Subject: Review: Ghosts of Mars (2001)

From: Mark O'Hara <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 02:28:49 -0000

Ghosts of Mars (2001)
A Review Essay by Mark O'Hara

JOHN CARPTENTER’S GHOSTS OF MARS is the full title of this movie.  Including 
his name is the strategy the director has chosen to make his work into a 
sort of franchise, a recognizable player in a field cluttered with folk who 
want to make horror flicks.

Not that the guy’s a sellout – Carpenter always paints with bold strokes, 
displaying sides charged with creativity, originality and technical 
risk-taking.  But this director is also not afraid to recycle every cliché 
you can name from the genres of Western, martial arts, and sci-fi films.

A favorite idea of Carpenter’s  is possession.  In THE THING a creature from 
outer space, defrosted from its prison in the Antarctic ice, infects the 
scientists at a remote station.  His recent  VAMPIRES deals with vampirism 
as infection – one of the main characters slowly taken over by the force of 
the title.  The ghosts on the Red Planet appear as a storm of red dust, 
released unwittingly by a team of miners and their doctor.  Ruthlessly these 
ancient spirits seize hosts; the possessed mutilate themselves horribly, 
regard their human bodies with insane bemusement, even move strangely.  
Their purpose:  to wipe out any foreign invader of Mars, even eons after 
their own deaths.  It’s hard to think of a theme more terrifying than being 
taken over against your will.  It’s the reason the Borg are such good 
villains in the Star Trek series.

Carpenter’s storytelling marks him as a risk-taker.  Using multiple 
flashbacks, some very short and others lengthy, he shows us what happened to 
the mining outpost in Shining Valley.  The opening of this frame tale shows 
a tribunal gathering to hear the report of Lt. Melanie Ballard (Natasha 
Henstridge).  We watch as her tale unfolds: a trip with her fellow police 
officers to bring back the dangerous felon “Desolation” Williams (Ice Cube). 
  Their commander is Helena (Pam Grier) a hard-nosed veteran who is saddled 
with one of the worst lines of dialogue: “You think you’re all a bunch of 
tough hombres,” she utters to her squad as they prepare to disembark from 
the train and step into the apparently deserted mining town.  Jason Statham 
plays Jericho, the lecher with a British accent, but a good cop.  The rookie 
Bashira Kincaid (Clea DuVall) accompanies them, along with a few other 
officers.  Of course much is implied at the beginning, when Ballard tells 
about returning alone, handcuffed to the train, which arrives via automatic 
pilot.  Has every single one of her entourage perished?  Is Williams dead?  
Instead of a spoiler, this detail turns into a tantalizing lure.  Carpenter 
handles well the implications of exploring a story told by a flawed 
character.

Although the film takes a few minutes to get rolling, we are soon interested 
in the premise.  Jericho discovers the gorge in which the possessed miners 
rant.  We see tidbits of the ancient Martian culture – talismans made of 
wire, nails, scissors and other weapon-like materials, bundles of teeth and 
tissue oddly reminiscent of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.  The creatures are now 
zombie-like, having displaced the personalities of the humans.  Whenever one 
of the hosts dies, by the way, we see the world in a distorted frenzy, the 
floating Martian-eye view of the hated humans, as the spirit seeks a new 
body to occupy.  The police come across several of these tortured souls in 
the concrete structures that make up the ghost town.

But the action really starts when the main body of vengeful Martians 
discovers the team.  By now a subplot has shown us the conflict with 
Williams – part of which is a contingent bent on springing him from jail.  
Of course Ballard and her officers are consumed with following their orders 
to return with Williams so that he might stand trial.  How the cops deal 
with crooks and ghosts takes up the remainder of the story.

The action scenes are very bloody and mostly well-choreographed.  One 
sequence goes over the top when the black-clad, ghost-addled bodies keep 
charging down the corridors, dropping as fast as the black-clad good guys 
can blow them away.   Hand-to-hand skirmishes are punctuated by neat series 
of kicks and other combinations.  Perhaps there is one beheading too many, 
though, particularly when you can tell the victim is a dummy.

A technique that Carpenter uses sparingly cuts from the actors and springs a 
couple of seconds forward, so we spot them a few steps ahead;  these shots 
are pure stylistic try-outs, it seems, interesting visually but without 
merit in furthering the story.

The acting is solid enough for the vehicle.  Henstridge is faced with other 
actresses who have played strong, silent heroes in modern movies, but she 
does come off well.  Her character falls just short of doing everything by 
the book.  Scenes of her hallucinating  during drug use let us glimpse her 
real self, as well as provide important foreshadowing.

Statham’s character, Jericho Butler, becomes likable only after we see he is 
loyal and competent.  This strong actor gives a visceral boost to the tale.  
The rest of the cast support the story well, particularly the stunt 
man-turned-actor Richard Cetrone, who plays the leader of the zombie miners, 
dubbed “Big Daddy Mars.”  It’s essentially a non-speaking role, though 
Cetrone frequently howls and chants, whipping up his frantic followers.  
I’ve read a few comments about Cetrone’s make up:  I was reminded of an 
enraged member of the rock group KISS, his chest pierced heavily and his 
mouth drooling blood.  And I wanted to ask, “If these human bodies have been 
so beaten, (self) mutilated and otherwise drained of blood and energy, how 
can they still attack so savagely?  But that’s one disbelief I must suspend.

In one over-the-top scene I had to laugh at Big Daddy’s persistence, in the 
same way that I tend to laugh when I’m getting thrown around by a roller 
coaster.  Some of Carpenter’s shots and lines are plainly silly and worn 
out;  even his original music is just loud and very metallic.  But I had 
fun, and that’s why I go to amusement parks, and to movie theaters showing 
the work of John Carpenter.

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