best of the best to make it through. Even then you weren’t guaranteed a spot on a flight, let alone the moon. You had a long wait between flights, and not everyone was fortunate enough to get picked so. Even if you’re the 13th man on the moon, or the 100th, you still got on the moon.

They just won’t be able to talk about it for along time. Not to mention the very real fear that if things go bad. No one will know what happened to them. They’ll tell people it was a training exercise gone wrong and no one will know astronauts died on the moon.

Space flight is a really interesting and scary topic to read into. It really is amazing how they accomplished what they did, and the dozens of theories they had to work through. The thought that the most advanced electronics they had in their lunar landers back then, is less than what you get in a Texas Calculator is. Something.

Anywho. They have a successful launch, that was somehow unnoticed by anyone around at the time, and on December 25th 1974, they had a successful touch down on the moon. It’s a fun setup and I love seeing the old tech. Especially the old high tech 16mm cameras they were given to both document their trip and place at different stations on the moons surface. It’s an introduction for us on what we will be getting into. We have cameras at the front of the LEM which have slow capture rates, and the other camera’s are about on par. If just a tad bit faster. Remember 16mm had a flicker to it and it could skip frames so. That’s what we got. There’s also a camera in the ship itself orbiting the moon keeping track of the two men on the moons surface as they setup the cameras and use a moon buggy to get around and ready their equipment.

The film is wasting no time with letting us know something is amiss on the moon. As we already see activity on one of the cameras. We hear an odd electrical cry, and a shadow quickly passing just under the camera.

But who cares! These are Americas best!. They’re here to do a job, then get back to their moon home and eat their veggies.

All around though they had a successful first day. Everythings gone by the numbers, and whatever alien or crazed space hillbilly out there has taken a mild interest in the two men. So maybe they’ll stop by sometime, or leave some space cookies.

Everything is made better when you just add space in front of it. Trust me.

Unless its Space herpies. That’s the worst.

Well as our two American manly men get to resting in their space hammocks. They are unfairly awoken by the power shutting off, the sound of chittering outside, and odd signals on the radio. Which they handle incredibly professionally. As they are expected to, and had trained to do so. The moon is the last place you want someone losing their shit, hence why they are all tested to such extremes.

But thankfully all seems well, they’re given the order to go back to sleep. So they tuck each other in, snuggle up and off to sleep they go.

This does not mean things are fine. As we have moment outside the ship once more. This time though, it’s the movement of a rock being jostled to the side. Worse case scenario. They could’ve ended up on the moon with The predator. Best case scenario. Space Hillbillies.

 Though I think it’s a lot weirder. As it seems to be….the rocks.

Question mark?

They seem to have the cameras focusing on these moments, involving some moon rocks, and when it happens, the film either slows down purposely, or we get a slightly lightened circle around one on film. Which again they did say this film was edited for the sake of the release on the site. So.

Also while going over and cataloging samples. They notice one of their rock samples somehow, Was no longer in its proper place, or bag. So it got marked contaminated and tossed. Which immediately troubles the astronauts as they learned to work together, watch each others back, and always document, confirm and reaffirm every step and action taken.

So knowing they did something right, but somehow it ended up moved and contaminated. Well that’s something for concern.

But we’re just getting started.

The men go further out to do their daily job, and. Discover of all things, boot prints nearby. Made by different space boots.

If we start to hear banjos in space. We will have confirmation of space rapin moonshining hillbillies on the moon!

Instead though, those hopes are quickly dashed aside, as the men discover the source of those prints. Another lunar lander. This one however, is Russian. They find a Russian flad attached to its pull on the ground. The site looks trashed. They approach the lander and carefully investigate. Braving going inside the lander they examine the room. Finding things disturbed and trashed. More troubling is the discovery of bloody spacesuits. And more importantly and definitely worrying. No astronauts. Anywhere.

Ben decides to roam out as he notices a nearby cove like structure. He takes a flash camera with him and begins using it to illuminating the path in front of him. All while Nate watches and calls him to come back. Only Ben is now on a mission to find out if there are Russians there, and why they abandoned their lander.

