I know it's hard to do, but try to imagine that the U.S. government might actually lie to the American people. Apollo 17 was not the final lunar mission, after all. In 1974, Apollo 18 was launched as part of a top secret Department of Defense mission -- ostensibly, to put some kind of fancy new radar tracking equipment on the South Pole of the moon. The three astronauts could tell no one about the mission -- not even their families. Unfortunately, shortly after making a successful lunar landfall, the astronauts discover that they aren't alone up there -- and that the government already knew about it. The best of America's best reached the pinnacle of their dreams, only to find out they were nothing more than expendable guinea pigs for a circle of lying government officials.

For me, Apollo 18 represents the ultimate "found footage" concept. We're talking about a secret lunar mission here, and that pretty much trumps any concept involving teenagers falling victim to some unknown force out in the middle of the woods. It just doesn't get any more isolated than sitting on the moon without any comm signal to Earth or even to the lunar orbiter. I can't say that this movie met all of my lofty expectations -- but it does represent a pretty darn good and certainly entertaining attempt.

As the story goes, everything about this mission was indeed secret -- until recently, when someone uploaded dozens of hours of footage to a website called lunartruth.com. This movie, we are told, comes out of that extraordinary footage.

The filmmakers do a good job in terms of special effects, making the various pieces of footage look as if they came from different quality cameras. You don't see these guys bounding across the barren tundra because of the reduced gravity, but that would have been difficult to recreate -- especially in those bulky vintage spacesuits -- anywhere but the surface of the moon itself. The astronauts are fairly stoic, as well -- certainly much less so than some of the real Apollo astronauts were. They're committed to the mission, though, installing the DOD scanners and cameras and searching around the area.

That all changes when they find someone else's footprints in the sand. Those tracks lead them to some rather extraordinary discoveries. They demand answers from the guys back on Earth, but few are forthcoming -- and then they lose all communications. The only thing they do know is that people from the DOD -- and presumably at least some of their NASA bosses -- knew what they would encounter but didn't share any of that information with them.

The movie isn't all that scary or creepy, but there's plenty of mystery and suspense on hand once things begin to fall apart. The acting is superb, which contributes to the sense of realism the film holds throughout its running time. In the end, while the story may be pure science fiction, it's all too easy to believe that the government would actually do something like this.