Made From Ingredients From The USA, Canada and Indonesia: V/H/S 2 (2013)

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/V-H-S-2_Poster.jpg

Dirs. Simon Barrett, Jason Eisener, Gareth Evans, Gregg Hale, Eduardo Sánchez, Timo Tjahjanto and Adam Wingard

Like a beautiful coincidence, I cover the original V/H/S (2012) months earlier, and like this sequel's release in Britain, you get V/H/S 2 the same year near Halloween. How many franchises get both the prequel and sequel debuting in the UK in the exact same year to each other? There is a slight caveat to the words "beautiful" though. The original V/H/S wasn't a good anthology film. Set around a mysterious series of VHS tapes found in a house, a Wunderkammer of death or an atrocity exhibition, the first film in hindsight was the creation of directors who clearly wanted to make dramas than horror shorts for the most part, and barring one legitimately good segment, none of them were good at the drama in their work either. They dangerously became films that symbolised some kind of elite club of white, middle class, male twenty something horror fans rather than horror shorts for everyone; if the grindhouse phenomenon has (thankfully) died on its backside, its unfortunately been surpassed by a vocabulary of mostly swearing, quasi-drama with no interest and power dimensions amongst peers that really didn't need to have been fed by accident with V/H/S 1. It was a nostalgia for a format (VHS) without considering the potential mysteries of the object in question, and with no real sense of atmosphere and tone, a bane on the genre's existence that has frankly sabotaged it for decades long before I was even born. 

Harsh words, very harsh words, but while I have suddenly become enamoured with this new era of anthology films, at the moment like giving bloodied candy to a four year old, the first film was the one blot when its sequel and The ABCs of Death (2012), for their flaws, had been enjoyable in their fragments, and for both showing potential new talent and even bringing back interest in directors I was cold to. V/H/S 2 can still be criticised for many things, and is as much as an all men's club frankly, in an era where one would hope for more female horror directors to exist, but it's still a drastic improvement on the original. No longer, thankfully, preoccupied with evil women as the segments in the first did barring that one good one which skewered the notion. While still wadding in violence, some sex and general misanthropy, it's for more inventive and trying to do something generally interesting in all the key segments. And, aside from returning contributors Simon Wingard and Simon Barrett,  you've got clear outsiders with different ideas now to bring to the table. A Canadian Jason Eisener, whose work with Hobo With A Shotgun (2011) and his short Youngbuck for The ABCs of Death is that of someone obsessed with visual style and bouncing off the walls in his anarchic tendencies. Eduardo Sánchez, co-directing with Gregg Hale in one of the two contributions done by a duo, one of the directors of The Blair Witch Project (1999), the beginning, legitimately, of the found footage subgenre that this anthology is part of, the drastic shift from that film to a decade or so later adding a potentially fascinating layer to Sánchez's contribution. And finally, expanding the film beyond North American soil, there is the pairing of Indonesian director Timo Tjahjanto and British director Gareth Evans, the later significantly known for martial arts action cinema, not horror, and bringing a drastically different perspective to the material because of this.

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Tape 49 (Dir. Simon Barrett) - V/H/S 2 needs some suspension of disbelief to make it work fully. This is not a criticism at all, as most films need one aspect, or a couple, that need to be accepted as they are. That's the nature of fiction, and of cinema. But it has to be bared in mind, all these occult and supernatural events put on videotapes, with some of the events composed of more than one camera, all existing in the same world as two private detectives search for a young man. They instead find an abandoned house full of these tapes and one of them watch them to figure out what's going on. It's fascinating to imaging whole worlds within one bigger one, subjectively questioned by the film without it realising it, all of which may have more disturbing effects on a viewer than showing mere gristly demises. As the wraparound story that bookmarks the four key segments, its vastly superior to the one in the first film because it actually makes sense. The first one was a clusterfunk of bad pacing and editing, while this actually has a pace. It's the weakest piece alongside Adam Wingard's, the directors alumni of the prequel pointedly, but it at least fits the improved quality of this sequel by being interesting to view. What brief titbits it has about the meaning of these tapes' existence is tantalising this time as well; I hope if V/H/S 3 ever happens it suddenly turns into Videodrome (1983) in the implications made here. Brian O'Blivion would be proud of the idea this nudges towards, but just needs the final push if another sequel is made.

