Product Description: NASTHASHA HENSTRIDGE, PAM GRIER AND ICE CUBE MUST BATTLE IT OUT AGAINST PRIMITIVE MARTIAN GHOSTS WHO WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO ANNIHILATE 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
Ghosts of Precinct 13 John Carpenter borrows the basic plot from his classic films Assault on Precinct 13 and The Thing and switches the setting to Mars. An ancient spirit has escaped from the mines and everyone who comes in contact with it becomes possessed. A recon unit consisting of Ballard (Natasha Henstridge), Jericho (Jason Statham), Helena (Pam Grier), and a few rookies think they are just going to pick up a prisoner named Desolation (Ice Cube) and transport him to another jail. They have no idea that they are going to have to defend themselves against the alien undead and three psychopaths who are trying to bust Jericho out. Finding themselves outnumbered by Big Daddy Mars (the head of the undead) and his minions they are forced to deputize the other prisoners and rely on them to help fend off the ambushing undead. Where to begin with what doesn't work about this film? The writing is terrible, the use of miniatures is obvious, the main monster isn't frightening and mainly just stands there baring his filed down teeth and growling. At one point in the film Jericho says that there are at least 200 of the undead but realistically it's about five dozen sorry extras running around in bad makeup. The action scenes aren't exciting and the film is told in annoying flashbacks. The "evil spirit" or whatever you wanna call it is just some rather silly red sand that the wind carries. John Carpenter really disappoints with this one. I wouldn't even call it an enjoyable bad movie. The only pleasant things to watch are the tough babes played by Henstridge and Grier. And unfortunately Grier doesn't last long.
Pass the cheese please... Even though it was a bit cheesey actor all groaning and moaning as if they were possessed... Ok, but it had action... and Ice Cube was meant to be an actor him and LL Cool J are really cool...and this movie made you kind of clinch you fists hoping the normal people would make it out alive... it was good I'd like to see a part two... worth the money to buy...
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.
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!
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?
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