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Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham, Pam Grier, Joanna Cassidy ... see more see more... , Clea DuVall , Richard Cetrone , Rosemary Forsyth , Duane Davis , Robert Carradine , Liam Waite

Writer and director John Carpenter returns to the mixture of science fiction and horror that made The Thing (1982) a success. Natasha Henstridge stars as Lt. Melanie Ballard of the Martian Police Forc... read more read more...e, a member of a law enforcement team two centuries in the future, dispatched to the remote colony of Shining Canyon. There, the most notorious criminal on Mars, James "Desolation" Williams (Ice Cube), awaits transport to a more secure jail. Besides Ballard, the other cops include the rookie Bashira (Clea Duvall), hotshot and fast talker Jericho (Jason Statham), tough veteran and squad leader Helena (Pam Grier), and reliable soldier Descanso (Liam Waite). Once Ballard and her companions arrive in Shining Canyon, however, they discover that it's a literal ghost town. It seems that an archaeologist team led by Professor Whitlock (Joanna Cassidy) has uncovered an ancient relic at a nearby dig site, unleashing the vengeful spirits of the planet's long-ago warrior inhabitants, which have now possessed the bodies of the human invaders and set about trying to destroy them. After her team is decimated by the Martian specters, Ballard is forced to turn for help to the one person she can't really trust: Williams. Ghosts of Mars screenwriter Larry Sulkis broke into the film business as producer of the satirical commercials in Carpenter's They Live (1988). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

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102 critics

R, 1 hr. 34 min.

Directed by: John Carpenter

Release Date: August 24, 2001

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DVD Release Date: December 4, 2001

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Flixster Reviews (1,412)

  • FiLmCrAzY
    March 23, 2012
    FiLmCrAzY
    I really enjoyed this movie, i may of enjoyed this movie for al the worng reasons because as storys go this isnt that great as it doesnt explain an awful lot and ends with so many unanswered questions, and speical effects were ok but apart from that this movie is enjoyable and ex... read moreciting with great action fighting scenes that excite any action fans!!
    This movie is about a group of police and the story is set in 2120 on mars, the police group are on there way to a prison wheere they are to pick up a supposed murderer (ice cube) but everything is way to quiet and what turns out to be an easy routine prisoner pick up turns to be something more sinister!!
    Really worth a watch espicially if you like john carpenter and his other movie Vampires!!
  • TheDudeLebowski65
    January 20, 2012
    TheDudeLebowski65
    Ghosts of Mars is a decent John Carpenter outing, but it's clear that Carpenter has run out of ideas for something original in the horror genre. The best way to describe this film is as a guilty pleasure. As a whole, this is one of Carpenter's most disappointing efforts, still th... read moreere's something amusing about watching the film. The film is not perfect, but is mindless entertainment. Ghosts of Mars is B-movie fare, and is one of the weaker films by Carpenter. The idea of the films plot is interesting, and the film had far better potential than what it actually turned out. One thing is clear with Ghosts of Mars, John Carpenter is passed his prime, and with this film, he became one of the first horror directors of the genre to lose his touch. Dario Argento and George Romero would also follow in later years after this films release. Ghosts of Mars is a decent action horror flick with supernatural overtones. The cast could have been better and the script could have been clearly worked on a bit more to make this a better film. As a whole this is a decent action horror flick. The film could have been better. Obviously Ghosts of Mars isn't the strongest effort by Carpenter and is a low-budget affair. Entertaining, but heavily flawed, Ghosts of Mars is one of the weakest films by John Carpenter.I enjoyed the film, was entertaining, but compared to other classics that Carpenter has directed, Ghosts of Mars isn't memorable. The film is mindless fun, but it doesn't do anything great with its plot to really make the film a solid Sci Fi horror flick. Good for a rental.
  • FilmFanatik
    August 12, 2011
    FilmFanatik
    I've never been a huge fan of John Carpenter. His stuff has always been hit and miss for me. Sure he created some great classic stuff, but Ghosts of Mars does not fall under that category. Everything about this is bad and the only thing I can really praise about the film is the o... read moreverall idea. The problem is that it's executed so poorly. This is not a master doing what he does best. This is an aging filmmaker who has lost his touch. It's no wonder he didn't make another film for nearly a decade. After a pile of garbage like this, I'd lay low for a while too. Avoid this piece of crap at all costs.
  • mumby1988
    July 10, 2011
    mumby1988
    The 1990s were a bad time for John Carpenter. Having returned to form with They Live, the man who was once the king of low-budget horror served up a series of disappointments, from the Near Dark rip-off Vampires to the witless Escape from L.A.. But none of these misfires incite s... read moreuch fury and frustration as Ghosts of Mars, one of the lousiest, stupidest and worst thought-out movies outside Michael Bay's back catalogue.

