Ghosts of Mars (2001) is late-period John Carpenter playing his hits at full volume. The craft is not lazy. The premise is too wild, the red-dusted sets too vivid, and the action too outsized to come from a filmmaker on autopilot. It just happens to be one of those odd Carpenter joints that feels like a mash of better Carpenter movies, then gets stranded in the thin air of its own sci-fi pulp.
Set in 2176, the story sends a Martian police unit to a remote mining post to collect notorious criminal James “Desolation” Williams, played with gleeful gusto by Ice Cube. When they arrive, the place is a graveyard. The miners have been overtaken by the planet’s original inhabitants, who possess the living and go to work on anyone in their path. Survival becomes the only mission. Carpenter constrains his squad inside a finite outpost, a setup that echoes Assault on Precinct 13 and the supernatural siege energy of Prince of Darkness, with a splash of In the Mouth of Madness in the way madness spills over the frame.
The cast is a time-capsule curio and part of the film’s appeal. Natasha Henstridge takes the lead with a grounded toughness, Jason Statham shows off the early glint of the persona he would sharpen later, and Pam Grier is, well, Pam Grier, which is always a plus. They commit to the material even when the movie’s tone refuses to settle. The antagonists look like industrial-goth berserkers that wandered over from The Crow, which is either perfect or ridiculous depending on your tolerance for heavy metal apocalypse cosplay.
Carpenter still knows how to stage a siege and a chase. Trains crawl across the Martian landscape, doors slam and barricades groan, and the editing snaps to attention when blades and bullets fly. The guitar-forward score pounds along and the production design makes the red planet feel tactile. What never quite clicks is the mix of pulp and portent. The plotting is thin, the momentum stops and starts, and the humor reads campy when the movie could use sharper menace. If you are not already on Carpenter’s wavelength, the film can feel like a riff tape of ideas he executed with more bite elsewhere.
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As a curiosity in the John Carpenter filmography, Ghosts of Mars has its defenders and it is easy to see why. It is committed, bloody, and occasionally inspired, with Ice Cube chewing through the frame like a proper antihero. For most viewers it will play as a minor, messy detour that borrows the director’s best tricks without finding a new groove.
Score: 5/10
Ghosts of Mars (2001)
- Cast: Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube, Pam Grier, Jason Statham, Clea DuVall, Joanna Cassidy, Richard Cetrone
- Director: John Carpenter
- Genre: Action, Horror, Science Fiction
- Runtime: 98 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: August 24, 2001
- Movies Like Ghosts of Mars: Alien 3, Blade, 28 Days Later