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Phase I Clinical Trials (Dir. Adam Wingard) - A man (the director himself) is given a robotic eye transplant, with recording equipment inside it for the creators to monitor its functions, only to find that he can see things with malevolent tendencies he didn't see before. The reason this is the weakest of the key segments is because its difficult to write a lot about it. It's a supernatural story reminiscent of The Eye (2002) but with a very short length, cutting it down to a basic structure, and a gimmick of being recorded from an eye in a quasi-Enter The Void (2009) first person. But it's still a higher quality work than almost all the shorts from the first film. It raises the interesting question of how someone got hold of the footage in the first place, an enticing what-if rather than a logical flaw. It's fascinating for a film in this anthology to be seen through a person's eye. It also starts the greatest virtue of V/H/S 2 - that it takes advantage of two key aspects of the found footage genre and uses both well. That they're filmed on various video recording devices, and that, when done properly, it's very kinetic and all about movement. None of the segments are mindless shaky camera, with even the chaotic moments where the image is incomprehensible being appropriate for the moment. It's far from perfect, and you will raise your eyebrows at the sex scene that suddenly happens, verging close to the same questionable, laddish mentality of the first V/H/S film your dread even if you would find it titillating in a perverse way, any potential eroticism undercut by the fact that, frankly, it's an excuse for nudity without just admitting its an erotic moment and objectifying the actress for no justifiable excuse in the context. But it's a good start to lead to better shorts, ending well in a panicked state, with an interesting idea, leading on to segments which are superior with running with these ideas that can top it easily.

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A Ride In The Park (Dirs. Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale) - A male mountain biking aficionado straps a head-mounted camera on and goes to record a morning bike trek in the local woodland park. Unfortunately he rides into a zombie outbreak. What happens is a really clever take on such a tired subgenre, the zombie film, as he is bitten and becomes a member of the undead, shown through improv zombie-cam. It's great to see one of the founders of the found footage subgenre, and a producer of said original film, bringing something very interesting here in such a simple thought, one that someone would come up with while drinking one night and be amused by it.  In fact it may actually be superior to the more acclaimed segment Safe Haven for the amount of emotions that the premise suddenly holds when its presented as well as it is here. How curiously charming it is to see the world from the shuffling dead, almost like flesh eating newborns who, in a nice touch, will chew on anything before they figure out what they're supposed to sustain themselves on. How a victim, as they're being eaten, will suddenly become undead and the attackers suddenly stop and welcome them in the horde, wandering off together. How hilarious the film gets in a sick way even when the zombies get to a birthday party, the use of various camera, while a leap in logic too, helping the film significantly in tension. And also how deeply sad by the climax the story becomes and how it plays out. All these emotions co-exist in the same minute within the film too, forcing you to feel them all together for maximum effect. It's short, its succinct, but brilliant for it.

