Ghosts of Mars was John Carpenter’s last effort before the legend took a near-decade break from directing.
By its release in 2001, Carpenter’s consistent productivity, dating back to 1974’s Dark Star, had worn him out.
But with the film finished, as Carpenter watched the release unfold, you can’t imagine he got down to much relaxing.
He was probably too busy writhing in agony as the tongue-in-cheek film he sent into the wilderness of opinions was being burned at the stake.
Many critics butchered the movie. One dismayed that “it’s disheartening to see the ‘master of horror’ bring himself to both write and direct a film with such a prepubescent understanding of horror.”
But those criticisms are like a prepubescent understanding of the movie.
Ghosts of Mars has a few jump scares and trends dark and spooky, but it’s a campy, over-the-top action sci-fi western that never dreamed of taking itself seriously.
How did those critics miss the overamped, crunching metal guitars while a hero cop and an outlaw fistfight oversized, goofy Martian-possessed baddies on a moving train?
But the film’s (sometimes) critical misread aside, it failed to entertain audiences.
Ghosts of Mars was a gut punch at the box office, opening to the cringe-worthy heights of ninth in America and producing an anemic $14 million worldwide against a $28 million budget.
But was Carpenter really too tired or too devoid of ideas here?
Like most things John Carpenter, today you can read fan defenses and positive re-evaluations of this effort from new-age critics.
That’s because, beneath the grinding action, the film didn’t play it straight and simple. The movie has a subtle subtext and experimented with elements like nonlinear storytelling and dissolve-heavy editing.
So 20+ years later, now that all that red mist has cleared, can Ghost of Mars finally overcome its hostile reception?
The Plot of Ghosts of Mars:
In the 22nd Century, Mars is terraformed, its atmosphere Earth-like. 640,000 humans live on the planet, and train lines connect small outposts.
Our story begins in Mars’ major city, Chryse. Mars Police Force Officer Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge), the lone survivor of a recent mission, sits before a tribunal.
As the tribunal listens, she tells the story of her squad’s attempt to retrieve fugitive James “Desolation” Williams (Ice Cube) from mining outpost Shining Canyon.
As Ballard reveals what happened to her teammates, the tribunal learns of the dangerous native Martian lifeform threatening human life and colonization of Mars.
The Rest of the Main Cast Includes:
- Jason Statham as Sergeant Jericho Butler
- Pam Grier as Commander Helena Braddock
- Joanna Cassidy as Dr. Arlene Whitlock
- Clea DuVall as Officer Bashira Kincaid
- Liam Waite as Officer Michael Descanso
- Richard Cetrone as Big Daddy Mars
- Duane Davis as “Uno” Williams
- Eileen Weisinger as Woman Warrior
- Lobo Sebastian as “Dos”
- Rodney A. Grant as “Tres”
- Peter Jason as McSimms
- Wanda De Jesus as Akooshay
- Rosemary Forsyth as Inquisitor
- Robert Carradine as Rodale
- Rick Edelstein as Zimmerman
- Doug McGrath as Benchley
- Marjean Holden as Young Woman
- Rex Linn as Yared
- Charlotte Cornwell as The Narrator
What’s Working Well Here:
Good Bones, +5 Points
You can argue Ghosts of Mars is derivative of John Carpenter’s other works. But I think it’s like a band with a fine-tuned, signature sound releasing a new album. It incorporates elements that were successful in the past into an alternate, groovy mix.
The film takes place mostly in one setting (The Fog, Prince of Darkness), allowing the story to burn over one bad ghost town, its characters isolated.
Criminals band together with cops to fight a common threat (Assault on Precinct 13), adding an element of mistrust.
And set in a frontier outpost, it’s built like a western – the members of the Mars Police Force, like cowboys, Desolation Williams and his crew, notorious outlaws.
Its monsters, ancient Martian aliens that float on the wind and take over human hosts, are a grounded concept with a quick-and-solid explanation.
And the script is well structured. It introduces its characters and then drops them into spooky situations. Slowly, more and more clues about the Martian uprising are revealed. Plenty of little scares or skirmishes are thrown into the mix, keeping things unpredictable as things escalate.
Experimental Storytelling and Subtle Themes, +5 Points
The film takes risks with its storytelling techniques.
The story structure is somewhat nonlinear. As Ballard tells her story to the tribunal, most of the movie occurs in flashbacks.
But within Ballard’s flashbacks, there are more flashbacks as she tells you what other characters told her. And there are even flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks, as Ballard tells the tribunal what other characters told her they were told by other people.
Despite the structure, the plot is bolted down, not spiraling into confusion, like, say, Total Recall.
The film uses many dissolve transitions, fading from one image to another. They add a cartoony, washout aesthetic, and pair well with the campy tone.
And Evil Dead style, there’s a wicked point-of-view cam. The camera will switch to a red-filtered view when a possessed human is killed. We look through the eyes of a Martian, trying to float its way into a new host.
The points here are more in appreciation than what these creative choices add to the film, but credit where it’s due.
Social Commentary, +1 Point
Some have pointed out the battle between the Mars Police Force and the ancient Martians is an allegory to settlers of the American West and their despicable treatment of Native Americans.
The movie takes place in 2176, precisely 300 years after Custer’s Last Stand, an unlikely coincidence. And you get lines like Ballard, seeing the gravity of the situation, saying, “This is about one thing: Dominion. This isn’t their planet anymore.”
