In 2176, a Martian police unit is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find that the post has become a charnel house.
I’ve always been a huge John Carpenter fan, especially his early years as that is when he was at his best; “Halloween,” “The Fog,” “Escape from New York,” “The Thing,” “Christine,” “Starman,” and “Big Trouble in Little China,” seven classics in a row, what other filmmaker can boast that many in succession? For me, “Big Trouble in Little China” represented the last true “Carpenter-esque” movie of his career as the films he made after that, for the most part, felt more like carbon copies of his earlier, better work than true originals. The two exceptions were “They Live” and “In the Mouth of Madness,” movies that showed improved signs of life and that the Carpenter of old was still alive, somewhere, but everything else after that were just exercises in futility, and the less we say about “Escape from L.A.,” the better.
“Ghosts of Mars” takes place in the year 2176 where humans have terraformed Mars and people travel freely between the two planets. When Lt. Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge) is ordered, along with her team of fellow police officers, to travel by train to a remote mining outpost to transport a violent prisoner named James ‘Desolation’ Williams (Ice Cube), back to earth to stand trial for supposedly killing several people, all hell breaks loose. A handful of survivors remain locked up in the town jail and when questioned by Ballard, one of them, Dr. Arlene Whitlock (Joanna Cassidy), states that the miners unearthed an underground doorway that had been built by a previous Martian civilization and inadvertently released ancient spirits that proceeded to possess the living. While in the jail, they are attacked by hordes of the undead and barely manage to make it to their waiting train and escape but with the entire town possessed by the spirits of the dead, Ballard and her team know that eventually, they will make it to civilization and wreak havoc so they decide to return to blow up the settlement’s nuclear powerplant and eradicate every (un)living thing standing.
While the title, “Ghosts of Mars,” is actually intriguing, it could even make for a great documentary about who, or what may have lived on Mars many centuries ago, John Carpenter’s movie is nothing of the sort. Natasha Henstridge, who was more than competent in her part as the alien in “Species,” here, in the starring role, proves that she was obviously not hired for her acting abilities. This was 2001 when things were not as politically correct as they are today and I think it is safe to say she got this role based on her previous “alien” capabilities, where all she had to do was, in human form, be completely naked and look pretty. Over the years, she has continued to stay busy with roles in both TV and movies and I feel that were “Ghosts of Mars” made today, she would be more experienced than she was almost twenty years ago. Even her co-star, the always reliable Jason Statham, is reduced to a walking hardon, hitting on anything and everything that vaguely resembles a vagina and Pam Grier, while always a welcome face, has nothing much to do other than literally lose her head. Ice Cube is on full autopilot, cruising through each and every scene, snarling and snapping at everyone and everything around him, bringing him one step closer to picking up his paycheck.
It is a surprise, looking back on it after all these years, that this movie even got made. There is absolutely nothing redeemable about it whatsoever, not one, single, solitary thing and for a Carpenter flick, that is practically unheard of. Even Carpenter’s soundtrack is tired and lethargic and while an occasional melody harkens back to “Escape from New York,” they are fleeting moments that bring you back to a better time and place and make you wish you were watching that film instead.
Available on Blu-ray May 14th from Mill Creek Entertainment