What he finds, thanks to a nicely done setup with the flashing of the camera. IS a body sucked of all fluid, looking like a decayed mummy. Nearby a helmet with cracks in it. The space suit on the Cosmonaut riddled with holes. And inside one of these holes? Yep. A moon rock.

The two hurry back to their ship so they can report back to Nasa and hopefully get answers. When your government tracks everything another super power does and when they do it. They’d absolutely have to know about someone else being on the moon. Right?

Well that’s the hope.

So does Nasa know? Of course not!

“I Know Nothing!” they are repeatedly told and just made to continue with their work. They’ll ‘look into it’, but since this is a DOD mission, it’s unlikely they’ll even be told if they DID know something. So for the time being, all seems lost on that front.

Even as the camera’s during the astronauts sleep time pickup even more activity outside the ship. Ranging from shadows in the distance, chittering, camera interference and. Of all things. A helmet being pushed out from its compartment onto a sleeping Ben.

Now. The scary part about this, or troubling rather. Lets go with both. Is that Nasa is watching all of this. They have teams of people watching and recording, and changing recordings, for everything they see coming back from the moon. So when the astronauts ask them if anything happened, Especially if anything happened near their ship as they noticed the American Flag they placed outside it is now missing. And they are told “We noticed some interference, but that’s all” well…that’s not really comforting.

Freakin government man! They’re hiding everything from us! First it’s the isopods now its Russians in space! Well okay technically its space Russians first they lied about and THEN isopods. But still man. The government! What are they hiding!

Well..Russians, apparently.

So outside of the astronauts not being told about alien activity outside their lander, and not being told about a helmet being shoved off of a shelf. They are more concerned with the here and now. With the reality of what they saw. Which was a Russian lander. So when they are told by the one place in the world that would absolutely know what’s going on above our planet, There’s nothing to worry about, there’s no Russians. They press on this matter, and rightly so. Eventually, after some judging glances. And logical assumptions such as, there is no life on mars outside of us, and a Russian lunar lander, that pilot is dead. So who stole our flag? They are finally told that “We suspected Russians may be up there but could not confirm. We’ve suspected for years that they’ve been performing missions up there and calling it satellite launches”, Okay. Cool story bro. So why not tell them they might run into that on the one place they should be alone to jerk off in peace. Well National Security. It would be a national security disaster if Russia had been going up there and put a missile launch detection program or worse launching system of their own before we could.

We won the space race damnit! Russian put the first man AND cat into space, but damnit we are NOT going to let them beat us to arming the moon!

Well now that they know there ARE, or were at least Russians on the moon. They feel it’s not safe for them and well. That means bring our boys home. The damn Russians beat us to the first dead body on the moon so we can’t get that back. We can at least lay claim to the first escape FROM the moon.

So our brave space cowboys prepare their lander for launch. Only to have everything humanly possibly go wrong. Their lunar space buggy has been tipped over, they have oxygen leaks, damage outside to their ship. Things are generally fucked up and not looking good. So they rightfully cancel their escape from the moon, for now.

Seeing as they can’t communicate with Nasa now, and they have discovered of all wonderful things to find. Tracks on the moon. Non human tracks. Around their Lander, and gear. So definitely need to consider a plan for getting the hell out of there as soon as possible. Upon investigating and documenting this, they discover the outside of their ship has puncture marks surrounding it and sensitive panels. Like something had pierced it or been thrown into it. Nate continues his exploration of the scene and begins working on repairing the damaged satellite on their lunar rover. Or you know, space buggy. It has communications capability, so they could possibly use it to patch into NASA and let them know just what the hell has been going on.

Unfortunately it does not work. All we learn is that some of their outside camera have been destroyed. Their flag was dragged away and destroyed. Something did not like them being on their land. But that’s the least of their worries.

What could possibly be more worrying than losing all contact with a room full of people dedicated to getting you home and making sure if anything goes wrong you have a chance to survive?