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Safe Haven (Dirs. Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Evans)- The biggie. The short everyone talks about in this anthology. The centrepiece in its longer length and bombast. Set in Indonesia, a group of filmmakers manage to get inside the home of a controversial cult to interview their leader, dubbed only as Father, and let him speak on his own terms about their beliefs without opposition. In the middle of the interview, a bell rings and Hell on Earth tales place. It's the most maniac, insane, and downright violent of all the segments, but it's also incredibly complicated in structure. It has numerous camera the footage is recorded from, all that needs to be co-ordinated so the viewer gets what it going on, and doesn't get to know everything at the same time, before and during the chaos; and for all the madness that takes place, it's also as much a story about the filmmakers too, while simplistic, where there's conflict and a strained relationship in their camp which turns the final act into more darker implications. I have seen only one film from each director who made this, and while I am very open to them now, those two works weren't good. Evans is famous for The Raid (2011), but for its visceral fight scenes and their craft, its completely bland in the ideas it actually has. Tjahjanto I know of only from his few minutes long contribution to The ABCs of Death, L Is For Libido, a potentially interesting piece, very well made, that becomes pointlessly shocking for the sake of shock value, almost becoming silly when it tries to cram as many taboos as it can into its short length. There is a possibility, on another viewing, that this ridiculousness was actually a really clever, unexpected moment of self consciousness from Tjahjanto as a horror director who realises the perversity of upping the disgusting sakes for viewers mentally masturbating over it, but it'll have to wait until rewatching that piece to see if I change my mind on it. As a duo thought, I want to wager they cancelled out the other's flaws. Evans pulling Tjahjanto back from pointless gruel, but Tjahjanto getting Evans to try to create something very interesting. It's been seen before in terms of the ideas of the short, and may be pointlessly twisted at times, but Safe Haven is a gem because it's clear in its goal, and baring some disappointingly obvious CGI, works. It could be off-putting in content or how it uses very well used clichés in horror cinema, but it never feels pointlessly sick or insipid, and ends on such a high note that, honestly, this should have been the final segment of the four that leads to the wraparound story's own conclusion. And while I am open to these directors now, I think the two should work together more, likely to boost Indonesian genre cinema up again as a pair combining styles.

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Slumber Party Alien Abduction (Dir. Jason Eisener) - It's unfortunate that Eisener had to follow Safe Haven. His short - the name on the tin says it all, but with a large part of it recorded on a camera attached on a dog's back - should have been between the zombies and Indonesian cults. Its flawed, the second weakest of the key segments, but I admit I have hope for the director. As someone who likes putting works as one single, giant creation of its creator(s), I wish Eisener gets better and better. Hobo With A Shotgun has an ending the annoyingly peters out, but the energy of the first three quarters was so infectious and legitimately daring than tedious in tone like so many neo-grindhouse films. His segment for The ABCs of Death was structured like a politically incorrect music video, which he pulled off perfectly. If there's another flaw with V/H/S 2, all the segments are structured around chaos suddenly taking place. For the most part it failed, but at least the first film has a varied choice of plot structures. But this short's still fun. Still scary when it gets hectic, with strange aliens that clearly hung around a Edvard Munch painting or two, and the premise of making most of the film shot from a dog's perspective, aside from some hijinks early on from the young cast, again takes the kind of premise joked about in a night's trip to the pub but makes it interesting. From the "eyes" of a small dog, looking up at the world, or crawling in the undergrowth outside, you are truly lost in what is going on, which makes it very interesting as a concept short. The result is still impressive even if it's in the wrong place in ordering the segments together.

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Altogether, there are flaws, but this still raising the bar higher than per usual horror films of now. With this and The ABCs of Death, as I've already stated, there is a potentially wonderful phenomenon approaching of genre anthologies like this becoming a subgenre of interest. I still have some reservations admittedly, when directors coasts, or that they spend their time making entries for these anthologies than actually making feature films. But in the subgenre's favour, you cannot rest back on the worst aspects of genre filmmaking - padded plots, workmanlike aesthetics, tired clichéd structures - in such a restricted short length and small budget unless you want to be the one the viewers dub the bad entry in said anthology. It can potentially cut the chaff from these directors so they can improve, and as this film and the upcoming ABCs of Death 2 show, the combination of so many unconventional choices of directors from various generations, nationalities, even not known for making horror films, could make for some interesting combinations. What needs to be done with the subgenre if they're now in vogue, funded by theatre chains, DVD labels, or in this case Bloody Disgusting, creating an interesting ouroboros in horror films and their audiences, is to prevent it from what unfortunately happened with the first V/H/S, a small club whose language is befitting a small clique that bars outsiders and the new perspectives from it. Here at least there were four different nationalities in the director chairs, and even the plot structures are similar, you have people of various areas, including one from outside of horror, nonetheless making a film with a very consistent tone. Leaner with less segments, clearer but replacing the vagueness with material that adds layers to the segments, and a kinetic grace to all the segments in using the cameras mixed with experimentation. It's a shame it has to replicate the obnoxious end credits style of the first film - abrasive music, and a barrage of sex and gore scenes more closer to a thirteen year old boy or two writing the project. The film that preceded it, while still schlocky, was far more interesting than this.