    For starters, Ghosts of Mars looks really, really cheap. At a budget of $28m, it was among Carpenter's more expensive efforts, and yet it looks for all the world like it was made for less than a tenth of that. The film was shot in a gypsum mine in New Mexico, with all the rocks being painted red to make it vaguely resemble a Martian settlement. Every scene bar one is shot at night, in a move designed to disguise this low-tech approach but which only serves to emphasise it. The film's aesthetic is worryingly similar to Vampirella, a little-known 1990s turkey starring Roger Daltrey as a renegade vampire who lays low on Earth by posing as a rock star.

    The story of Ghosts of Mars finds Carpenter shamelessly ripping off his back catalogue. The idea of prisoners and cops constantly changing sides and teaming up to fight a greater foe is taken from Assault from Precinct 13, but with all the intelligence and social commentary taken out. The idea of ancient ghosts being bent on revenge is from The Fog, and the manner in which people become possessed by these ghosts is like a cross between The Thing and Prince of Darkness.

    Ghosts of Mars also rips off at least a dozen other films, borrowing their respective styles at the expense of their collected substance. Being an action movie set on Mars with horror overtones and lots of violence, there is a natural comparison with Total Recall. But whereas Paul Verhoeven was able to use flesh-ripping violence to draw an audience into the story, Carpenter borrows the full-on gore and doesn't use it for anything other than shock value.

    The designs of the Martian base are not original either. With the angular sandy buildings and metal doors with circles in the middle, they look exactly like Tatooine at night. It's almost as though George Lucas met Carpenter for lunch, agreed to lend him the sets and had them shipped to New Mexico. There are other Star Wars knock-offs too: the sequence of the soldiers breaking into the power station is unforgivably close to Return of the Jedi, where the rebels break into the shield generator on Endor. Add in some grimy interiors from the Alien series and possessed miners who are somewhere between Braveheart and Mad Max, and you have one desperately derivative movie.

    The problem is not simply that Ghosts of Mars is made of seriously well-worn parts. There are dozens of films made each year which use familiar genre tropes and make for passable if forgettable viewing. The problem with Ghosts of Mars is that it is completely stone-faced about its place in the genre. It doesn't show contempt for science fiction or action-adventure, but it takes itself deadly seriously when what it should be doing is having fun. It is to Total Recall what Xanadu was to Flash Gordon: po-faced, naff, and completely misjudged.

    The story of Ghosts of Mars is almost non-existent. There is the thinnest of plots involving the transport of a dangerous convict from A to B, which is complicated by the fact that evil ghosts which used to live on Mars have been released from a mine. But the film ignores or dismisses every possible chance to spice things up, trotting through the backstory of how the ghosts got there and throwing away a potentially interesting idea about Mars being run by a matriarchal society. Such nuggets are treated like the dust on the planet's surface: characters ignore it as best they can and see it as a nuisance when it gets in the way.

    In the absence of any real story, the plot plays out like a video game. Every five minutes there has to be a big action sequence where faceless miners get killed, beaten or blown. And because killing the miners will just unleash the ghosts to possess someone new, there is an endless supply of cannon fodder on which the protagonists can empty their magazines in ever-more pointless shootouts. We keep going round and round in circles until the train arrives, and as soon as our heroes are on the train, one of them insists on going back to try and blow them up!

