Another JOHN CARPENTER movie that is so underrated it's SILLY,like most of his BRILLIANT films they are always underrated & hated on to a ridiculous degree & then like 20 yrs later are rediscovered as lost classic's?
Anyway i liked this AWESOME futuristic sci-fi Thriller from the very beginning in 2001 when i first rented it on video, i absolutely Love the Atmosphere in this just like carpenter does with his films. He creates a scary dread filled atmosphere & here it's lonely setting on mars at an abandoned mining base is really creepy & unsettling. There's actually an interesting side to these B movie characters as you feel a sexual tension between most of them & none come accross as warm people, in fact they all seem so hard & tough & that's probably because of the harshness of their jobs as cops & because of the brutality of their dark future world. Carpenter put interesting little tid bits on display but none actually get fleshed out or explored but that's ok as we just follow these hard cases on a survival ride. In this red west futuristic world it's be tough or be dead. I believe Ghost's will one day get the love it deserves & will become a cult classic, it Already is in my eyes.
The ensemble cast is excellent with the likes of Ice Cube (Friday, Anaconda) & Pam Grier (Jackie Brown, Coffy) & Natasha Henstridge (Species, Maximum Risk) are all solid in their roles. I really liked Jason Statham (The Transporter, The Mechanic) in this early role as a tough police officer before he became a huge Hollywood action hero. Also Clea Duvall (The Faculty, Argo) & Carpenter regular Peter Jason (They Live, Escape from LA) add to the ensemble fun as they're all put in a dangerous situation where they must fight to survive the Alien threat that awaits them.
And what awaits these survivor's are possessed workers from the mining town that are taken over by evil ghosts of the once rulers of the red planet. These ghosts possess the human body & use it as a host to kill & slaughter trespassers & also change their human appearance into like demonic tribesmen with body mutilation & end up looking like a heavy metal Voodoo tribe of warriors & are pretty scary. A very cool & different type of enemy here & a tough one to actually kill as the ghosts simply move onto another human host after their body is killed off.
As for acting all the performances are decent but especially from the excellent Pam Grier & a fantastic lead performance from Natasha Henstridge as Melanie, the main character & She's another strong Carpenter leading lady & she's great. I always think that the excellent Natasha Henstridge is underrated, she's such a strong actress & of Course beautiful but she carries herself like she's strong & in control & not a "damsel in distress" at all. The character of Melanie Ballard, the lieutenant of the police squad, is the heart & strength of the story here. I think that Melanie is one of the strongest women characters out there in the Horror, Sci-fi & Action genre, so well done John Carpenter for giving us her & well done to Natasha Henstridge for portraying her with such smarts & strength. With that being said she does do a big questionable decision near the end that actually does more damage than good with her "Simple Plan" that gets nearly everyone killed!!!! Yes that wasn't a good decision on her part but i get what she was trying to do even if in reality it still was a stupid idea.
Jason Statham is solid as Jericho, the teams Sargent, flirty ladies man & action hero. This guy is way better than Ice Cube's Desolation Williams character & i wish they'd swapped places with who lived & who doesn't. Statham gets to do some cool action with some fights & plenty of shooting up the possessed miners & he comes accross like a guy who's constantly aware of his surroundings & the danger. Statham's Jericho is definitely my 2nd fave character after of Natasha's Melanie.
Ice Cube is just Ice Cube as usual, but he's cool as Desolation Williams the criminal but he's not exactly a great actor but he works fine as the muscled 70's looking & wanted Criminal.
The rest are really only small ensemble roles that don't have an impact like Clea Duvall, she's a fine actress but gets very little to do here as one of the police force & same with their Commander leader Pam Grier but her presence alone is worth it on screen & she still delivers a decent performance but she's not a main character.
There's some other recognisable faces amongst the cast of survivors that have to work together but Henstridge is definitely the best performance of the bunch followed by Statham, both interesting characters.
Ghosts of Mars is a superb piece of sci-fi B-movie Horror action.
This is a relatively low budget movie compared to the main big movies that Hollywood make but it's great quality & has an excellent setting & really scary voodoo type crazy ancient alien spirits that possess people & turn them into crazy warriors who kill anyone, it's great fun & has very good FX & really well made production design & like i said the empty doom filled atmosphere is excellent & you just want them to hide in a room & board it all up because out there is TERRIFYING!!! So yes Carpenter has made another great film like a mix of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, THE FOG, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK & PRINCE OF DARKNESS, it has that feel & similarities to his older films & i loved that. A team of mixed characters of both good & bad having to work together to survive an outside evil force & usually trapped in an isolated location as here it's a small mining town on Mars. The town is like an old western town that's all red & eerily empty, ya know that creepy isolated atmosphere that Carpenter does perfectly. Ghost's comes off like the greatest hits of Carpenter's classic works & although created on a B-movie budget, he pulls it all off with spectacular action & a cult movie look & feel.
Quick story bit, a team of government security officers are sent to pick up a wanted Criminal called Williams (Ice Cube) & transport him back but find there is something very bad happening at the mining colony!!! A very exciting thrill ride with another excellent carpenter score!!! Also the futuristic train the team ride in is AWESOME looking with a great design & the officers uniforms look great, all excellent production design all round with the big beautiful abandoned sets & different rooms for our team to explore & it's rich with detail & gorgeous Cinematography. A great fun late night sci-fi Thriller with Horror & excitement just good fun entertainment with that creepy Carpenter atmosphere, great Cinematography & cool music.
