Taglines: Terror is the same on any planet.
Ghosts of Mars movie storyline. Set 200 years in the future, intergalactic cop Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge) and her team have an assignment of transferring a dangerous criminal named Desolation Williams (Ice Cube) to a prison in the outpost city of Chryse on the planet Mars. But in a turn of events, an adjacent mining team on the Red Planet has unearthed an ancient Martian defense device that unleashes warrior ghosts of the planet’s original inhabitants who in turn possess most of the workers. Upon arriving at the outpost, Ballard and her team, including Desolation Williams, must band together to survive the vengeful spirits bent on eradicating all human life on their planet.
Ghosts of Mars is a 2001 American science fiction action horror film written, directed and with music by John Carpenter. The film stars Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham, Pam Grier, Clea DuVall, and Joanna Cassidy. The film received negative reviews and was a box office bomb, scoring just a 21% rating on Rotten Tomatoes[2] and earning $14 million at the box office, against a $28 million production budget.
About the Story
Set in the second half of the 22nd century, Mars has been 84% terraformed, allowing humans to walk on the surface without pressure suits. Martian society has become matriarchal, with women in most positions of authority. The story concerns police officer Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge), who is sent to a remote mining outpost to transport prisoner Desolation Williams (Ice Cube). Arriving at the remote mining town, Ballard finds all of the people missing. She learns that they had discovered an underground doorway created by an ancient Martian civilization. When the door was opened it released disembodied spirits or “ghosts”, which took possession of the miners.
The possessed miners commit horrific acts of death and destruction, along with self-mutilation. When team leader Helena Bradock (Pam Grier) is murdered, Ballard must assume command, fight off the possessed miners, escape the town and hopefully destroy the ghosts. Unfortunately, killing a possessed human merely releases the Martian spirit to possess another human. The team eventually decides to blow up a nuclear reactor to vaporize all of the ghosts.
Ballard’s crew, along with survivors who gathered in the jail, are eventually wiped out by the miners. At one point, Ballard is nearly possessed, but resists when she is given a drug and discovers that the spirits are attacking them as they believe that the humans are invaders and plan to exterminate the humans on Mars (it is presumed that the spirits are unaware of the fact that martian life has died out).
Only Ballard and Williams are left after Sergeant Jericho and the other officers, along with the two train operators, are killed when they try to finish the fight by causing the settlement’s nuclear powerplant to go critical, turning it into a small atomic bomb. Not wanting to be blamed for the massacre, Williams handcuffs Ballard to her cot and escapes from the train.
About the Production
The script originally started off as a potential Snake Plissken sequel. Entitled Escape from Mars, the story would have been largely much the same; however, after Escape from L.A. failed to make much money at the box office, the studio did not wish to make another Plissken movie. Snake Plissken was then changed to “Desolation Williams,” and the studio also insisted that Ice Cube be given the part.
Michelle Yeoh, Franka Potente and Famke Janssen were the first choices for the role of Melanie Ballard, but they turned it down. Courtney Love was originally cast, but she left the project after her then-boyfriend’s ex-wife ran over her foot in her car while she was in training for the picture. Natasha Henstridge replaced her by the suggestion of her then-boyfriend Liam Waite. Jason Statham was originally going to play Desolation Williams, but he was replaced by Ice Cube because the producers needed some star power for the part, and Statham instead played the character of Jericho Butler.
Although Mars has a day/night cycle almost identical in length to Earth’s, most of the film is set at night. Mars is shown only once in the daytime, in a flashback when a scientist describes how she found and opened a “Pandora’s Box,” unleashing the alien spirits.
Production had to be shut down for a week when Henstridge fell ill due to extreme exhaustion, as she had just done two other films back-to-back before joining production at the last moment. Much of the film was shot in a New Mexican gypsum mine. The pure white gypsum had to be dyed with thousands of gallons of biodegradable red food dye to recreate the Martian landscape.
John Carpenter revealed after the movie’s failure that he had become burnt out after he had made Ghosts of Mars—and decided to leave Hollywood for good. It would not be until 2010 that he made another full feature film, The Ward.
Ghosts of Mars (2001)
Directed by: John Carpenter
Starring: Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham, Pam Grier, Clea DuVall, Joanna Cassidy, Richard Cetrone, Rosemary Forsyth, Liam Waite, Duane Davis, Wanda De Jesus
Screenplay by: John Carpenter, Larry Sulkis
Production Design by: William A. Elliott
Cinematography by: Gary B. Kibbe
Film Editing by: Paul C. Warschilka
Costume Design by: Robin Michel Bush
Set Decoration by: Ronald R. Reiss
Art Direction by: William Hiney, Mark W. Mansbridge
Music by: Anthrax, John Carpenter
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence / gore, language and some drug content.
Distributed by: Sony ScreenGems
Release Date: August 24, 2001
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