While Ben is on the ship, documenting what is going on, and what they are attempting to do. Nate begins panicking. “There’s something in my suit!” Nate is not a fan of hearing things like “There’s something inside my suit! I can’t get it out!” so he tries  calming his buddy and telling him to chill his nipples and relax. He’s just got a case of space madness. A minor case, that’s all.

But Nate is not calming his tits down. He is freaking the hell out, as we begin hearing echoed chittering and as soon as he turns around, screaming. We get a clear look at our alien threat.

Space crabs!

Well kind of. But not of the sexual variety.

They look like rocks on the surface, and sprout out legs when they move. The thing looks creepy as hell and absolutely not a fun time to have something like that not only in your suit, but crawling around your head.

It reminds me of Wrath of Khan when they drop the ear mind control creatures in their helmets and lock them back on. Shit like that scares me because you have no control and no way to save yourself. You remove the helmet, you die. Tare in the suit, you’ll lose oxygen and die. So Ben is out in a flash and saving his best buddy.

He drags him back to the ship after finding him passed out nearby. He depressurizes the cabin and immediately removes his helmet. Once he’s stable and calm. He begins asking his not so crazy friend just what the hell happened.

Does he have a case of the “I forgots”? No. He has some blank spots but nothing bad. Surprisingly it’s kept pretty realistic and they aren’t taking this, at least as far as I know. Into the realm of Alien and saying he was impregnated. Well at least YET. I mean there is still a chance right?

From his recollection, before passing out. He recalls seeing something out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t sure what it was. But it was something. After that he says he blanked out. While helping him to undress, we discover he is bleeding from his chest. WELP, guess we’re gonna get a space crab through the chest?!

Crab burster with a side of garlic chedder biscuits?! No. It’s a small cut on his right rib cage. The skin around it is rough and course. More importantly though, he feels a ‘lump’ under it. So it’s time to upgrade these test pilots turned astronauts into surgeons as we play SPACE SURGEON! Which you can do in Surgeon Simulator, actually. Give it a try.

Anyway, they dig some forceps into the slit and, congratulations Nate! It’s a rock!

Yep. They just pulled a glossy, almost lava rock looking….rock from his chest. Which Ben proceeds to poke, prod, and otherwise annoy the rock in hopes it’ll do the thing and sprout legs. But it’s just sitting there being a dumb blood rock that previously lodged itself into his friends body.

Nate may not be fond of aliens invading his body. But he’s also not going to let some asshole he shares a cabin with poke at his rock baby. So he grabs a hammer and obliterates his rock baby. Any rock baby of his would’ve stood up to that hammer, because they’d be born tough. Ford tough. But this is a weak ass moon rock So score one for the red white and freedom team.

Or maybe not.

As now it would seem once the rock crab made a home inside Nate, it has infected him. Which makes sense given you know. Alien soil, moon dust etc being introduced into your body. I mean it’s not like shoving a piece of peeled ginger up your butthole which causes a mild burning sensation and the skin to pucker. But it is a serious enough infection to cause discoloration of the veins, cause tracking through them and bruise the hell out of poor Nate.

But his troubles are only just beginning.

He’s developing a case of the Space rock crab, space madness. With a side of fries.

His eyes are turning bloodshot and look like they can see the atoms of your soul. He begins saying helpful things like “I can feel my thoughts” and silly nothing like “They want me to come to them”. He also is incredibly paranoid.

As if that’s not enough, cuddle time with his space buddy is out of the question. Out side of Ben discovering his pal is bleeding again, like a lot. He discovers his entire chest is turning black and infected. It’s spreading and getting worse, and as he explores Nate’s manly soft haired chest and defined abs, in the quiet of space on their dream home of the moon. Nate wakes up not in a mood to be touched and warns Ben to never touch him again, also something about “You were going to kill me!” but we can chalk that up to the space madness.

Or you know, he’s just really aware of his choices. Who can say.

It’s the space madness, and the rock crab infection….Pretty sure.