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Realities-Within-Realities: V/H/S (2012)

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Dirs. Various [Each One Stated For Each Segment of Film]

USA

Tape 56 (Dir. Adam Wingard) [Beginning Act]

V/H/S offers a fascinating concept with its synopsis. The found footage sub-genre inherently plays with subjective reality, so splicing it with the anthology sub-genre, found material intercut into a piece of found material bookending it all, creates reality bubbles that maybe even the producers of the film didn’t realise would be caused. A group of young men break into an old man’s house to steal a videotape worth a lot of money to the person who’s sent them there, only to find a dead body slumped in an armchair and numerous tapes that they start sorting through. On each tape is a story of folly and the worst that could happen while everything is not what it seems in the house they’ve broken into more than it was already. In the first scene, these characters are vile, obnoxious examples of corrupted masculinity taken to a further level by the opening scene, but films allow us to be placed into the world of people who are appalling and force us to follow them. A found footage film allows this to happen more easily. Once in the house, one of them sits down and puts a tape in while everyone else, split into groups followed by two cameras, investigate for the tape, leading us to the segments one at a time with the activity in the house intercutting it.

There was hesitance going into V/H/S after a few opinions I had heard, but I was optimistic. I have to put a SPOILER warning here for the rest of the review, but for each segment it will vary so please read the tag before each part. It’s a messy procedure, but it’s fitting for the anthology film at hand and hopefully you will get some of the review left to read even if you haven’t seen V/H/S.

Amateur Night (Dir. David Brucker) [Slight Spoiler]

Regardless of any other thoughts, I will be grateful for this segment as there is a lot to defend in it against the others. It falls into the same area of many of the others of men crossing with women of a dubious nature, an issue which some have had with V/H/S, but here the story complicates it in an interesting way I hoped continued in the other segments. The men are also obnoxious jocks, another reoccurring aspect in these segments, but there is nothing wrong with either one or two of the pieces following these types of characters, especially when they are fleshed out in such an short length of time. They are hateable people, planning to secretly film a porno and cruising for women, but not only should the viewer be forced to ask whether they are just as bad as them mentally by following through their leering eyes, but what happens to them (violently) makes you realise they are human beings regardless. And the dangerous woman is as complex as well and sympathetic even after what happens. It is all because of the actress Hannah Fierman, whose performance is the one in V/H/S that is legitimately good and whose physical appearance, having the biggest eyes I have ever seen for an actor or actress onscreen, instantly captivated me to her, especially when the twist is followed by an unexpected emotional note after the brutality that takes place. I really, really hope someone has the right idea and casts her in more films.

Amateur Night also snuffs out one of the biggest leaps of logic that this sub-genre has to deal with – “Why would you keep filming?!” – by having the story viewed through camera glasses. Ludicrous yes, but as leaps of logic go I could work with it, especially as the effect adds an exceptional level of tension and panic when the worst takes place. The segment promised so much for the whole of V/H/S.