Natasha Henstridge puts in the best performance in Ghost's & was also excellent in 'Species & Species 2' & 'Adrenalin: Fear the Rush' & 'Maximum Risk' to name a few.
Anyway i liked this AWESOME futuristic sci-fi Thriller from the very beginning in 2001 when i first rented it on video, i absolutely Love the Atmosphere in this just like carpenter does with his films. He creates a scary dread filled atmosphere & here it's lonely setting on mars at an abandoned mining base is really creepy & unsettling. There's actually an interesting side to these B movie characters as you feel a sexual tension between most of them & none come accross as warm people, in fact they all seem so hard & tough & that's probably because of the harshness of their jobs as cops & because of the brutality of their dark future world. Carpenter put interesting little tid bits on display but none actually get fleshed out or explored but that's ok as we just follow these hard cases on a survival ride. In this red west futuristic world it's be tough or be dead. I believe Ghost's will one day get the love it deserves & will become a cult classic, it Already is in my eyes.
The ensemble cast is excellent with the likes of Ice Cube (Friday, Anaconda) & Pam Grier (Jackie Brown, Coffy) & Natasha Henstridge (Species, Maximum Risk) are all solid in their roles. I really liked Jason Statham (The Transporter, The Mechanic) in this early role as a tough police officer before he became a huge Hollywood action hero. Also Clea Duvall (The Faculty, Argo) & Carpenter regular Peter Jason (They Live, Escape from LA) add to the ensemble fun as they're all put in a dangerous situation where they must fight to survive the Alien threat that awaits them.
And what awaits these survivor's are possessed workers from the mining town that are taken over by evil ghosts of the once rulers of the red planet. These ghosts possess the human body & use it as a host to kill & slaughter trespassers & also change their human appearance into like demonic tribesmen with body mutilation & end up looking like a heavy metal Voodoo tribe of warriors & are pretty scary. A very cool & different type of enemy here & a tough one to actually kill as the ghosts simply move onto another human host after their body is killed off.
As for acting all the performances are decent but especially from the excellent Pam Grier & a fantastic lead performance from Natasha Henstridge as Melanie, the main character & She's another strong Carpenter leading lady & she's great. I always think that the excellent Natasha Henstridge is underrated, she's such a strong actress & of Course beautiful but she carries herself like she's strong & in control & not a "damsel in distress" at all. The character of Melanie Ballard, the lieutenant of the police squad, is the heart & strength of the story here. I think that Melanie is one of the strongest women characters out there in the Horror, Sci-fi & Action genre, so well done John Carpenter for giving us her & well done to Natasha Henstridge for portraying her with such smarts & strength. With that being said she does do a big questionable decision near the end that actually does more damage than good with her "Simple Plan" that gets nearly everyone killed!!!! Yes that wasn't a good decision on her part but i get what she was trying to do even if in reality it still was a stupid idea.
Jason Statham is solid as Jericho, the teams Sargent, flirty ladies man & action hero. This guy is way better than Ice Cube's Desolation Williams character & i wish they'd swapped places with who lived & who doesn't. Statham gets to do some cool action with some fights & plenty of shooting up the possessed miners & he comes accross like a guy who's constantly aware of his surroundings & the danger. Statham's Jericho is definitely my 2nd fave character after of Natasha's Melanie.
Ice Cube is just Ice Cube as usual, but he's cool as Desolation Williams the criminal but he's not exactly a great actor but he works fine as the muscled 70's looking & wanted Criminal.
The rest are really only small ensemble roles that don't have an impact like Clea Duvall, she's a fine actress but gets very little to do here as one of the police force & same with their Commander leader Pam Grier but her presence alone is worth it on screen & she still delivers a decent performance but she's not a main character.
There's some other recognisable faces amongst the cast of survivors that have to work together but Henstridge is definitely the best performance of the bunch followed by Statham, both interesting characters.
Ghosts of Mars is a superb piece of sci-fi B-movie Horror action.
This is a relatively low budget movie compared to the main big movies that Hollywood make but it's great quality & has an excellent setting & really scary voodoo type crazy ancient alien spirits that possess people & turn them into crazy warriors who kill anyone, it's great fun & has very good FX & really well made production design & like i said the empty doom filled atmosphere is excellent & you just want them to hide in a room & board it all up because out there is TERRIFYING!!! So yes Carpenter has made another great film like a mix of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, THE FOG, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK & PRINCE OF DARKNESS, it has that feel & similarities to his older films & i loved that. A team of mixed characters of both good & bad having to work together to survive an outside evil force & usually trapped in an isolated location as here it's a small mining town on Mars. The town is like an old western town that's all red & eerily empty, ya know that creepy isolated atmosphere that Carpenter does perfectly. Ghost's comes off like the greatest hits of Carpenter's classic works & although created on a B-movie budget, he pulls it all off with spectacular action & a cult movie look & feel.
Quick story bit, a team of government security officers are sent to pick up a wanted Criminal called Williams (Ice Cube) & transport him back but find there is something very bad happening at the mining colony!!! A very exciting thrill ride with another excellent carpenter score!!! Also the futuristic train the team ride in is AWESOME looking with a great design & the officers uniforms look great, all excellent production design all round with the big beautiful abandoned sets & different rooms for our team to explore & it's rich with detail & gorgeous Cinematography. A great fun late night sci-fi Thriller with Horror & excitement just good fun entertainment with that creepy Carpenter atmosphere, great Cinematography & cool music.
Natasha Henstridge puts in the best performance in Ghost's & was also excellent in 'Species & Species 2' & 'Adrenalin: Fear the Rush' & 'Maximum Risk' to name a few.