In space, no one the Department of Defense can hear you scream.

On Rotten Tomatoes, APOLLO 18 currently holds a rating of 25%. But the film is far from the cinematic misfire that such a score might suggest; instead its low marks prove, yet again, that when it comes to horror movies, mainstream film critics are often as trustworthy as Rutger Hauer’s murderous drifter in THE HITCHER.

Like any cultural gatekeeper, the film critic class has its own codes, culture, and mores, and like most of those who comment on culture they are obsessed with novelty. Thus the original SAW was able to effectively divide critics (often the best a horror can hope for), winning high marks from, say, Rex Reed and Owen Gleiberman, and even a little grudging acknowledgement from Roger Ebert, while still alienating middlebrow milquetoasts like Richard Roeper, Bill Muller, and NYT critic Stephen Holden, a man capable of hating MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO. This is more impressive when considering that, outside of Scorcese movies, excess violence is another critical no-no—unless cloaked in nervy stylistic trappings (DRIVE), cloying, postmodern self-consciousness (Tarantino), or a foreign language (OLDBOY, countless others).

But the second that “torture porn” became a recognizable style rather than a grisly innovation, it became the reigning whipping boy for movie critics—a position now taken up by the “found footage” genre. And, admittedly, it’s hard not to shake your head at the sheer cynicism evinced by Dimension Films head Bob Weinstein in an interview about the film with Entertainment Weekly: “We didn’t shoot anything. We found it. Found, baby!”

The executive producer of APOLLO 18 speaks to the press.

But found footage has also yielded great artistic triumphs like MAN BITES DOG, and in horror’s recent past it has been the premise of some of the genre’s finest films, like REC and TROLLHUNTER. (Honorable mention to THE LAST EXORCISM, marred by a shitty cop-out ending.) But the prejudice against found chillers also suggests a mean-ass double standard. In the more “serious” category of drama, critics will make allowances for familiar territory revisited well: isn’t last year’s RABBIT HOLE just a modified update of ORDINARY PEOPLE? And doesn’t odds-on Oscar favorite THE DESCENDANTS mine the same softcore suburban malaise as a thousand other Updikean dramas? With occasional exceptions like THE DESCENT, this lassitude is rarely extended to horror films, which are pre-emptively dismissed by most critics as not “serious.”

So I guess the question this whole issue turns on is, does APOLLO 18 do its thing well? Unequivocally, enuthusiastically: yes.

This is a better film than THE LAST EXORCISM, the second PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (though not the first, and running neck-and-neck with the third), and even CLOVERFIELD. It’s clever, stylish, and effective, with a couple of the best jump scares I’ve seen since the nerve-blasting American take on THE RING. It culls influence from a variety of sources in addition to the PA series, recalling ur-chillers like THE THING, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and THE EXORCIST. Despite the prejudices outlined above, I’m still a little bit at a loss to explain why this movie was so intensely despised by critics.

Not pictured: Moonbeast.

One of the best features of APOLLO 18 is its look, which is built with grainy, occasionally stuttering footage appropriate to the circa 1974 cameras it was purportedly filmed on. The whole conceit of A18 actually hangs together much better than most of its contemporaries: this is, after all, an Apollo mission, being painstakingly recorded by the DOD for “posterity” (or more nefarious reasons alluded to later). The film is filled with painstaking details that give it the ring of verisimilitude—I especially loved the film’s title card, which is simply an insignia for the fictional mission. The familiarity of the EVA suits and the always-eerie moonscape, coupled with the degraded, fuzzy look of the film, lends a unique affect akin to a Tim Hecker record: something beautiful, strange, and maybe a little horrifying, seen through a lens of snowy distortion.

And there is a subtlety at work here, likely learned by respectful study of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: the creeping evil hidden by the moon’s craters is never really glimped clearly and directly, and (as always) it’s all the creepier for it. Your mileage may vary of course, but think back to the silly, chirping mini-critters from CLOVERFIELD and appreciate what an improvement A18 hath wrought.

There are, of course, familiar items in APOLLO 18’s bag of tricks—most notably a pit of inky blackness lit only by the flash from a camera, a technique that’s still as viscerally pleasing as ever. But everything is artfully assembled into a film smarter and scarier than anyone gave it credit for. Conspiracy isn’t just a bullet point on Dimension’s marketing strategy, but woven through the film: the opening card notes that the footage wasn’t actually found but “uploaded onto www.lunartruth.com”; late in the game one of the astronauts brings up Watergate, then a fresh and stinging wound in an American psyche; and the entire movie playfully inverts the Apollo hoax theory.

“You won’t have Moonbeast to kick around anymore, because gentlemen, this is my last found footage.”

And it works toward an effective ending. Horror movies, even the good ones, really struggle with the finish, leading to fine fare cut short by a stupid conclusion (I’ve beat on LAST EXORCISM enough already, so let’s point the finger at HIGH TENSION). I thought it was headed for a PA style finish, but it goes another direction, with no dumb twists and an effectively bleak close.

I’ll admit that this film had all the ingredients needed to appeal to me: I love horror, I love space, and I love histories both real and faked. But APOLLO 18 is a lot like one of the real, later lunar missions: it deserves more respect than it gets.