Ghost of Mars on DVD
Since my review of Pitch Black (coming soon!) I’ve been thinking about my love of the whole mating of science fiction and horror films. Aliens make some of the best monsters and I love seeing how imaginative filmmakers can get when it comes to creating memorable extra-terrestrial fiends. While I wasn’t much of a Doom player, I did enjoy the premise of that game and found myself pretty freaked out by it at certain times. Pathetic I know, but actually… it gets worse.
The first movies I clearly remember seeing in the theaters were Bambi and E.T. when I was around four or five years old. I’m almost ashamed to admit that E.T. scared the hell out of me and after the scene with the rattling trashcans I spent most of the movie hiding under my blanket. For me, E.T. was the first blending of science fiction and horror. Crossing two genres I generally regard highly is almost always alot of fun. I can enjoy just about any crossing of horror with nearly any other genre, but science fiction and horror is my favorite. Man, when those two fuck the results are amazing!
Ghosts of Mars is no exception to that and I dare say it may be the finest film of its kind that I’ve seen so far.
The story told is fairly simple. It’s the 22nd century (the year 2176 to be specific) and Mars has been terraformed so that we humans can screw it up walk on it without worrying about gravity or a breathable atmosphere. The society here is run by a "matronage". In other words, women are running things. We’ve got some lady law enforcement types who will be escorting a prisoner from a mining village to his appropriate penal camp. Of course, they’ll be running into some snags along the way since that’d be a pretty boring story in and of itself.
While some reviews I’ve read didn’t care for the acting, I certainly enjoyed it! The women in charge are Pam Grier (Jawbreaker, Jackie Brown), Natasha Henstridge (Species, Bounce) and Clea Duvall (The Grudge, 21 Grams). All of them have done work I’ve enjoyed in other films, so if you keep in mind that this film was made in the spirit of B-movies then I think you can appreciate their work in this title. The get great big guns, too, so really there’s not too much to complain about. Oh yeah, there’s also Jason Stratham (Cellular, Collateral), their hornball sidekick who’s along for the ride.
Ice Cube plays James "Desolation" Williams, the prisoner in need of transport, and does a damned fine job taking his pimp persona to Mars. Actually it was New Mexico and that’s gypsum covered in biodegradeable red food dye that they’re passing off as the surface of Mars, but I digress. The whole operation should be simple except for one little complication. The mining town is empty because some jackass went and opened a secret vault which freed the spirits of the ancient Martians. These spirits possessed the colonists available to them. This is not a good day and Ice Cube and friends are definitely going to have to make use of all available AK’s to dispense of their demonic foes.
What follows is your basic tale of intergalactic ass-kicking. The Martian spirits are remnants of an ancient civilization (which I’d have liked to know a whole lot more about!) and they’re capable of switching bodies when their current host dies. This helps make things alot trickier and far more interesting. When these spirits get ahold of us normal people they begin to turn us into damned fine interpretations of Marilyn Manson. Apparently, they not only self-mutilate, they also take the time to apply some wicked make-up as an extra fearsome (but lovingly offered) touch of cinematic madness.
I was shocked to learn that it was not Natasha Henstridge who was originally set to play the lead cop-type. It was actually Courtney Love! While I definitely enjoyed Henstridge’s acting, I’d have loved to seen Kurt’s former wife in this role. We already know how deliciously violent she is with mere humans, just imagine how she’d act towards hostile Martians! Unfortunately, she had her foot run over by her boyfriend’s ex-wife which put her out of commission for the filming. Henstridge took over, but she became extremely sick from exhaustion because she’d just shot two other films back to back before she replaced Love and Ghosts of Mars required a great deal of heavy physical acting.
That’ll wrap it up for my review. I’m sure you know that I’m going to give this movie a 5 out of 5 because it’s just so fucking cool! If you’ve not seen it and think you might like it, give it a shot because John Carpenter directed a classic with this one.
So, until my next swear-filled review, this is GlowStormLion reminding you to check your ammo before you start smarting off, fool.
-- by GlowStormLion of http://www.happyhorror.com