So while these two men struggle with personal space and rock crabs. Their clueless coffee sipping free floating friendo in the space shuttle above them is busy talking to NASA about their day, making some of the team members feel awkward when asked to describe what they’re wearing. But he does at least mention he still can’t contact his friends down on the moon, and he has been trying. Like lots. NASA says they’ve been trying totally lots too and had zero luck. But their friend is going to soldier on and keep trying to get his buddies down there, back up there, and then home. Because no man gets left behind!

It's actually pretty scary, and sad. A bit morbid too. I mean what’s happening is pretty far fetched sure. And maybe a bit comical while being creepy. But the thing that gets me, is the fact during the early days of the space program, they’ve admitted that they did indeed have, far far far far down the line, ‘plans’ incase of encountering unexplained events or occurrences. But that’s not the morbid part. That’s the fun part.

No the morbid part is they actually included a bit of historical stuff in this. Back when they sent Neil and crew to the moon. They had no idea if he’d actually make it alive. They didn’t know if the lander would crash. Get blown over. If the weight distribution would be correct or way off. If the surface would be solid, spongy. They had no idea. They just new there were a million different ways it could go wrong and their astronauts could die. Even worse, they could die on national television. So the president had a prepared speech made, which would had been read in the event of an astronauts death, and they used it as a line that Nate, in his crazy ass state murmurs out.

They still can’t communicate with NASA, but they can at least hear NASA broadcasting. They tell the astronauts to stay strong and safe, they are working to get them back home and they will. Nate tells Ben they’re lying and he can hear it in their voices, that’s when he recites “Fate has ordained the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace, remain on the Moon to rest in peace.”

It makes sense they would write something like this in case of the worst happening and having it ready for the President to say, but still scary. It included the memo atop the speech “In Event of Moon Disaster”, which sounds comforting.

Anyway, space madness.

It’s a real thing, and why we apparently can’t stay out there for too long. Or else we’ll get it.

Nate however is mostly under the control of paranoia and space crabs. He’s taken up a new hobby, documentarian. Filming his buddy while he sleeps like a blissful angel, He just stands over him, ever watchful. Recording him for who knows how long and god really even doesn’t know why.

But he’s gonna do it. At least until he feels he got enough footage of him and turns the camera on himself. To showcase for us that his entire face is darkened now, eyes looking like bloody pits of despair and madness of the space variety. Veins looking like dark tracking marks across his neck and face. The man has seen better days. But something has caught his crazy eye. And it’s not a space butterfly, or his companion having puppy dreams, no. It’s one of the many cameras NASA installed to watch them. He decides this is now an enemy of the peoples republic of the Moon, and its now hammer time! Yep. He’s embracing the madness, screaming about not letting NASA watch him die, and he is going to town like Gallagher in a watermelon farm. He is just hammering away and having a blast.

At least until he’s damaged their home to the point every alarm known to exist at that point is blaring and ringing at full capacity and they are alerted they have oxygen leaking at the speed of light. So its time to abandon their home and…..well what the hell do you do on the moon when your friend destroys your home. Go for a drive of course. This was an age of manly men. Where you dealt with your emotional problems and madness by getting some fresh air to help clear your head. Or drown those problems in high proof bourbon until they stopped screaming at your brain.

Well, it may be a lovely day in the neighborhood, but only for Ben. Who already feels swell after escaping the blaring alarms and death trap that was once their home and only way off the Moon. But his mood is being tested by party pooper Nate.

Nate has to be a Debby downer by saying things like “They want me to come to them” and “It isn’t safe for you, you need to go” Well that just doesn’t make any sense to Ben, so he just keeps on driving and looking for a rest stop. At least until Nate grabs the wheel, apologizes and does a sick flip with the lunar rover. He’s apologizing because he’s crashing them, So he can run off to the cove of rock space crabs. He wants to become one with the crab people and Ben is not all that happy about it. He wants to save his friend.

As touching as it is, that Ben wants to safe his friend, his pilot buddy, his belly warmer. Nothing can stop space rock crabs, especially when you stumble upon hundreds of them, and they’re all goddamn giants.

So they take his friend into their cave and Ben rightfully gets the hell out of dodge and  heads for the one place that might save him.

