ghosts of mars – Podcasting Them Softly

If space really is the final frontier then there’s going to be all sorts of scary shit lurking out there we’ve never heard of, a notion that Hollywood has taken full advantage of in exploring the SciFi genre. The chief threat would of course be extraterrestrials and naturally loads of fun films have been done on that but I also like to observe how it’s branched out into things like rogue A.I., evil alternate dimensions or haunted planets for some really imaginative ventures. Here are my top ten personal favourites!

10. Christian Dugay’s Screamers

This one’s pretty cool, if a bit low budget and schlocky. So basically in a distant galaxy there’s an interplanetary war going on for decades and one side invents something called Screamers to hunt their foe and turn the tide. They’re self replicating, blade wielding, problem solving machines called Screamers but eventually they get too smart and instead of just hunting down enemy forces they pretty much go after anything that moves, not to mention start evolving themselves and it’s up to one squadron of soldiers to wipe them out. The creatures themselves are actually pretty frightening and man do they ever scream so it makes for a neat horror flick. Plus Peter ‘Robocop’ Weller plays the military commander and you can never go wrong with him.

9. Rand Ravich’s The Astronaut’s Wife

This is admittedly an odd choice because of its hour and forty minute runtime only about ten minutes is actually set in space, and only just above the earth’s atmosphere. However, the ambiguous evil force that astronaut Johnny Depp encounters there infects and follows him back down to the surface and the resulting film has an exceedingly unearthly feel to it. Charlize Theron classes up the joint as the titular wife whose keen intuition red flags his creepy behaviour early on and adds tension to the proceedings. Tom Noonan, Joe Morton, Donna Murphy, Nick Cassavetes and Clea Duvall add further pedigree as well. This is a critically shunned film for the most part but I enjoy it, there’s a slick Rosemary’s Baby vibe, Depp and Theron do very well in their roles and the otherworldly presence, although felt and never seen, is apparent in every shadowy frame.

8. Andrej Bartkowiak’s Doom

You can all fight me on this one. It’s a shit film no doubt, but I consider it hella great entertainment, even if it has little to nothing in common with the games. Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban leading a team of rowdy marines on a Martian extermination mission? Yes please. Rosamund Pike as a sexy scientist? Absolutely. Never mind that we only see actual Martian landscape for a ten second establishing shot, that can be forgiven when I consider the bitchin’ soundtrack, hardcore creature gore, wicked cool first person shooter sequence and scene stealing supporting work from cult favourite Richard Brake as the obligatory perverted loudmouth mercenary in their ranks.

7. John Carpenter’s Ghosts Of Mars

Another Martian outing yay! And another universally reviled film that I absolutely love double yay!! In case you haven’t noticed by now I’m trying not to always aim for the obvious choices here, which can be controversial. However, I will never compromise and choose a film that I don’t like just to be contrary, these choices genuinely reflect my taste and I own them. This film is a heavy metal induced bundle of fun, a B movie western gem that doesn’t take itself too seriously, has a solid cast, gnarly SFX makeup and one headbanger of a score from Anthrax. Plus, Natasha Henstridge and Ice Cube make one badass buddy team-up to take down vengeful Martian spirits possessing the corpses of slaughtered miners.

6. Jim Isaac’s Jason X

Jason Voorhees in space!! This is one of my favourite franchise entries, mostly because of Jason’s epic new gear upgrade and also the awesome cameo from David Cronenberg who, yes, gets mauled by our hero. Jason has been in cryogenic suspension for hundreds of years and awakens in the 25th century to wreck havoc aboard a spaceship full of intergalactic college students. You pretty much improve any franchise by making one that’s set in space but you also have to have a fun production to back up the concept (check out Leprechaun in space for a failed example) and this one is dope. Foxy Lexa Doig from Continuum makes a cool Final Girl, there’s a spectacularly gruesome kill involving liquid nitrogen and two slutty camper chicks get what may be the best lines of the whole series. Also, Jason just looks so fly here with his space grade machete and chromed up super-mask.

5. David Twohy’s Pitch Black

This launched the epic Riddick franchise that I will always champion and went on to traverse space opera, animation and video game territory but the catalyst is this lean, mean creature feature showcasing Vin Diesel in probably his best role. As a ragtag crew m crash lands on a distant world with three suns, all about to plunge the planet into nighttime for months, while hordes of vicious extraterrestrial predators who can’t stand light come crawling out of caverns to hunt. Perfect timing right? Riddick & Co must set aside their dysfunctions and work together to fight back, survive and repair a damaged ship so they can ditch this dangerous rock for good. It’s good old fashioned mid level budget SciFi horror fun, before the series took off and soared to new heights in the equally fun but different Chronicles Of Riddick.

4. Christian Alvert’s Pandorum

This film was overlooked and I can somewhat see why. It’s a horror to be sure but there’s a quiet, contemplative nature to the exposition and I think people weren’t expecting something so complex as opposed to a straight up deep space monster flick. Two astronauts (Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster) awaken on a mammoth derelict space station stranded somewhere among the stars. Where were they headed? Where’s the rest of the crew? What are those chilling animalistic noises emanating from the hallways? This is a fun, frightening one to figure out, it’s got truly freaky creatures, a weird psychological aspect and one kicker of an ending.

