Starring: Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube, and Jason Statham
Plot: A group of soldiers travel to a mining colony on Mars to transport a dangerous prisoner. When they get there they find all the residents have been possessed by Martian ghosts.
Review:
The premise has the making of a fantastic John Carpenter fiction mixing his expertise at atmospheric paranoia horror and low-concept/high-reward science fiction. Yet he fails at delivering on either these concepts.
The idea that people are capable of being possessed by alien ghosts could certainly lead to some type of paranoia a la The Thing or Village of the Damned. Unfortunately, once possessed they seem to lose all cognitive function and become rabid killing machines who self-mutilate themselves. The paranoia can’t take hold because there is never a question of who has been infected. They also never bother to infect anyone interesting to mix up the plot. It is very paint by numbers and most audience members would probably be able to predict who was going to live and who was going to die by the time the opening credits roll. The self-mutilated hordes of scary Martian thugs offer nothing in terms of atmosphere. They like to yell and scream and make a mess out of everything. Far too much overabundance to keep you on the edge of your seat.
The zombies of Mars
It also lacks all the charm of Carpenter’s usual science fiction attempts. He usually deals with very little explanation. Things just work because they do. If offers a certain mystique to its’ advance technology whether it be the sunglasses in They Live or the complete ignorance to the origin of the creature in The Thing. With Ghosts of Mars, everything seems to have an answer. How do they get around? How do they breathe? How do things work on Mars? It also shows us the backstory to the ghosts of mars. In his previous works, they would simply be a force to be reckoned with, but here we need to get the whole picture. We don’t actually need it, but someone thinks we do. All of these extra details kind of ruin the feel of it. When you are watching a Carpenter sci-fi, you tend to empathize and share in the confusion that the cast has. Here, we seem to get so much more information that we actually need.
On top of this, the cast is a complete joke. Natasha Henstridge is a genre favorite, but she rarely gives in a good enough performance to save her from B-movie hell. Pam Grier fades into nothingness. Ice Cube hams it up attempting to turn his rap persona into a lovable rogue hero. He shares the screen with some seriously scene chomping Mars cops and crooks who only exist to be Martian kibble. Jason Statham, in one of his earliest roles, is probably the best thing. He is a blunt everyman tough guy. He is more in line with Carpenter’s usual kind of protagonist.
What’s up, tough guy?
I am not sure what John Carpenter was thinking when it came to this movie. Is it just one of those things where a small-scope director decides to try to do something bigger? Carpenter shows off his amateurishness here. He doesn’t seem to realize that by holding back information and certain clichés, he creates something dense with atmosphere and character. Instead, he leaves voids in the plot and structure that he decides to fill with the information and devices he would normally leave out.
Rating: 1/10
