John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars [2001]

On the DVD: Ghosts of Mars on disc comes with Dolby Digital sound and its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1. A sparky commentary by Carpenter and Henstridge is included, which is informative, but otherwise there are uninspiring documentaries on the musical score, the special effects and the difficulties of shooting at night in the Mexican desert, as well as filmographies and the theatrical trailer. --Roz Kaveney

Carpenter's last movie, GHOSTS OF MARS, has been violently rejected when theatrically released. Strange when one thinks that Carpenter has not lost his technical skill nor his sense of rythm. It's true that the themes found in the movie have already been treated in precedent Carpenter movies. So what! Everybody knows that a good author writes the same book his whole life long and the last Hitchcock movies are not very different from those he directed in the beginning of the thirties in England.

So we find in GHOSTS OF MARS the hidden enemy already seen in VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED or THE THING, an enemy who surrounders a little group of people trying to escape from a locked place, a situation found in almost all Carpenter movies. The only way to survive in a Carpenter film is to become an outlaw such as Snake Plissken in both ESCAPE movies because the system is often the enemy or, worse, doesn't help the Carpenterian hero in his tragic situation. These themes are, in my opinion, very interesting and justify their various reappearances in the director's filmography.

A DVD zone your library.


Big letdown   July 19, 2005
 2 out of 23 found this review helpful

I was very dissapointed with this film.
It was just soooooo boring i didn't even watch the end.
Having watched the Thing for the fith or sixth time i dicided
that i would watch something else by john carpenter but i sould have just gone with my instincts and got they live that is a film worth watching


John Carpenter's will   August 12, 2007
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

When I first watched The Ghosts of Mars (on DVD, since there was never a theatrical release in Greece), I was mostly disappointed, getting the impression that this film is a bad repetition and remix of all Carpenter's themes without any true inspiration. Yet I soon returned to the film, feeling like being haunted by its images, only to realise its great power as the last and desperate statement of a great director who refused to succumb to the worthlessness of the nowadays mainstream meaningless (an)aesthetics. And yet, ironically, Carpenter had started out wanting to make movies for the big audience, in the manner of his so loved directors like Howard Hawks, only to understand on the way that he had to defend something else more. The Ghosts of Mars is a b-b-b-movie (lacking the intelectual punctuation that a certain Tarantino would build the whole thing upon), and it is also a very pessimistic film, set in a world, our world, where it is their planet, we are the aliens. Not many things have been left: cynism rules, relations are out of the question, and the only true value is getting down to the street to !To keep fighting with whatever you've got, with whatever is yours, since everything is going to get worst, and the only weapon we've got is our will to survive. This is Carpenter's will, statement, last movie perhaps(the on pre-production movies he is going to direct do not seem to get started, and the Masters of Horror thing gave us an interesting genre product with Cigarette burns but the second attempt was pure rubbish, as if He didn't care a damn for the result). A movie I keep watching every now and then, and always finding fascinating, in a way I can no longer enjoy any other of my favorite Carpenter's films (perhaps because I know them too well after all these years of watching them over and over again?). An underestimated masterpiece, made not like wanting to be one, dedicated to the things we love more (Martin Quatermass, for example), with an insidious attitude that can keep you haunted. And yet a movie is just a movie though; life keeps moving on, until it doesn't. For all of us.


UNFAIRLY reviewed. Fun and Entertaining   May 5, 2002
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

A much better film that the critics state. It's tongue-in-cheek and designed for fun action. Within that criteria Carpenter hits the mark perfectly. He's out to create an entertaining 90mins and he does it well. It's not a high budget film but it looks good, the photography is excellent and the DVD transfer is first class. Lots of good extras with a very amusing commentary track. So it's not Halloween but it's still better than 90% of the big studio action drivel that gets released. Give it a try, keep your expectaions realistic and be prepared to have some fun.