Ghosts of Mars (2001)

Ghosts of Mars may not be one of John Carpenter's finer efforts, but you can't knock the veteran director for staying true to his roots--it's clearly a Carpenter film, reveling in its B-movie blood lust, and fueled by the director's rock & roll rebellion as well as the sex appeal of star Natasha Henstridge. This rickety sci-fi/horror hybrid recalls Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, with various connections from throughout the director's career--for better and worse. It's the year 2176, and human colonists on Mars are controlled by a political "matronage," with women (for reasons unexplained) holding court in the capitol city of Chryse. Mars Police Force Lt. Ballard (Henstridge) has been sent to retrieve James "Desolation" Williams (Ice Cube), the planet's most notorious criminal, from a remote mining-colony prison. With her ill-fated crew, Ballard discovers that the colonists have nearly all been possessed by ancient Martian spirits bent on reclaiming the planet, turning them into an army of self-mutilating freaks suggesting an unholy union of Marilyn Manson and the sadomasochistic Cenobites from the Hellraiser films. None of this makes much sense, and the shaky alliance between cops and criminals is a predictable excuse for rampant battle scenes between surviving humans and the ghost-possessed maniacs. Exotic weaponry abounds (along with cheap special effects and some laughable dialogue), resulting in the gruesome dispatch of expendable costars Pam Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Robert Carradine, and Clea Duvall. Driven by Carpenter's synth-metal score, this violent free-for-all has a few brief highlights, but it's suspenseless and ultimately absurd. It's not much, but for loyal fans it's probably enough. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

The worst film from a great director!

John Carpenter is a great director. He has a great sense of humor, great timing and has great skills. In fact, he is a great disciple of the classical form: austere, precise and always economic in terms of narrative... in the same tradition of one great master of the past: Howard Hawks. Don't take my word for it. Check the opening sequence of Vampires and compare it with the opening sequence of Hatari!. The similarities are striking and one can clearly see how Carpenter dominates his art.

But this film is very weak. The story about some dormant martian creatures (or their ghosts) who possess and transform a human colony in Mars into a homicidal tribe is so heavy handed it gets to be ridiculous.

The concept in itself is not bad and John Carpenter has had success with ideas even more offbeat than this one. But unlike films like The Thing (Collector's Edition) or Escape from New York (Special Edition) or less loved entries like They Live, everything here is a mistake.

The characters are dull (so dull that even Pam Grier and Joanna Cassidy look embarrassingly bad), the casting is a huge mistake (all other actors are unconvincing) and the acting is non-existent. To be honest, this film reminds me of Starship Troopers.

Everything else suffers the same fate. The screenplay is boring, with no interesting characters - something John Carpenter is very keen on: check on Vampires and even then we get James Woods in a great performance. Here, zero.

The rest is bellow average: special effects are cheesy (the balloon crash scene is laughably bad), art direction is uninspired and the "ghosts" actually look like a bunch of angry surfers.

I pray that Mr. Carpenter will give us much better things in the future... because he is great. But this film is not. September 11, 2008

A Pale imitation of One's Former Self

This one ranks with MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN as the last in string of stinkeroos from John Carpenter. After some initial success with HALLOWEEN and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, it was (box office wise) downhill. Not all of it fair. PRINCE OF DARKNESS, THEY LIVE, VAMPIRES, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA and IN THE MOUTH OF DARKNESS (one of the better Lovecraft-type films ever made) are actually pretty good. But while others who arrived on the scene in the same time as Carpenter (Spielberg, Lucas, Ron Howard, Ridley Scott,Robert Zemeckis ) have gone on to bigger and better things. Such was not to be for Carpenter. GHOSTS OF MARS was an incredible flop when released -- hitting home video less than three months later! It isn't compelling, interesting or particularly well-acted. It's violent, but mindlessly so. I see it selling for 98 cents. That's too damned high! August 28, 2008

another zombie undead movie-> on Maqs

A variation on the curse of the mummy ( Martian style): from an buried
ancient ruin a "disease' emerges that turns people into head hunting , flesh eating zombies. The dust that carries the disease is on the wind turning relatively quiet Martian mining towns into butcher shops.
The cops who venture into this zone of terror and horror fight for their lives and make a truce with the criminal who are relatively sane.
Virtually no body makes it out alive... a lot of action
and blood with very little real plot.
A designed sci fi horror movie that was made to sell tickets.
The acting, setting and script are better than average for a just a rip
them up and kill them all picture.
The antihero in action type of movie? August 16, 2008

