Product Description: NASTHASHA HENSTRIDGE, PAM GRIER AND ICE CUBE MUST BATTLE IT OUT AGAINST PRIMITIVE MARTIAN GHOSTS WHO WILL STOP AT NOTHING TOANNIHILATE THE HUMAN INVADERS WHO HAVE DISTURBED THEIR PLANET.
Amazon.com: 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
So Bad It's Good ^ I actually liked this movie. It is just simple ridiculous fun. Not too much to think about or analyze but still enjoyable if you don't go into it with any expectations. As many other reviewers point out, the plot, script, acting and effects are lack luster at best, but if you know that is what they were shooting for, then you can really find a couple hours entertainment. The only disappointing part were the "ghosts" because they didn't look very alien. I guess I shouldn't have had any expectations about that though...
Ghosts of Mars ^ Complete crap, certainly not worth more than the 99 cents I paid, poor dialogue and special effects, I love John Carpenter, what happened?
Derivative sludge ^ This movie fails on almost all levels. I'm not usually critical of bad acting, but some of the acting in this film is so wooden it pulls you out of the movie. Really awful. Then there's the lame story-line, which is told in flashback. If you've ever seen the pilot for the original Star Trek you've got the idea--except the story isn't nearly as interesting. A panel is listening to a woman discuss the reason she was found handcuffed to a bunk on a train with nobody else aboard. Now, there's been an atomic explosion at a power plant on Mars, so you'd think these officials would be a teensy-weensy bit concerned about the boom-boom stuff and all the dead people in the affected city, but not these morons. Nope. They want to get to the bottom of that empty train, and they don't even mention the blast or seem aware that there was one. The bad guys are right out of Twin Peaks, ghosts that go from one "host" to another and turn them into evil killers. In this case, though, the ghosts are Martians who have been lying in wait for extraterrestrial prey and are now bent on killing all invaders--despite the fact that they need those invaders to serve as their hosts. These ghosts have ostensibly taken over a lot of miners only days before, but none of them look or dress like miners anymore. Almost all of them have long black hair and are dressed up in some sort of Ashanti warrior gear. They carry evil-looking swords, too. I would have expected them to still look like and be dressed like human miners and carry home-made weapons and maybe some pistols here and there, but obviously the powers-that-be wanted them to look "cool", logic be damned. They also didn't want them to have guns so our "heroes" could knock them off by the thousands. All-in-all, the storyline seems like nothing more than a clumsy set-up so that some bad-ass good guys can go on a slaughter, which they do. Not that you'll care very much. You only get to know a few characters, and they're not very likeable. You've got a bossy, drugged-up female representing law and order and a killer thug as her unwilling sidekick. The women are in charge, and the men are either sleezy creeps, outright thugs, or chum for the evil guys. If all movies were this bad I'd swear off watching them. Not interesting, not even in a B movie sort of way.
Very Fun B Sci-fi Movie ^ There is a reason Ghost of Mars keeps popping up on TV, in video, in DVD, now in Blu-Ray ... it is just plain fun. Not to mention that Natasha Henstridge it is ALWAYS enjoyable to look at. Sadly, she isn't even mentioned in the Amazon display of this DVD as the star of the film. As with all Carpenter films, Escape from New York, Escape From LA and so forth, you are expected to suspend all "reason". It is about entertainment. Frankly, I found the special effects very good and FAR superior to the last 50 Sci-fi channel movies that appeared in DVD. If you like Zombies, sci-fi, grade-A actors and actresses, semi-reasonalble plots and have a sense of humor, you'll enjoy Ghost of Mars.
John Carpenter can do no wrong. ^ This flick is lots of fun, cheezy, and highly improbable.
The soundtrack rules, and you have ANthrax and Buckethead shredding it to a Carpenter score. Epic!
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