Second Honeymoon (Dir. Ti West) [Slight Spoiler]

Unfortunately with Ti West’s segment the rest of V/H/S starts to slowly die onscreen. Beyond its premise it was supposed to show the best of American filmmaking in genre cinema, but barring David Bruckner with Amateur Night, only a few bright spots are provided by the others. Second Honeymoon could have worked, a male and female couple taking a vacation in Americana only to get the attention of a mysterious woman, but it quickly falls into tedious drama scripting. Its horror story is uninteresting – avoiding the jock characters for a male and female character of some sympathy, but with another ominous female outsider – and has a really dumb twist even if clues are laid down beforehand. The jury in my head is out on Ti West. Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009) is average, and he botched the perfect first three quarters of The House of the Devil (2009) with an abruptness that can justifiable compared to premature ejaculation despite how tasteless that metaphor is. For a great new horror director, he has not presented something that is standout. Far from dismissing the anthology completely from this point on, Second Honeymoon should have been the one misfire before the others brought the film back up in quality.

Tuesday The 17^th (Dir. Glenn McQuaid) [Spoiler]

In this segment’s sole defence, the idea of what its evil force appears to be is ingenious. Using the found footage medium to its advantage, the tropes it is playing with, just by guessing what the title is a reference to, are pushed to where even the recorded reality is easy to manipulate and distort by a prescience more powerful that even the outside force that records the events that befall a group of young adults who go to the woodlands to smoke pot and fornicate. It becomes clear however, again with this segment, that most of the directors are not pushing themselves to a high level of quality. It follows the stereotypical college student group you find in slasher films, from the same mould as the jocks of three of the other segments even if they are unisex, whose dialogue as with most of the vignettes consist of saying “fuck” in surprise at what is happening to them and their desire to drink and have sex as if there is nothing else in their existence. V/H/S could have been a message of the folly of this attitude to life, especially with the segments about all male groups, but it fails here as in most of them because none of the characters are interesting. They’re generic and it’s another dangerous woman character that appears in this segment even if the actual evil is something much more unhuman. Like most cinema, it commits the sin of wasting such potentially good ideas with a bad script around them.

The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger (Dir. Joe Swanberg) [No Spoiler]

The issue of a Skype conversation recorded on VHS tape is pointless to worry about as the idea, like many others in the anthology, had potential. Complicated by the two people being far away physically yet able to see each other, the dangers that threaten one and the helplessness of the other would create a frightening proposition. A young woman named Emily is troubled by both a strange pain in her arm and the possibility that her rented apartment is haunted, a series of Skype calls between her and her boyfriend unfolding as she becomes more isolated. Unlike the other segments except Amateur Night, even if it continues the nudity of the others, it has a female character who is sympathetic inherently and has a heartbreaking (and stomach churning) resolution behind it all. It also has the other memorable aspect of the anthology outside of Amateur Night with a jump scare involving a door that is surprising in how calm and matter-of-fact it is depicted, as if it’s accidentally crossing a whimsical moment with the utterly freakish. Sadly the writing is completely undercooked and with its twist ending has garbled plotting. This is surprising since the director of this is Joe Swanberg, who, having not seen any of his other work, is supposed to one of the best hidden secrets of current American cinema with his contributions to indie and mumblecore cinema. I hope that this is just a blip before I get to films like Hannah Takes The Stairs (2007), as this is not good enough to justify being more than average or poor.

Tape 56 [Resolution] (Dir. Adam Wingard) [No Spoiler]

The entirety of V/H/S as a project is botched by its end because of the fact mentioned that little of it is good enough in terms of writing or appearance for a group of directors said to be the new Kings of Western horror cinema. The bookmarking film Tape 56 leads to nothing, a scare ending that is completely pointless. It doesn’t weave together the potency of the vast collection of taped recordings of horrors in a way that reminds one of an atrocity exhibition for voyeurs and retro geeks, neither making videotape scary again long after the original Ringu (1998) did so or given you a well set-up punch line. In fact, this is not even the end of the anthology...

