Ghosts of Mars: Collector's Edition (4K UHD Review)

Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
Review Date: Feb 17, 2025
Format: 4K Ultra HD

Director

John Carpenter

Release Date(s)

2001 (February 11, 2024)

Studio(s)

Sony Pictures Releasing (Shout! Studios/Scream Factory)

Film/Program Grade: C
Video Grade: A
Audio Grade: A-
Extras Grade: B-

Review

Ghosts of Mars has always been one of John Carpenter’s least well-regraded films, and unlike some of his other box office failures, it hasn’t acquired much a cult following over the years since its inglorious theatrical release in 2001. That’s too bad, because while it’s undeniably a problematic film, it still has some interesting elements that are easy to overlook. Most of those are the result of the extended development process, with the final film being something somewhat different than what Carpenter may have originally intended to do with the story. Yet he still ended up returning to a few themes that were near and dear to his heart.

The story goes that Ghosts of Mars began as an idea for Carpenter’s third Escape film, with Snake Plissken’s adventures being taken to the next level: Mars. The box office failure of Escape from L.A. meant that there was little chance of that ever happening, so Carpenter retooled the project as a standalone feature instead. Plissken was replaced by Ice Cube as “Desolation” Williams, a character who isn’t so much a stand-in for Plissken as he is an updated version of Napoleon Wilson from Assault on Precinct 13. While there’s some dispute over the veracity of this account of the development of Ghosts of Mars, regardless of whether or not it’s completely accurate, the most significant thing is the way that the character of Williams evolved throughout whatever development process that actually did occur. The parallels between Williams and Napoleon Wilson are the key to understanding Carpenter’s intentions for the film as a whole.

Ghosts of Mars does offer glimpses of an interesting (if not entirely coherent) dystopian future, with an authoritarian matriarchal government running the world. Yet like Assault on Precinct 13 before it, the film is really another reworking of the classic Howard Hawks Western Rio Bravo—although in reality, there’s far more of El Dorado at play in Ghosts of Mars and Assault on Precinct 13 than there is of Rio Bravo. Assault on Precinct 13 also blended in elements of Night of the Living Dead in the way that the besieging gang members acted like nameless, faceless zombies, but in Ghosts of Mars, their zombification would end up being of a far more literal sort. Yet in both films, the single most important element is the relationship between a law officer and a criminal, both of whom have enough respect for each other’s professionalism to be able to grudgingly work together while trying to survive the long night. The obvious antecedent for that is the relationship between John Wayne and Christopher George in El Dorado, more than any of the relationships in Rio Bravo. Carpenter has absorbed enough of Howard Hawks into his psyche that even he doesn’t always understand which influences that he’s using on any particular film.

While Carpenter’s love for the Western genre and Howard Hawks has never paid off in terms of him being able to direct a Western of his own (although he did write a couple of them), he’s made three films throughout his career that are his most explicit homages to Hawksian professionalism: Assault on Precinct 13, Vampires, and Ghosts of Mars. (While The Thing is an actual remake of a Howard Hawks production, the screenplay by Bill Lancaster utterly dispenses with the theme of professionalism that was present in the original, replacing it with Lancaster’s patented dysfunctional family dynamic instead.) Carpenter burned himself out during the process of making Ghosts of Mars and nearly retired after it (his final feature to date was The Ward in 2010), so his own memories of the film are anything but positive. Yet it’s still entirely appropriate that two of his final three feature films ended up in roughly the same Hawksian place as his first true feature film Assault on Precinct 13 (discounting Dark Star, since it began life as a student film). Unpleasant experience or not, successful film or not, he still was able to say something that was near and dear to his heart.

Of course, Natasha Henstridge and Ice Cube in Ghosts of Mars don’t have even close to the same kind of chemistry that Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston had in Assault on Precinct 13, let alone that of Wayne and George in El Dorado. All of the things that do work in the film are just pale imitations of things that Carpenter has done better elsewhere. Ice Cube is fine as Williams, but it’s easy to imagine how things might have worked out better with Jason Statham playing the role as was originally intended, before the studio insisted on what they considered to be a more bankable name in the part—which is ironic considering how much Statham’s career has soared over the years since then. (Statham ended up being relegated to a supporting role instead.) Henstridge was also a last-minute replacement for Courtney Love as Williams’ reluctant partner Lieutenant Melanie Ballard, although she does her usual perfectly acceptable work in the role.

The rest of the cast is filled with familiar faces like Pam Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Robert Carradine, Peter Jason, Wanda De Jesus, Duane Davis, Clea Duvall, and Doug McGrath, but the reality is that most of them are little more than cannon fodder for the zombified Martian hordes. (Only Statham stands out purely by force of his outsized personality, since the character that Carpenter saddled him with is otherwise annoying.) Everyone and everything in Ghost of Mars is secondary to the Hawksian relationship between Williams and Lt. Ballard. In case anyone misses that point, Carpenter even closes the film by once again imitating the "walk and talks" with which Hawks had ended both Rio Bravo and El Dorado (although to be fair, the closing shots in both Assault on Precinct 13 and Ghosts of Mars still bear far more of a resemblance to El Dorado than they do to Rio Bravo.) Carpenter wasn’t afraid of wearing his influences on his sleeve, and that’s part of the charms that Ghosts of Mars does have. None of that changes the fact that it can be a challenging film to appreciate, but if you’re willing to dig for some these nuggets, they’re buried not too far beneath the admittedly schlocky and disjointed surface. You just need to put your back into it sometimes.