3. Tobe Hoopers’s Lifeforce

Who doesn’t love vampires from space?! This one is a real oddity, cobbled together with various elements and ideas but dementedly committed to its singular vision and as a result comes out an inspired winner and one of the absolute weirdest SciFi flicks out there. Steve Railback leads a team of astronauts who discover slumbering bloodsuckers about a gigantic alien craft, which they very foolishly bring back to earth. Cue rampant chaos, global collapse and some extremely unsettling zombified makeup effects. Oh, and Patrick Stewart too. Grab the boutique Blu Ray if you can find it, I promise you there’s noting out there quite like it.

2. Paul WS Anderson’s Event Horizon

One of the spookiest and most infamous horrors ever made sees a salvage crew attempt the rescue of a missing prototype spaceship that somehow got itself into a black hole and brought back the entire Hellraiser universe with it. This one is unapologetically gory, over the top and filled with enough grisly images to make even die hards nervous.

1. The Alien Quadrilogy

I know I know, it’s cheating to give one spot on the list to four films but they really do feel intrinsically linked as one saga. Ridley Scott’s atmospheric, suspenseful initial shocker. James Cameron’s rootin tootin mercenary safari action blowout follow up. David Fincher’s deliberately unsettling, nihilistic prison flick threequel. Jean Pierre Jeunet’s ultra gooey, deadpan entry packed with ooze, one liners, character actors and deranged alien lore. They’re four very different films set against the same template and idea of this Xenomorph but honestly they are all brilliant in their own way and I couldn’t pick a favourite. The haunted, silent corridors hiding unseen horror that Scott gave us. Cameron’s lovable, rambunctious squad of colonial marines teaming up with Ripley and scene stealing Newt. The acrid, eerie penitentiary world Ripley finds herself clawing for life on in Fincher’s nightmarish vision. That horrific Butterfly alien hybrid and the original blueprint for Joss Whedon’s Firefly Space pirates led by Michael fuckin’ Wincott and Ron friggin Perlman in Jeunet’s funhouse of gore and dark comedy. Just so, so much to love.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more!

-Nate Hill

Ghosts Of Mars, there’s a title that better get lived up to with the film therein. John Carpenter has stated himself that he never meant to make something for people to take seriously and one need only look at the title to surmise that brainpower won’t be mandatory here and you essentially get an escapist space opera set to bangin’ heavy metal music without much of a brain in its head. I feel like had this been made back in the 80’s when most of the filmmaker’s flagship stuff came out it would have been received better. I mean, all of his films have headline grabbing, B movie titles and are essentially genre driven entertainment, but this being released in 2001, maybe people expected something a little different. Anyways I had a ton of fun with it, I mean how can you not enjoy a flick called Ghosts Of Mars for fuck sake.

As a nearly deserted freight train rolls into the Martian city of Chryse, Lieutenant Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge) is the only survivor and recalls in flashback how she and her team encountered something nasty out there that crawled out of a mining tunnel and wreaked havoc on the surrounding towns. After some trigger happy demolition work a door was opened to an ancient tomb, awakening a red cloud of what can only be called John Carpenter’s The Martian Fog. In it are evil, restless spirits who take over dead bodies and reanimate them with all the style and energy of something like Uruk Hai Orcs crosses with Cenobites by way of Rob Zombie fans. Hordes of self mutilated, angry goth punk undead storm the deserted mining camps and Ballard is forced to team up with convict Desolation Williams (Ice Cube) to survive. They’re joined by other Martian PD including Pam Grier, Jason Statham and rookie Clea Duvall who was one of my first crushes in cinema, is always low key awesome and always steals the show. Her playing a Martian Cop with uniform and gun is the height of cool and attractiveness for me and I suspect half the reason I have such a soft spot for this film.

Anyways, call it what you will but don’t expect serous entertainment here and if you do and end up disappointed you’re only letting yourself down and shouldn’t blame it on this blast of a flick. Henstridge and Sir Cube actually have pretty good chemistry whether running around blasting guns or taking a few moments of downtime. Statham gets an overwritten, goofy horn-dog role but his presence is enough to justify such hammy characterization. Grier isn’t around for long unfortunately but her very name in the credits alone is enough to land some cool points. This film has a score that sort of rips through your sound system like a bat out of hell and feels nothing like Carpenter’s usual brand of ominous, rhythmic synths. The director does do part of the composing but most of the work is delegated to NYC heavy metal band Anthrax and the result is a balls out composition that really accents the film with an edge and fits right in with the costume/set dec work, all spikes, nails, piercings and rusty sharpened melee weapons flung about. This film apparently caused Carpenter to shun the Hollywood vibe and go into exile until he made 2010’s The Ward. I wish audiences had had their heads a little less up their asses in going into it and remembered why Carpenter is so special and prolific in the first place. He makes high concept horror/action/SciFi for dedicated fans of all genres, and Ghosts Of Mars covers all bases just damn fine, no matter what years of bad press or Ice Cube himself had to say about it. It’s pretty rich for someone to go on record saying this is the worst film they’ve been involved with when they also did hot garbage like Are We There Yet, Ride Along, XXX 2, Torque and I could go on. Get real. Anyways I digress but as you can tell I love this scrappy little gem, consider it highly undervalued and would definitely recommend it. Good times.

-Nate Hill