10/31/98 (Dirs. Radio Silence) [Massive Spoiler]

Again another good premise like the others – on Halloween you would probably view a supernatural occurrence as smoke machines and wires – but it doesn’t succeed. It even tries to make its own group of rowdy men vaguely likable, and finds a way of dealing with the logic with the camera by having it part of a character’s bear suit, Nicolas Cage crossed with Andrea Scarface from Pedro Almodomar’s Kika (1993), but it shows again the ultimate failure of V/H/S, like a lot of current genre cinema, of offering the incredibly redundant from good ideas as if they are works of genius. Radio Silence’s entry becomes as average haunted house film with obvious CGI heavy effects and another ending where it’s a woman you should run the opposite way from if you’re male. This reoccurring trend in the segments, aside from Amateur Night where it’s played with thoughtfully, is not inherently misogynistic but something more sadder; a dwindled pool of ideas shared by the creators that unfortunately leads to most of them going with a twist about women backstabbing the male characters in the back by complete accident.  With a flat anticlimax to the whole film, it leaves on a terrible note.

Conclusion [No Spoiler]

Said film is a completely failed project for consistency and as a single entity. The white elephant that makes V/H/S even more pointless, that Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers (2009) exists at all, does not help things either for a film named after the home format and all the elicit fears and enticements a medium like it, despite being a pain in the arse to rewind and liable to be destroyed by magnets, could generate. It should evoke an unmarked tape found hidden somewhere secret that could show you some truly horrifying and liable to change reality itself. V/H/S’s greatest failure is that it never evokes this sense of dread of a scratchy recorded home movie and how even the tracking failing, that one of the shorts does try to use for tension building admittedly, could bring the hairs up on your neck. 

From http://anythinghorror.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/vhs-2.jpg

The ‘Surprise’ of Cinema [Apollo 18 (2011)]

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Dir. Gonzalo López-Gallego

Canada-USA

Film #23 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema

From http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6a_AR4vVSbo/ULmOc95IzRI/
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Particularly with the horror genre, once a popular film springs into existence, many other movies trying to replicate its ideas or tropes are made afterwards – slasher films, ‘torture porn’, and with this review’s film, the found footage sub-genre. Once a certain amount of these films are released however, the public become sick of many of them and many are dismissed. This is even more the case with the found footage sub-genre as its basic concept can be done as cheaply as possible, as can be attested with Paranormal Activity (2007), a low budget independent production that became a box office smash. This issue with a sub-genre becoming bloated is a pretty justifiable reason for reviewing a film like Apollo 18, which got many negative reviews when it was released. This film is certainly not a cheap looking cash-in however, and proved to be an immense surprise.

From http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/6917/76002643.jpg

Officially, the last manned mission to the Moon by the United States was Apollo 17, but what we see is the footage of the secret Apollo 18 launch, following two astronauts as they land on the Moon’s surface. As the edited together footage, taken from numerous pieces of NASA equipment, goes on however it becomes apparent that the Moon is not merely a dead satellite surrounding our planet. It is disconcerting that Apollo 18 has been dismissed as much as it has, maybe taking into consideration that I have not seen many films within the current trend of found footage films. Yes, the obvious issue one asks is how this footage could have been recovered and accessed to, but this is an abstract scenario to merely allow the film’s story to take place, suspension of disbelief as with many films for them to work. The potential issues with the accuracy of the filmic equipment used has to be pushed away as well as pointless pedantic questioning when the real core of the film is beyond this.