    The stupidity of Ghosts of Mars can be seen in its numerous plot holes. If the ghosts are indeed ghosts, how come they cannot pass through walls and doors: what is it about them which make them need to possess humans? And if they need human hosts to survive, what was keeping them 'alive' before the seal on the mine was broken? Were there other creatures on Mars before humans arrived that the ghosts preyed on? What caused them to be ghosts in the first place? Why are they here?!

    Then there are various technical questions about Mars itself. Martian gravity appears to be the same as it is on Earth, but there is no attempt to explain this via some kind of 'gravity field generator' or other such device. The planet has only been partially terra-formed, and yet the film expects us to believe that characters can tolerate this by wearing the kind of safety specs worn by A-Level chemists. None of the weapons seem to have been customised or built specifically for Mars, and despite there being less oxygen in the air, the fireballs are every bit as big as they would be on Earth.

    When Carpenter made Assault on Precinct 13, he was very careful to focus on the ethics of law enforcers trusting criminals with their guns. He kept the number of times that guns changed hands to a minimum, so that the claustrophobic tension would not be compromised. Ghosts of Mars is almost a parody of film shootouts in its complete disregard for common sense. There's barely a scene involving Ice Cube where the tables aren't turned or people pull out guns they never had before. This idiocy culminates in a scene where the criminals have their weapons confiscated, only to be armed with new ones seconds later.

    The acting in Ghosts of Mars is universally bad. Ice Cube plays a caricature of himself, attempting to exude attitude via scenery chewing but ending up as little more than obnoxious. Natasha Henstridge, who was cast at the last minute, seems to have only one facial expression and has no chemistry with her co-stars. Because the whole film is narrated by her in flashback, we already know that she will survive: there is no tension or reason to care, and because she is the only one found on the train, all the other characters are expendable.

    The supporting cast fare no better. Jason Statham tries his best but is nowhere near as enjoyable as The Transporter series, or even his brief appearance in Mean Machine. Pam Grier turns up to give the film some kind of genre credibility, but before long the script deems her unnecessary and she literally loses her head. Worst of all is Joanna Cassidy, most famous for playing Zhora in Blade Runner. She spends half her time bouncing off the walls pretending to be mad and half the time staring blankly into space, wondering what happened to her career.

    To say Ghosts of Mars is an abject failure would be doing a disservice to abject failures. It is easily the worst film of Carpenter's career, containing none of the wit, substance, polish or ambition of his heyday. The characters are paper-thin and dull, the acting is terrible, the script is weaker than dishwater and the direction is almost non-existent. It ranks alongside Captivity as an example of a once-great director hitting rock bottom, and is nothing short of dull, dumb and deeply depressing.
  • mrbungle7821
    April 23, 2010
    mrbungle7821
    [font=Arial][color=darkred]There are ghosts. On [i]Maaaaaaaars[/i]. Enough said.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Nate's Grade: D[/color][/font]
  • SirPant
    September 8, 2009
    SirPant
    Watch it for what it is, a low budget action/horror B-movie and try to forget it was directed by the brilliant John Carpenter.
  • LorenzoVonMatterhorn
    April 18, 2009
    LorenzoVonMatterhorn
    "You Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance"

    A story of human colonists on Mars who must be rescued after becoming possessed by vengeful Martian ghosts.

