natasha henstridge – Podcasting Them Softly

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

Roger Donaldson’s Species is a trash infused Sci Fi horror yarn that’s clearly inspired by stuff like Alien and Body Snatchers right down to the scaly, jagged title font, but oh man did they ever take the silly, run of the mill route here. Scientists including Alfred Molina and Ben Kingsley have successfully moulded human and extraterrestrial DNA sequences to create a hybrid creature called Sil, but as in any film like this it soon becomes apparent how ill advised such an experiment will come to be. Sil, played by an excellent Michelle Williams at preteen level and later by eye catching supermodel Natasha Henstridge, is an endlessly fascinating character with so much potential, but this being nothing more than a Schlocky B flick elevated oh so slightly by the presence of an ensemble cast with considerable pedigree, she is sadly relegated to pedestrian movie monster archetype, and the premise falls short of fruition as a result. Using the seductive powers of her human form (Henstridge is a babe) she evades recapture and seeks an earthling mate to perpetuate her species and probably cause a full scale invasion via systemic procreation, while the doctors and a team of experts including zoological guru Forest Whitaker and big game hunters Michael Madsen and Marg Helgenberger pursue her all over a metropolitan area while she looks for Mr. Perfect to make slimy babies with. Sex is treated in a very lurid, shallow and unpleasant way here, like with the budget and firepower behind a film this big you’d expect a modicum of maturity and respect for the female form, but they’ve thoroughly exploited the concept to sickening levels that probably looked fun on paper, but don’t translate very nicely on screen. Worth it for Sil, for both Williams’ and Henstridge’s take on the character and to think about what might have been had they written her character with more class, care and depth, but other than that this is just cheeseball slime without a brain or heartbeat. Followed by two sequels that pretty much go the same route of disappointment.

-Nate Hill