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overthinking entertainment
Movie: Ghosts of Mars
[TRAILER] In 2176, a Martian police unit (Natasha Henstridge, Pam Grier, Jason Statham, Clea Duvall) is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal (Ice Cube) at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find the post deserted and something far more dangerous than any criminal... the original inhabitants of Mars, hellbent on getting their planet back.
Also starring Joanna Cassidy, Wanda De Jesus, Liam Waite, Robert Carradine, Peter Jason, Duane Davis, Rosemary Forsyth, Lobo Sebastian, Rodney A. Grant.
Directed by John Carpenter. Written by John Carpenter, Larry Sulkis. Produced by Sandy King for Screen Gems/Storm King Productions. Cinematography by Gary B. Kibbe. Edited by Paul C. Warschilka. Music by John Carpenter.
23% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
JustWatch listing.
posted by DirtyOldTown on Nov 12, 2024 at 8:48 AM
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Mars government: What on earth happened to you guys?
Natasha Henstridge: Mars is haunted.
Mars government: What?
Ice Cube: *Loading his machine gun and tossing one to Natasha Henstridge*: Mars is haunted.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:50 AM
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This is not actually good. Henstridge and Ice Cube are pretty wooden, the Rio Bravo on Mars with ghosts premise is kinda bonkers, and there are the kind of budget limitations/ropy CGI that are common in latter-era Carpenter. Plus, the possessed miners turning themselves into mutilated nu metal weirdos is sort of hilarious.
But it's still John Carpenter, the thing moves alright, and its weird hybrid of western/horror/sci-fi has its charms, so it's a fun watch as an artefact of its time/a fun B movie.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:53 AM
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100% agree.
posted by mrphancy at 8:56 AM
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This sounds like it could be fun, if stupid.
posted by praemunire at 9:14 AM
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Oh lord, another one from the vault! Another one I paid money for in the theatre when released!
Twas not good but would have been probably even more not great if Courtney Love had been cast instead of Natasha Henstridge.
(y'all I saw so so many movies in the theatres in the 90s, mostly due to skipping school; I got no excuse for this one's theatrical release)
posted by Kitteh at 9:30 AM
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I thought Courtney Love was kind of fantastic in The People Vs. Larry Flynt. Of course, she was deep into drugs and erratic even after, so there's no guarantee she'd have pulled that rabbit out of a hat twice.
And playing an action hero is a totally different assignment, so maybe the reports she wasn't up for it and had to replaced were true.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:47 AM
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This is not actually good.
It's good crap. It doesn't rise above being crap the way that The Thing does, but it excels at being crap. Jason Statham before he was big delivers, can't go wrong with Pam Grier. Yeah, Henstridge and Cube are mostly just serviceable.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:01 AM
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The fades and dissolves and dissolves and fades will drain the life out of almost any viewer.
posted by Snijglau at 1:10 PM
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I used to watch this, Resident Evil, and The Bourne Identity on extremely heavy rotation in the early '00s. I owned other movies! But somehow these were the ones that got me through all-nighters my last year in college. I listened to them more than I actually watched them, and all three have really tight soundtracks that I can hear even now (Ghosts of Mars may not be Carpenter's best soundtrack, but the metal textures are, imo, at least half of why this movie has any atmosphere at all, and it has a lot of atmosphere).
Is it a good movie? It isn't a bad movie. I think a version where Pam Grier and Jason Statham had more prominent roles would hold up better for sure.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:54 PM
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The only movie I've ever walked away from completely and never returned to. Somewhere near the end of the second act, Henstridge and Cube are on a train, having defeated hordes of zombie-Mars-ghosts. Wounded and exhausted, she suddenly says:
"We have to go back."
I don't remember the rationale she gave for returning, but it wasn't enough to prevent me from firmly hitting the STOP button while muttering "Nope".
It's a shame, because I really enjoy most of Carpenter's work.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 10:10 AM
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It's some hand-wavey stuff about how they're going to blow up the power plant to end the ghosts once and for all.
But like, isn't it established that when you kill the host body the Mars ghosts just go into the wind until they find a new host? Giant nuclear explosions create a pretty huge force/wind blast. So this is in fact a fantastically stupid plan. And really, every attempt they make to shoot them is also just hilariously stupid.
I don't know if it's more stupid than being nicknamed "Desolation" though.
Really, they should have lured the ghosts/possessed miners into the mine and then imploded it, trapping them as they were trapped before.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:32 AM
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Though I'm a fan of Mars, space opera, and action movie fun in general, when I watched Ghosts of Mars in its first run, I found it to be an unequivocally crap movie. Like Bora Horza Gobuchul above, I have felt zero compulsion to return to reexamine the wreckage. Imho, this was the final strike in the Mars films at bat in 2000/2001, after Red Planet and Brian de Palma's Mission to Mars.
posted by fairmettle at 1:33 AM
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"We have to go back."
I don't remember the rationale she gave for returning, but it wasn't enough to prevent me from firmly hitting the STOP button while muttering "Nope".
Yeah I can see how excessive train action might be kinda triggering for you.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:34 AM
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