John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars (DVD)

John Carpenter's Ghosts Of MarsLabel: UCADescription: PRODUCT DESCRIPTION Sci-fi feature directed by John Carpenter and starring Ice Cube Natasha Henstridge and Jason Statham. The year is 2176 and Mars has been colonised by Earth but the spirits of the old planet still continue to cause trouble. When a police team travels to a distant Martian mining outpost in search of the mass murder suspect Desolation Williams (Ice Cube) they find the place populated mostly by headless corpses. Williams is discovered locked in the town jail and when the team is attacked by a mob of miners possessed by Martian spirits it seems the jail might be the safest place for them all to be. AMAZON REVIEW John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars attempts a productive combination of SF elements (a largely terraformed Mars with its long-lost civilisation) and horror (mass possession that turns the victims into rampaging self-mutilating monsters that kill and burn). A police-force detachment turn up in a mining community to collect a bandit whose last heist was uncharacteristically violent and soon find themselves under siege from rampaging hordes who used to be solid citizens. This is a fairly simple set of variations on stock Carpenter elements--a hybrid between Assault on Precinct 13 and In the Mouth of Madness. However there is some powerful chemistry between Nastasha Henstridge's icy drug-abusing police lieutenant and Ice Cube's bandit Desolation Williams made stronger by the lack of sexual tension. Other characters such as Pam Grier's tough commander and Clea Duvall's nervous rookie are more or less defined by plot functions; the mobs never become more than faceless or facially distorted anonymous menaces. This is one for die-hard Carpenter fans only.On the DVD: Ghosts of Mars on disc comes with Dolby Digital sound and its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1. A sparky commentary by Carpenter and Henstridge is included which is informative but otherwise there are uninspiring documentaries on the musical score the special effects and the difficulties of shooting at night in the Mexican desert as well as filmographies and the theatrical trailer. --Roz Kaveney