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 featured 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.
 * Body Horror: It's implied that something is infecting the astronauts.
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * Covers Always Lie: The poster for the film depicts a three clawed footprint next to a human one..
 * Cold War: "The Russians" are mentioned..
 * . Slightly subverted in that.
 * Enemy Rising Behind:
 * 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.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: Walker insists on being left behind because he's infected, but Anderson won't consider it until the end.
 * A House Divided:
 * Jump Scare: Quite a few, especially when.
 * 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.
 * Recycled in Space
 * Retraux
 * Sadistic Choice: At the end of the movie, one of the characters has to choose between.
 * 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.
 * : It turns out that
 * Viral Marketing: Starting with an alleged moon program conspiracy blog entitled LunaTruth.
 * Retraux
 * Sadistic Choice: At the end of the movie, one of the characters has to choose between.
 * 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.
 * : It turns out that
 * Viral Marketing: Starting with an alleged moon program conspiracy blog entitled LunaTruth.