Apollo 18

"There's a reason we've never gone back to the moon."

The Blair Witch Project, on the moon, featuring astronauts of the fictional 18th Apollo mission. The story follows the last, top-secret Apollo mission to plant advanced listening devices on the moon, so as to detect missile launchers...but something else is discovered instead...

The story is told in the style of found-footage movies like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. Not to be confused with the 1992 They Might Be Giants album of the same name. Also not a sequel to Apollo 13 (though it would be pretty awesome if that were the case).

Tropes used in Apollo 18 include:

• Artistic License Physics: The astronauts are shown running across the lunar surface. For those unaware, running in low gravity is near impossible. It's best to hop along as shown in the genuine lunar landing footage. It's akin to running or walking in water.
  • Also, the notion that devices located on the surface of the Moon would be of any practical use for detecting Earth-bound ICBM launches. Not only would the Moon be on the wrong side of the Earth to watch for them much of the time, but the distance would impose a needless time-lag for the detectors to notice a launch and report back to Earth about it.
    • This one is justified, though: the devices were never meant to do that, and the astronauts realize this when they take a moment to actually think about their mission.
• Body Horror: It's implied that something is infecting the astronauts.
• Chekhov's Gun: The rock sample that ends up on the floor.
  • Also, the Soviet lander that the astronauts find.
• Covers Always Lie: The poster for the film depicts a three clawed footprint next to a human one. The aliens are spider-like, and don't leave conventional footprints.
• Cold War: "The Russians" are mentioned. Turns out they made it to the moon...but they never came back.
  • Subverted. It's implied the USSR and the US were working together on the mission given how fast the Russians linked Benjamin Anderson to the Department of Defense.
    • In addition, the controls of the Soviet LK are almost identical to those of the American Lunar Module, suggesting a technology exchange which is reinforced by some of the viral marketing's top secret documents. In the Cold War setting of the film, it may be the product of espionage, but the actual Soviet LK was developed entirely independent of the American space program (and limited not by itself, but the failure to development a rocket to carry it at the time).
• Downer Ending: All three astronauts die, and the government covers up their deaths so that no one will ever know the truth. Slightly subverted in that by watching the footage, you now know what happened.
• Enemy Rising Behind: Are those rocks floating in the Soviet lander? Uh oh.
• Fake American: All of them.
• Found Footage Film: Which makes the existence of end credits rather dubious.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Something gross is happening out there.
• Government Conspiracy: Well, duh.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Walker insists on being left behind because he's infected, but Anderson won't consider it until the end.
• Hope Spot
• A House Divided: After being injured by one of the aliens, one of the astronauts in the Lunar Module becomes increasingly hostile to the other.
• Insectoid Aliens: The aliens are spider-like creatures who camouflage themselves as rocks.
• Jump Scare: Quite a few, especially when the corpse of the cosmonaut is found.
• Kill'Em All
• Leave the Camera Running: Largely subverted, as apparently the movie was edited from 82 hours of Found Footage. While the movie may feel much longer, it has few moments not specifically dedicated to the plot, possibly to its detriment.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: The three crewmembers are all listed as having been killed in accidents at sea where their bodies could not be recovered.
• Mission Control: The NASA kind, and a few seconds of an unspecified Soviet counterpart.
• Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: Type 1.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: The movie opens with one of these.
• Not Screened for Critics
• Oh Crap: Ben when he sees the rocks/aliens float up as he enters orbit in the Russian shuttle.
• Puppeteer Parasite: How this movie's aliens appear to work.
• Recycled in Space
• Retraux
• Sadistic Choice: At the end of the movie, one of the characters has to choose between saving the life of his surviving crewmember, who might be infected with an alien parasite, or obeying the secretary of defense, who orders him not to, under threat of not being allowed to return to earth. Subverted in that both crewmen are killed.
• Shown Their Work: Despite the story itself being laughably implausible, the filmmakers did get a lot of details about the Apollo program right, from hardware to terminology. Meant of course to add to invoke Willing Suspension of Disbelief
• Space Is Cold: The crater which has never received direct sunlight.
• Space Is Noisy
• Ten-Second Flashlight: An astronaut uses his camera flash to explore the pitch dark crater.
• Troubled Production: The release date was changed five times.
• Unwitting Pawn: It turns out that the government suspected there were aliens on the moon; they just needed to confirm it, which was the purpose of the whole mission. Needless to say, none of the astronauts were told about this.
• Viral Marketing: Starting with an alleged moon program conspiracy blog entitled LunaTruth. It's even featured at the end of the film.