Ghosts of Mars

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Movie
German title Ghosts of Mars
Original title John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2001
length 94 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director John Carpenter
script John Carpenter,
Larry Sulkis
production Sandy King
music John Carpenter
camera Gary B. Kibbe
cut John Carpenter,
Paul Warschilka
occupation

Ghosts of Mars is a science fiction / horror film of director John Carpenter from the year 2001 . The main features of the film are based on Carpenter's second film, Assault , which in turn pays homage to the western Rio Bravo . In addition, there are, even more than in Assault , clear parallels to the zombie film The Night of the Living Dead . The setting is also reminiscent of the computer game Doom . The film was shown for the first time in Germany on September 6, 2001 at the Oldenburg International Film Festival .

action

In the year 2176 Mars was colonized by humans and made habitable and represents the last hope for the overpopulated and exploited earth. The Mars colonists live in scattered outposts and search Mars in deep mines for raw material sources.

Commander Helena Braddock has the task of picking up the felon Desolation Williams in a mining town and bringing him to justice. Once there, the group around Braddock discover that the miners are possessed by the ghosts of an ancient Martian civilization. The spirits come from a warlike and brutal tribe and mutilate the bodies of their victims after the takeover. Your goal now is to fight the human invaders on Mars.

Lieutenant Belard, who takes the lead after the commander's death, has to fall back on the help of the criminal Desolation Williams and his friends, as well as other prisoners, in fighting the warriors. The fight is made more difficult by the fact that after killing a possessed person, his spirit drives into another human body.

Only Belard and Williams manage to escape in one train after they detonated the nuclear power plant's reactor in the city and destroyed the entire city. Once at the headquarters, Belard reports the incidents to her superiors when the ghosts appear there too. The film ends when the cops, including Belard and Williams, prepare for the ghosts attack.

background

Much of the film was shot in a gypsum mine in the US state of New Mexico . To simulate the reddish surface of Mars, the plaster of paris had to be colored with a biodegradable red dye.

A year before the release of Ghosts of Mars , the films Red Planet and Mission to Mars were released , which also deal with the colonization of Mars, but in contrast to Ghosts of Mars, placed greater emphasis on realism. All three films flopped at the box office, which earned Mars a reputation as a box office poison , while The Martian, with revenues of over $ 630 million in 2015, proved that it could not have been about Mars.

The soundtrack comes from Carpenter, the band Anthrax , Buckethead and Steve Vai .

Awards

John Carpenter was nominated for a 2001 Catalonian International Film Festival award.

Reviews

“Completely meaningless story that serves as a hook for numerous combat operations, but often loses sight of the build-up of tension. The overall pathetic horror film is at best characterized by involuntary comedy. "

- Lexicon of international film

“John Carpenter was once considered the great expert on cheap science fiction films. But in this bloodthirsty and completely outrageous zombie imitation there is no longer any trace of it. Had he taken the story less seriously, it might have turned out to be a nice trash movie. But as it is, this clichéd action flick is a pure waste of potential, money and time. "

- prism

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Locations In: IMDb . Retrieved December 7, 2017.
  2. ^ Ghosts of Mars. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 12, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. In: prisma.de . Retrieved December 7, 2017 .