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The found footage sub-genre has been off-putting for me until now, mainly because I have had no interest and that, after my hope that it would be the Bela Tarr film of the sub-genre that forced viewers to watch quiet rooms for unbearable periods only to jump off their seats when the jolt took place, the first Paranormal Activity was such an utter disappointment, fast forwarding through the recorded footage up to the jump scares, defeating the point of them, and being utterly generic. I yet can see the potential in the sub genre, having admired The Blair Witch Project (1999). Seeing Cannibal Holocaust (1980) the day before this one for the first time cements the power this concept has, not only in the content of that film, but that it’s film-within-a-film nature is not only meta but evokes experimental cinema, particularly Owen Land’s Film In Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc (1966), effectively using the ends and waste materials of celluloid itself and turning it into moving images themselves. Apollo 18, whether it was done with heavy post production work or was made with actual vintage equipment, evokes a material nature to the film image, the image distorted, moving and bending, and because of the lunar environment, not of the quality of a clean image let alone considering this film is set in the seventies and with its technology that was available then. While I have not handled NASA quality camera equipment in my life, to my knowledge, my volunteer work in my personal life has lead me to handle Super 8 and Standard 8 film, home movies and documents, for sorting out for filing information about them to viewing the contents. To see the scratches, the discolouration (and saturation of even preserved film), and the material nature of these capturings of real people and their lives has both effected me, even though I am happy with my digital DVDs, and emphasised how unnatural the concept of the recorded film is even if it’s a documentary. Apollo 18 may get almost festishistic with its distorted, faded film and white noise, but this fragmented collage of various pieces of footage in various states, even down to the varying frame sizes, breaks to pieces what film means. Unlike a Paranormal Activity which feels like amateur actors performing in front of cheap digital cameras, this has an ominous mood to it, of viewing something that shouldn’t be viewed and has the wear and tear, and blood, to show what has been done to it and the unfortunate astronauts who become more and more concerned with what their mission entails.

From http://www.joblo.com/newsimages1/apollo-18.jpg

The concept of the film itself, set on the Moon, is inspired too. For most of us who can only see it as a distant object in the sky, the Moon has provoked the human imagination in many ways with its unearthly appearance. It is not as fantastical as, say, Fritz Lang’s Woman In The Moon (1929), but in trying to create an accurate depiction of space travel, thanks to applaudable set design, Apollo 18 makes reality itself hyper fantastical in the look of the machines that propel people off the Earth and the bulbous space suits needed to breath and function on the satellite. The Moon’s surface itself as depicted in the film, barren, grey, atmosphere-less rock of disjointed pits and hills, is unreal, and as this film taps into, utterly terrifying in its silence and endlessness. If there is a major flaw with the film it is that there are moments where it falls back occasionally onto tired clichés expected of modern horror films– blood red eyes, disjointed faces and such techniques without spoiling the film – but it doesn’t detract from the sense of isolation felt. Even if the main force could be seen as ridiculous, having willingly had it spoilt for me before getting interested in the film, this fantastical explanation is acceptable as another abstract needed to make the film work, but one that adds a freakish edge of potential body horror and the concepts of basic evolution at the lowest levels, and what that would actually mean to the poor human being who interacts with the later. Before the horror is revealed, thought the film plays its hand too quickly with clues in the beginning, it already pushes a nerve wracking tone because of the period it is set, bringing into itself the Space Race between the US and Soviet Cosmonauts, and the paranoia that was evoked in the period’s pop culture. Filmed in such a disarming and self questioning form and Apollo 18 is stepped in an oppressive tone.

From http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/2366/screenshot4jn.jpg

Again, I was expecting a bad film like the reviews said it was, but like Halloween II (2009) and even Jack & Jill (2011), I have to wonder what environment and mindset the film critics that usually dismiss these films have and how it affects and colours how they see cinema. An overrated film like Paranormal Activity is minor in a sub-genre whose soul is something as repulsively compelling as Cannibal Holocaust, and while Apollo 18 is its own entity completely detached from the Ruggero Deodato film, it retains the dissective tone of a film being many films within itself and its setting adds a hopeless environment to escape from that taps into the sense that, like the Amazon jungle of Cannibal Holocaust, man is a small creature in a much wider existence. Despite its flaws, the film has a quality to it which completely goes against the notion of the found footage sub-genre being a cheap way to churn a film out. That the film has to go against itself by pretending to be real but having end credits may be an accidental virtue, emphasising the fact that, as film, cinema that appears to be real is actually fake, tricking the eyes and mind, and what appears to be fake is actually real.

From http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/apollo-18-movie-image-01.jpg