Cinematographer Gary Kibbe shot Ghosts of Mars on 35mm film using Panavision Panaflex Gold II and Moviecam Compact cameras with Panavision E-series anamorphic lenses. It was finished on film, framed at 2.39:1 for its theatrical release. This Sony-supplied 4K master is based on a 4K scan of the original camera negative, cleaned up and graded for High Dynamic Range in Dolby Vision and HDR10. The effects work and titles in Ghosts of Mars were composited optically, so all of that footage was derived from dupe elements instead, and it shows the expected image degradation. That means the opening credit sequence doesn’t necessarily start out promisingly, but once it’s over, it’s immediately obvious that this is going to be a significant upgrade over the previous Blu-ray versions. The image is nicely textured, and it shows off noticeably more detail on the faces and in the costuming—the knit blue/gray shirts worn by all of the police officers really stand out in that regard. The moderate layer of film grain has been left alone this time, and there aren’t any significant artifacts from the robust encode. The HDR grade expands the contrast range, with deep blacks that don’t obscure detail where they shouldn’t, and the fireballs from the explosions now have even more brilliant orange highlights. Ghosts of Mars was shot at night and it favors an appropriately red/orange Martian lighting scheme throughout, all of which now looks better than it ever has before. It may not be the kind of film that had many people clamoring for a 4K upgrade, but don’t let that dissuade you—this really is an upgrade.

Audio is offered in English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio, with optional English subtitles. Ghosts of Mars was released theatrically in 5.1, and this appears to be the original unadulterated mix. It’s an active one, with strongly directionalized effects zipping all around the soundstage, including an aggressive use of the split surround channels. Of course, it’s a John Carpenter film, so the single most important element in the mix is his score, and he took a leap of faith with this one by improvising hard rock with Buckethead and members of Anthrax. Ghosts of Mars is a heavy metal movie, so it’s an appropriately heavy metal score that sounds great here.

Shout! Factory’s Collector’s Edition 4K Ultra HD release of Ghosts of Mars is a two-disc set that includes a Blu-ray with a 1080p copy of the film. There’s also a slipcover that duplicates the theatrical poster artwork on the insert. Of course, Shout! Factory being Shout! Factory, that’s not necessarily everything. Depending on which version that you order, there’s also an extra slipcover featuring new artwork by the CRP Group, and separate posters for the theatrical artwork and the new CRP artwork. Regardless, the disc-based content is the same, and the following extras are included:

DISC ONE: UHD

Audio Commentary by John Carpenter and Natasha Henstridge

DISC TWO: BD

Audio Commentary by John Carpenter and Natasha Henstridge
Assault on Outpost 13: Scoring Ghosts of Mars (HD – 9:46)
Red Desert Nights: Making Ghosts of Mars (Upscaled SD – 16:59)
Scoring Ghosts of Mars (Upscaled SD – 6:23)
Ghosts of Mars Special Effects Deconstruction (Upscaled SD – 6:33)
Original Theatrical Trailer (HD – 2:09)

The commentary with Carpenter and Henstridge was recorded for the 2001 DVD release of Ghosts of Mars from Columbia Tristar. While Carpenter’s solo commentaries can be a bit dry and laid back, he’s always at his best when he’s paired with someone else who’s a bit more outgoing. His verbal chemistry with Henstridge is a little more caustic than it is with Kurt Russell, but this is still a fairly engaging track. They don’t just blow smoke up each other’s asses, either; they do end up bantering back and forth quite a bit (and she tries to dodge him when he asks about her modeling background). They’re also openly critical of the film at times, but Carpenter has always been honest in pointing out mistakes that he made or things that he would have done differently. That said, they offer plenty of good stories about the production, so this is well worth a listen for anyone who might want to learn more about Ghosts of Mars—all two of us, anyway.

Shout! has added one new extra for this release: Assault on Outpost 13: Scoring Ghosts of Mars. It’s an interview with soundtrack journalist Daniel Schweiger, who notes the similarities between Assault on Precinct 13 and Ghosts of Mars before comparing and contrasting the Led Zeppelin-influenced theme for the former with the openly metal score in the latter. He also talks about the cues on the soundtrack album that aren’t present in the film. (Schweiger must have been multitasking that day—he’s wearing an incongruous Full Moon Entertainment T-shirt.)

The rest of the extras are ported over from the original Columbia Tristar DVD. Red Desert Nights: Making Ghosts of Mars was called a video diary on older releases, and that’s a more accurate description for it. It’s a compilation of behind-the-scenes footage that was shot in the primary location at a gypsum mine in New Mexico. There’s some onscreen text that explains who people are and what’s happening, but it’s otherwise a bit random. Scoring Ghosts of Mars consists of studio footage of Buckethead and Anthrax recording the score. Finally, the Ghosts of Mars Special Effects Deconstruction compares the storyboards for several shots to the final composites, including most of the layers in between.

That’s pretty much every significant extra from previous releases of Ghosts of Mars, save for part two of the two-part The Guardian interview with John Carpenter that was on the 2017 Region B Blu-ray from Powerhouse/Indicator in the U.K. (Part one was on their Blu-ray for Vampires.) Frankly, Ghosts of Mars doesn’t have enough of a fanbase that it needs anything else in terms of extras. It certainly wasn’t an obvious candidate for a 4K upgrade, but here it is, as large as life and twice as natural. Major improvements in video quality probably aren’t going to be enough to change anyone’s mind about the film itself, but for the open-minded who are willing to put in a little extra effort, Ghosts of Mars is still worth your consideration. Just be ready to put your back into it.

-Stephen Bjork

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