The Russian Lander. They might be stinking no good commies. But it’s a vacant home, and beggers can’t be choosers. Pluss space rules dictate if you put a flag down. It’s yours so. Slap an eagle of freedom on that baby and it’s now the proud property of the USA.

With a new home and a friend now being introduced to his rock crab friends, or devoured and suffocating as holes are punctured through his suit to get at the meaty bits. Ben is wasting no time at all in attempting to work the radio and begin doing his best to contact. Well. Anyone listening.

Seriously at this point I don’t blame the guy at this point. Although his country might not appreciate it, but hey nuts to them. Oh right the country will never hear about it. HA.

So is our man on the moon successful? Depends on your definition. Does he receive a response finally? Yes he does. Just, as you’d imagine it not from NASA, but the Russians. Because, well yeah.

So hearing an American on their comms is not exactly something they were ready for, and can’t understand a word Ben is saying. So with majestic speed and wonder. Ben soon finds himself connected and speaking to none other than the wonderous and always ready to help Department of Defense. Which shocks him incredibly. But they assure him. That his call was ‘routed’ immediately to them and they inform him that they are aware of his situation. And have a solution.

They will not be bringing him back home. They want him to know that his country appreciates his sacrifice, and they will of course tell his family he died on American soil, not screaming on the Moon while fending off Rock Crabs.

Needless to say he takes it rather incredibly horrible and appropriately loses his shit. BUT not his mind. That’s the one thing he’s keeping. And it’s solely focused on getting back to his kid and his wife. So if he could contact Russia, and the government that is now leaving him to die. He can contact his shuttle and our floating free baling man in the sky, John. Who is the only person excited to hear his friend is still alive

It's a quick and sad conversation as his friend is happy to finally have some signs of life on the moon once more, having no updates what so ever from NASA on their status. Now having to be told quickly and with little time to process ANY of this. That there are aliens on the Moon, and they infected and killed Nate. That NASA knew about this and sent them up there. They HAD to know! Then he has to let him know the Depeartment of Defense and NASA’s plan to leave him there to die. They believe he could be infected and even if not he’s still a risk. NASA can’t risk any of those rock crab monsters getting to earth. Or maybe they already did and Red Lobster had to be shut down while a cover up was made. Anything is possible.

But what for sure is possible, is that John Is going to get his pal up to that station and bring him home!

I mean realistically if he does this NASA is going to turn a blind eye when the DOD shoots him or injects him with enough drugs to make him go insane and lock the man up. The point is, sure he’ll be home back on earth ALIVE and with his family. But at what cost. At. What. Cost!

Well if he plans on setting foot on sweet freedoms front door he’s going to need to get that red commie bird in the sky and into orbit so they can get him off there right quick! So without a moment to lose he is into action and. And. There is a sudden knocking at the door. Seems a bit late for visitors. But wait this is the Moon! This isn’t neighbors asking for sugar!

Why its our somehow still alive and even more insane friend Nate! Hi Nate!!

So Nate is not happy. He’s asking to be let inside, and Ben has to tell him not by the hair on his chinny chin chin. So Nate, reunited with his hammer. Begins huffing and puffing until he is hammering out his intentions to enter the lander. All while Ben is yelling at him and pleading with the man not to do it, not to kill them both. He doesn’t want to leave Nate out there but he’s infected. He has no choice.

Well Nate finds this reasonable. John meanwhile is having to listen to all of this and has a LOT of questions, which primarily stim from one source. That of which being how the fuck is Nate still alive and just what the hell is going on down there.

Which is a reasonable thing to ask in that current situation.

However Nate decides that maybe his friend is right. Maybe he is infected and shouldn’t be listening to the space madness, or the dozens upon dozens of space rock crabs crawling all over his goddamn face.

By the way there are dozens of space rock crabs crawling all over his face.

But Nate is able to control himself long enough to wish his buddy save journey and collapses dead, for real this time on the ground. It is go time for team Ben and operation I’m an Astronaut, get me out of here.

So with that and his friend now properly dead. Ben is firing off into space, entering orbit.