This theme isn’t winked at with grace, a la Paul Verhoeven’s style (Robocop/Starship Troopers). But in a glimmer, the movie gives a little nugget of history repeating itself in the far future.
Action, +3 Points
The action could be more breathtaking. The final shootout includes bits like the camera facing Officer Kincaid straight on as she’s firing at the screen, implying onrushing Martians below the fold rather than giving you a full frame of the onslaught.
But the thrusting action lets you turn your brain off and enjoy.
And it’s built with thought. In the melees, there’s an effort to fill out the fighting in the background so it doesn’t look like a bunch of extras milling around.
In most horror movies, people tend to do dumb things that allow the slaughter to continue, like invite obvious vampires in for dinner or open doors when certain doom is clearly lurking on the other side.
This film stays away from stooping to those levels. One officer makes an ill-advised move that leads to a downfall, but since it serves the plot, you can roll with it.
The Not-as-Good Things:
Production and Costumes, -2
The production design is hit-and-miss.
Its sets aren’t the class of Alien, but they get the job done. The movie was filmed in a New Mexico Gypsum mine, with a whole bunch of dye poured about to simulate the red surface of Mars. And the buildings of the outpost, which mostly look like military bunkers, may not excite but don’t detract.
But the costumes needed more imagination.
The possessed miners run around like Mad-Max-inspired indigenous warriors with makeshift spears and shields, which fit their subtext.
But the Mars Police uniform looks like plain black leather, lacking any personality, nor being the least bit future. How about cowboys in space?
And there were rumors the movie started as a Snake Plissken (Escape from New York/L.A.) vehicle, debunked by producer Sandy King.
But for whatever reason, Desolation Williams’s costume looks like a crap imitation of the one-eyed antihero, sans eyepatch. Like a second outfit choice in an Escape From New York video game, Williams rocks red camouflage pants and a black top, a leather jacket over the top – very Snake-like.
Give me a Line Here? -8 Points
Some have criticized the acting, but I can’t fault the performers, who are given little to work with.
The characters are so shrug-worthy that the rest of their party doesn’t notice when the film unceremoniously kills them off.
Desolation Williams lacks the personality of Carpenter’s antiheroes Napoleon Wilson (Assault on Precinct 13) and Snake Plissken.
Wilson’s enigmatic code of honor and turn of phrase made him captivate those around him.
And Snake Plissken was an alluring outlaw, a former soldier betrayed by his own government, and a somewhat Robin Hood to the people.
But Williams doesn’t have the charisma to seduce a flock of hungry pigeons to a bread crust.
Jason Statham’s cocky Sergeant Jericho rarely stops hitting on Ballard, which gets mind-numbingly one-dimensional. It’s a shame, as the Statham of this age was fresh in the vein of his comedic masterclasses in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000).
Rookies Kinkaid and Descanso take up space.
Ballard is a tough leader with a drug problem, a setup that is handy in one predicament. But where did it come from? A checkered past? An Anxiety problem? No clues, no cares.
Baby-Talking Villain, -1 Point
The Martian uprising is led by a bulky, skeletal-looking meanie, but he’s too silly, even for a campfest.
He runs Martian pep rallies, ramping them up for the next assault on the police force and convicts, shouting in a language that sounds like baby talk (~1:16).
It’s like the bizarro version of the Humongous from The Road Warrior (especially with the editing), but stripped of malice (or that S&M gear).
Use of the Soundtrack, -2 Points
The film’s heavy metal soundtrack, played in isolation, is a rollicking, thumping blast.
Carpenter hired Anthrax, Steve Vai, Buckethead, and Robin Finck (Guns’ n Roses/Nine Inch Nails) to record.
But while the soundtrack works well in plodding, transporting moments, it dumbs down the frantic fighting into cheezy metal music videos.
You can understand Carpenter stepping away from his synthesizer ambiance scores and matching his all-out-camp-and-carnage approach to the film with blasting metal. It was the 2000s, and his 80s mold eerie tickle beats would have dated the film.
But a soundtrack must integrate with the on-film action, either complementing it or as a device that ironically works against it. There’s just a lot of noise here, and it didn’t work.
Should I Watch Ghosts of Mars?
Total Arbitrary Points Score: 2 Points
Ghosts of Mars is far better than its bad reputation, but it’s no triumph.
Carpenter may have been tired when making it. But based on its creative choices, he wasn’t so burned out that he wasn’t trying. There was a vision here, with thoughtful creativity behind it.
Part of the film’s awful critical and commercial performance was a disconnect between expectations and the final product.
But all the misconceptions and fan defenses aside, this film is more fun to think about what it tried to accomplish than actually watch what it got done.
It built itself on interesting western subtext. It played with film techniques like flashbacks and editing, and the script was all set up for a campy, good-time blastaway.
But the characters were as poorly dressed as they were fleshed out.
You end up with a loud crackpot of a movie. Metal blares while possessed humans scream in a goo-goo-ga-ga language, duking it out with characters so dull their comrades don’t even stop to mourn when felled.
So if you love John Carpenter or sci-fi action with a horror twist, try the film. There are some things to hold your attention, or maybe you’d like to see where this went wrong.
But there are plenty of other Carpenter classics you could watch instead.
Ghosts of Mars is rated R and was directed by John Carpenter.
You can rent it from Amazon Prime Video.
You can watch the trailer here.
Disclaimer:
The factual information about the film in this review was gathered through online sources, such as Wikipedia, IMDB, or interviews. Misrepresentations and errors are possible but unintentional.
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