Better Than Europa Report
This movie is underrated. It held my attention -- more so than Europa Report.
I also enjoyed seeing Lloyd Owen from Monarch of the Glen as one of the astronauts.
Felt the exact opposite. I loved Europa Report (9/10), one of the best sci-fi films I've seen in recent memory. I thought it was smart, suspenseful, and superbly acted with great production values. Apollo 18 was an utter bore, though I give props to the leads for delivering convincing performances.
Given the cheesy nature of Apollo 18's plot (moon rock spiders in space), I can't help but think the premise would have been more enjoyably executed if they had just filmed it in a traditional format. The attempts at replicating low quality film stick was just so distracting. The filmmakers also ditched some of the cooler ideas. The most enjoyably creepy scene, where it turns out even the large rocks are also spiders, wasn't even in the final film.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I will give Europa Report another shot.
I'd score them:
Apollo 18: 8/10
Europa Report: 4/10
Europa Report felt like a pretty huge ripoff, and even though the critics don't agree with me, I feel like Apollo 18 was much better. First, Apollo 18 pulled off more authenticity in portraying a legitimate space mission along with characters that were actually believable as astronauts. Also, and more importantly, Apollo 18 knew what kind of movie it was and it didn't try to be anything else but an interesting little horror film. Europa Report feels like it was confused as to what kind of genre it was. It wasn't very scary, even though it gave us something mysterious that was killing people without emotion. And it also failed at trying to have some sort of emotional depth to it since none of the characters had much personality, nor was there any truly identifiable main character. Also, the editing and sequencing of the film was odd and largely ineffective. (I still don't see the point in showing us the astronaut dying during the spacewalk AFTER they land on Europa) Europa Report was a fairly sloppy and boring movie that was really only successful in doing one thing: portraying europa close-up on a small budget, and nothing else.
I honestly don't understand why Apollo 18 got bashed so heavily by audiences and critics. It was a very entertaining and unique horror movie. It wasn't a cheap-thrills horror film like Scream 5 or Saw 12 or something, nor was it a complete mess of a movie like Gigli or Lay The Favorite. It was a fairly interesting story in a very unique setting and it felt like a reasonably put-together movie that doesn't deserve to be so heavily criticized. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that most people just aren't really into outer space as much as they used to be.
I totally agree. I don't see why people fawn all over Europa Report then rip on this one. I see reviewers calling ER one of the best sci-fi films recently/ever whatever, but it really felt like a pretty typical (though well done in some ways) horror movie. A18 pulls off the "found footage" aspect far more convincingly. They both feature *spoiler* weird aliens killing people, but while ER tries hard to seem scientific, it's not. People keep acting/dying in inexplicable ways. Meanwhile A18 had a slightly more fun feel, it was serious but at the same time didn't feel it was taking itself uber-seriously like ER.
The editing cut up style in ER really detracted from it as well.
A18 felt more like hard SF in many ways, no frills. I think people just don't
have the attention span or need the flashy look and music in ER.
I gotta agree with this. I don't know why Apollo 18 is scored so low either. Maybe the "found footage" thing has run its course, but I don't think you'll find a much better example of it at its top than on Apollo 18.
I liked Europa Report, but didn't think it was anything special other than the fact that I'm grateful for any space thriller/horror that comes out these days.
There are some great scare moments in Apollo 18, and I think they did a pretty good job at not making them too gimmicky.
I agree with the above poster. I absolutely loved Europa Report. The glory of new discovery, the sacrifices made to reach new horizons, the palpable fear of the unknown were all captured so well. The narrative was were interesting. the acting was authentic.
Apollo 18 is another forgetable BlairWitch project ripoff. Instead of making it a found footage movie, it should have been a regular movie. The idea of moon rock spiders was pretty creepy. The initial scenes were really horrible to watch in that format. It got interesting only after the astronauts start their EVA.
I wasn't distracted by the format. I thought it was quite enjoyable, not overdone, and interspersed with more "normal" content to tell a narrative. The movie was good overall, but the ending was terrible and unsatisfying. The "post-ending" - the end reports of all three cosmonauts being killed brought nothing new to the table, just three made-up excuses about their deaths which contributed to the feeling of lack of imagination.
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