As the Russian lander takes off and heads to orbit from the Moon. John is contacted by DOD on an emergency broadband call. He is being told not to pick up Ben. John wants to discuss the reasons for this, as well as what his friend possibly is contaminated with as they called it. DOD does not want to answer these difficult questions at this time. They insist that John just listen to them and not rescue his pal Ben.

He chooses to disagree with them and ask for a reasonably priced answer for just what the sam hell is going on out there. DOD calmly retorts with a counter proposal. If he rescues Ben, They will not send data required for a return trip home. He will run out of resources and die in space. They will not save either of them. So do as they say, or face the reality of dying horribly in space.

And trust me, death in space is the worst thing you can possibly fathom to imagine. Seriously look it up, it’s not something to wish on anyone.

Well That’s just a chance John is going to have to take! He’s telling his buddy Ben to slow his speed down and he’ll rescue him.

Benny boy is happy as can be. He’s reached zero gravity, he’s about to cut the throttle back. But first he wants to enjoy for a moment the fact he made it alive and is going home. And the fact he’s now floating in his chair, along with his water bottle, and loose gear, and space rock crabs. Oh yeah, the Russians had rock samples which turned out to be space crabs so. Bye bye Benny.

Ben is unable to slow down his lander and, unfortunately for John. The two collide , and are killed nearly instantly. Again death in space is no joke, and it is not instantaneous.

With that we end on the colorful note that. Official reports state Apollo 17 was the final Lunar mission to the moon,

Official reports also state that John died in a crash during a training mission in Florida, Nate crashed an F-14 into the pacific ocean  and died, While Ol Benny Ben Benner’s killed during a mid air evacuation. All of their bodies were unable to be recovered.

The funniest bit at the end though, is “Apollo missions brought 840 pounds of Lunar rock sample back to earth. Hundreds were given away to dignitaries of foreign countries, many of those gifts were stolen or are now missing.”

I mean come on that’s pretty hilarious. But unfortunately not so much the out come for the men of Apollo 18.

The End

Well that was another joyful romp through time and a good old time it was.

It was a silly movie yes. Beginning to end. The fact they’d send a mission to the Moon, who’s entire purpose is to set up cameras, and a missile detection device. I mean sure on earth that makes sense. But you’re talking about a trip that isn’t exactly cheap. Or simple. That. Aside. It was still a bit of fun. The story wasn’t too bad. The acting is. Well huh. It’s not bad, but like the rest of the film. It’s pretty okay. It’s not out to winner awards, and it’s not exactly carving out a spot in top horror.

The aliens were interesting, and kind of silly. I mean having rocks turn into crab like monsters is fun. But it’s also an interesting choice.

Like it makes sense, there’s tons of rocks on the moons surface, we get it. You don’t see any structures or have nearly the amount of conspiracies about lost civilizations or hidden ones as you do Mars. But it could’ve been interesting if they’d tried.

As a monster movie it’s a fun idea. It was creepy seeing them crawling inside the suit, and also comical seeing the floating rocks at the end sprout legs and attack. It just felt like maybe there could’ve been room for more. Like make that your small nemesis, an annoyance compared to the main dish. Like have a giant mountain of a crab monster, or introduce other monsters. Like trap door spider type things. It would’ve added another layer to the oh shit factor and might have amped things up a bit.

The film does the same as The Bay in that with how it’s being presented to ‘us’ as it was edited. It’s showing us where to direct our attentions and taking a bit of the mystery out. So it’s more a matter of watching things play out while being shown how it will play out. While leaving the end up to a coin flip. Or at least seeming to be.

I liked the movie but I didn’t love it, and I felt it could’ve had a scarier approach. It worked as a fun way to spend an hour and 20 minutes. But if it really wanted to stand out, it could’ve done maybe a bit more. With the mystery of the rock aliens, introducing other threats, fleshed it out a bit more. We were given the edited highlight real of a few hundred hours of gathered confidential footage. It would’ve been interesting if they did more with that. Maybe show us a bit more with the Russian lander. Maybe show they took collection samples, or research photos, something to latch onto.