More of a cheesy action film than a science fiction thriller

Despite the basically unexplained absurdity of the whole storyline, Ghosts of Mars is a pretty entertaining film to watch, what with all of the explosions, gun battles, decapitations, and bare-fisted brawls riding the crests of John Carpenter's hard-driving musical score. Sure, it takes a little while to put the characters in place and set the Martian scene for us, but once the gauntlet drops, it's pretty much on. You don't need a lot of character development in an action thriller like this one because you know most of the characters you meet aren't going to survive in the end, anyway. I do have to deduct some points for the whole flashback business, though. It's bad enough that the bulk of the film is presented as a flashback, but when you start putting flashbacks inside your flashbacks, I've got to stop you right there and call Shenanigans. Flashbacks within flashbacks should be the sole province of fifth-year, we've-run-out-of-ideas sit-coms.

It's the year 2176 and man has established a strong presence on Mars, setting up mining colonies all over the increasingly terra-formed planet. Society is set up along matriarchal lines, which should be interesting but isn't because the story just throws that out there and does nothing with it. It certainly does nothing to stop the practice of male sexism because Sgt. Jericho Butler (Jason Statham, who always brings plenty of action to the party) spends most of his time (when he's not fighting for his life, of course), trying to get into the 22nd century knickers of his superior officer Lt. Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge). Ballard and Jericho are part of a quintet of cops dispatched to a remote post to pick up a prisoner and bring him back for trial. This isn't just any prisoner, though; no, this is the formidable Desolation Williams (Ice Cube), a dangerous but as of yet thrice-acquitted murderer now accused of slaughtering six people. When the cops arrive, they are disconcerted to find a virtual ghost town. Williams is still secured in his cell, but most everyone else in town is hanging upside down, sans head, in one building or another. We already know from the early minutes of the film that Ballard is the only person to make it back to base camp (a fact which robs the movie of a great deal of potential suspense); what we don't know is what happened out there - and that doesn't become perfectly clear until the end of the movie.

Natasha Henstridge doesn't really do a lot for me, but she was pretty good in this film (although some of the scenes wherein she shows her authority and general toughness rang a little hollow). She's not your ideal cop, and that makes her character more interesting - especially when everything hits the fan and she's forced to seriously change tactics in an attempt to survive. I thought Ice Cube was great; his is really the most interesting character in the film, and even Jason Statham can't match him in the "one tough hombre" department. For their part, the "ghosts of Mars" aren't impressive at all, and their minions (whom they "possess") look like a huge gang of WWE rejects trying to channel The Crow. They are evil and relentless (not to mention ugly), though, which pretty much guarantees that all of the fight and battle scenes are going to be fiercely waged. Their little flying body slicers are particularly effective at disarming (and sometimes even "dis-heading") their victims.

Basically, Ghosts of Mars is more of an action movie that just so happens to take place on Mars than it is a makes-you-think kind of science fiction offering. If you're not into relatively bloody action movies, you probably won't enjoy this film very much. July 11, 2008

Ghost of Mars, ages nicely

When I first saw this it was because I am a huge fan of John Carpenter. I was a bit disappointed as it was no "Halloween", "Escape from New York", or "The Thing" remake. It was okay but not great. It revolves around a colony of miners on Mars going berserk after being exposed to an alien cloud. They put much more graphic items in their faces than any punker in Picadilly. The small security force there is severely challenged to stay alive since there are so many miners that have turned and their intent isn't just better food at the mining cafeteria. No in fact it is a much more bloodthirsty requirement they want met. I caught this again on television the other night and though not one of Carpenter's best works, a good one nonetheless. As one reviewer noted it is afterall another B movie, and as far as B movies go, this is pretty good stuff. I realized he actually had vision as this movie was ahead of its time. This type movie is much more common today and therefore well worth seeing. Come to think of it John has always been ahead of the curve. Decent acting, John Carpenter great music choices, and good sets, make this worthy of at least a rental if not a purchase at this great price. I intend to add a copy to my collection of horror. If you enjoyed this catch "30 Days of Night" and "Screamers". Good quality DVD with reasonable replayability. April 28, 2008

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