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 As is typical of John Carpenter's films, "Ghost of Mars" has a good sountrack, atmosphere and cast. The dim, deep red Martian setting is appropriately gloomy, and it doesn't hurt to have Pam Grier, Natasha Henstridge and Ice Cube playing some of the parts. Although the soundtrack is nowhere near as good as that for "Halloween", there is some effective heavy metal music playing during the more violent scenes. It has the potential of becoming a good sci-fi/horror movie, but unfortunately, it misses the mark due to three problems. For one thing, it tells the story in the first person point of view (Natasha Henstridge is both the narrator and the protagonist here). The trouble with telling horror stories in the first person point of view is that you automatically know the main character has survived to tell the tale. Granted about 19 out of 20 times, the protagonist of a horror movie does live, but at least when they're not the ones telling the stories, there is some uncertainty toward their fate, which is important for generating scares. Another problem is that there isn't much character development. Except maybe than the misunderstood prisoner played by Ice Cube, you don't get to see many sides to the characters, even though there was plenty of time for some character study during the comparitively talky first half of the film. By the time they're busy fighting spaceage Goths (not the gloomy neo-pagan type, but more like the kind that would sack Rome), you hardly know them and hardly miss them when they perish. The third carp with this Carpenter movie is that while the main characters escape the horde of monsters, they suddenly decide to turn around to exterminate them, even though common sense would dictate otherwise. Nevertheless, there is plenty of action and some gore to still make for a somewhat satisfactory viewing experience. The bottom line: "Ghost of Mars" isn't bad, but despite all of the talent involved, it suffers from a second-rate story. |
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QUARTER BY QUARTER ANALYSIS OF MOVIE
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OVERALL RATING
** NOTE: The more dots on the domino, the better the movie. 9-12 dots is the equivalent of two thumbs up while 3 dots or less means two thumbs up the ass. ** |
    
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The Worm-Hole Reviews are written by Matt Barnes.