Then you have the is it or isn’t it connected part of the film. We have the chittering of the rock crabs, that lets us know they’re there, somewhere, and doing nasty stuff. But then we have the interference over the radios. The random cut outs on the lander. It’s never really explained and the astronauts never seem to connect the events. It’s like they try introducing hey, we’ve picked up chatter from something, you can sort of hear it in the first few bits of interference. Like sticking a microphone into a cave of bats. But then it just sort of gets dropped and becomes more a static screech over anything else.

The look of the film is great. They did a good job matching tech, and part of the fun doing a film in that period. Is the fact that you didn’t need complex heavily wired sets for a ships controls or the landers.

The home videos were great and felt like watching archival footage from the astronauts. Everything sounded and felt authentic. I mean I joked about it, but the astronauts really did carry that feel of old time American men with them and it fit appropriately. Everything felt right. It wasn’t a bad movie. Just a pretty okay time. Which is still good but, you still want better from it. It’s a horrible balance and thing being into horror.

When a film holds back, you want it to go all out. When it goes all out, you wish it’d held back a bit because now it went insane. But if you have a fun concept, and you know there’s some potential to go a little crazy. It’s worth trying.

I’m not saying the movie should’ve become something akin to the mountains of madness with the levels of creatures on it. Not something like Skull Island where you have 20 different damn things trying to kill your ass. But it just felt like fertile ground you could really play around in and make something.

I mean all we’ve had going on for the moon is clones on the moon, Nazi’s on the moon, and Superman burying Nuclear man on it. Good on them for making a monster movie about a moon landing. Just yeah. It was fun, but could have gone a bit more out there. I still hope for a truly scary movie about the moon. This just wasn’t it. But it was still good.

It definitely could’ve been worse. The stuff with the Department of Defense and the thinly veiled did they or didn’t they know. That could’ve been given some more time to breath. It might’ve been nice seeing some things from NASA’s end, but I get why they didn’t and again. Makes sense. So yeah just little bits here and there could’ve been nice but ultimately not needed.

This and the Bay were both similar told stories and felt about the same. Enjoyable films that still would be enjoyable with or without little changes to it.

The director, Gonxalo Lopez Gallego has a pretty good body of work behind him,. They know what they’re doing and they told their story well. This could have been incredibly boring or entirely stupid. It was thankfully far and away from that.

The soundtrack was for the most part pretty subtle, in that there IS NONE, which I praise them for, the sound itself was well done. I enjoyed the little chittering.  The effects were, good. You could tell they were a little wonky, but they were able to cover it up pretty well.

So I was going to wrap this up about now, but thankfully my wondering mind kept me from doing so as I found something truly wonderful. Well I mean somewhat wonderful as it confirms for me they actually DID try to go a bit further out there like we’d talked about.

Apparently there were scenes/plans for larger rock spider creatures. Like it was hinted at during the movie when Nate is saying Farewell to Ben, he suddenly loses his balance and is being rapidly pulled into the alcove. Apparently he WAS supposed to had been dragged off by much larger spider rock creatures and even Ben was going to meet his fate originally with an unseen creature casting a very large shadow over the Russian lander.

So they DID think to go bigger and crazier. But ultimately they decided to slim it down and. You know what, I’m cool with it. It’s still well done and told its story. Still enjoyed it and it would’ve been as enjoyable with the additional bigger bugs, I don’t think it’d be a definite game changer for me and my opinion on the movie. I just feel it would’ve been fun to see.

In the end, a good time for all. Really. I’m glad I bought it, I won’t have it on regular rotation, but I will recommend it to people wanting a good space movie.

Just a few down the list and still riding along pretty darn smoothly. I’m beginning not to regret this now. Let’s hope that decision last. It really should be interesting especially with the one I’m debating doing tomorrow. So we shall see. On that note, see you all tomorrow and the next time you find yourself on the moon, or alone in a cabin miles fron civilization, and you hear a knock at your door? Just don’t. Let it be, and just take a nap.

Or surround your house with circles of rocks that grow wider and wider each ring. It’ll keep people from you, and insure a peaceful time. Or death. Anyway. Cya tomorrow!