    REVIEW

    John Carpenter has sort of lost his touch. We... read morell, not sort of. This is a completely mindless action movie. In fact, it's almost like a porn movie in that there are scenes of vapid dialog and filler plot, and then scenes with really bad metal playing while everyone is shooting. Just replace sex with killing and it's a porn. Action porn. There's no tension, the characters are weak, and there isn't much of a story to speak of. The back of the box explains pretty much everything you learn from the movie, which isn't much. You could watch it on mute while doing something else and you'd get as much from the plot as if you watched it with sound. If there had been a lot less shooting and shouting and more background into the history and mystery of the events unfolding, it might have been a better movie. As it is, it's just boring. What happened to the John Carpenter of the Fog, They Live, the Thing, or Big Trouble in Little China? Even Escape from New York beats this movie. Even Escape from L.A. beats this movie! So many movies do action better.
  • dreamfaeries
    September 22, 2008
    dreamfaeries
    It was alright.
  • cancercapricorn2002
    August 13, 2008
    cancercapricorn2002
    Some Minor Spoilers Here **************************************************************
    On the planet Mars in the not-too-distant future, policewoman Mel and a small group of her fellow officers are en route to pick up a dangerous criminal who is being held in solitary in a dist... read moreant mining town. He is to be brought to the city of Chryse to stand trial for a series of murders. Upon their arrival however, they find the town almost completely abandoned. Decapitated bodies are everywhere and the few survivors they do find appear to be insane, acting as though they are possessed by primitive, savage entities. Desolation Williams is the immediate and logical suspect, having been accused of a similar killing spree, but Williams has been in solitary the entire time and soon the real killers reveal themselves: the inhabitants of the town have been possessed, have become brutal and bloody warriors bent on obliterating the transplanted earthlings from Mars. A survivor of another decimated mining town confirms that the possessive force has been released from the bowels of the red planet and, much like a virus, will not stop until everyone is dead. Mel, Desolation and the remaining police and prisoners must band together and fight for their lives, but can the alien entity be stopped before it can spread beyond this town and further to Chryse?

    This is a well cast and well acted action film, with the feel of a 1950s Space Thriller, only bloodier. Natasha Henstridge gives a strong performance as Mel, the kick-ass heroine who takes zero crap from anyone. Ice Cube is believable as the tough and streetwise and aptly named Desolation. It was great to see Pam Grier in the role of a tough butch policewoman, but she was gone much too soon. The Ghosts of Mars themselves are an odd, interesting cross between cenobites, headhunters and punkers. Much blood is spilled, many heads are severed, much profanity is uttered, and it's never boring.

    The only issue I have with the film is the story structure. Its told in flashback by the only survivor and to me that takes away alot of suspense because you already know who makes its out alive. Some might be ok with that but it just didn't work for me. Despite that while this isn't Carpenter at his best its still worth checking out for fans of Carpenter and for fans of sci-fi/horror films.
  • DragonEyeMorrison
    February 21, 2008
    DragonEyeMorrison
    Carpenter's career goes down in flames. Also, is anyone's guess how someone as boring to watch as Ice Cube has an acting career at all.

View All Ghosts of Mars Reviews

Critic Reviews

Michael Atkinson
August 28, 2001
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

Written, directed, and edited with the offhand shoddiness of a day worker thinking about his evening beer. Full Review

Cody Clark
August 27, 2001
Cody Clark, Mr. Showbiz

Someday we're all going to look back on this one and l-a-a-a-augh.

Bruce Fretts
August 27, 2001
Bruce Fretts, Entertainment Weekly

The acting is so pallid that you're never sure the cast members quite get the jokes. Full Review

Rita Kempley
August 24, 2001
Rita Kempley, Washington Post

Schlocky, sluggish shoot-'em-up.

Bob Graham
August 24, 2001
Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle

A tired and dispiriting affair that takes forever to get going. Full Review

Andrew O'Hehir
August 24, 2001
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

I guess John Carpenter the careless purveyor of slime and hokum is the only John Carpenter we've got, and that's better than none at all. Full Review

Jonathan Foreman
August 24, 2001
Jonathan Foreman, New York Post

The one intriguing thing about John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars is how such a dreadful screenplay could have made it onto celluloid.

Kevin Thomas
August 24, 2001
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

Arguably the horror/sci-fi director's most routine movie. Full Review

Liam Lacey
August 24, 2001
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

Occasionally veering into that so-bad-it's-good category ... mostly Ghosts of Mars is just so bad. Full Review

Roger Ebert
August 24, 2001
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

All basic stuff, and yet Carpenter brings pacing and style to it, and Natasha Henstridge provides a cool-headed center. Full Review

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  • Jason Statham was originally set to play the role of, James "Desolation" Williams. The role then went to Ice Cube.
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  • Who was the director of the movies, "Halloween" and "Ghosts of Mars"?  Answer »
  • Which 2001 John Carpenter movie involved spirits & a red planet?  Answer »
  • Who played Melanie Ballard in the 2001 movie Ghosts of Mars?  Answer »
  • In the movie Ghosts of Mars, what was Ice Cubes character's nickname?  Answer »
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