Ghosts of Mars

This is an upgrade from a DVD that I've had for years, kind of a guilty pleasure. Some pictures just don't quite click but are still watchable. The picture quality is quite good, the price was right, the premise was great but Carpenter could not quite pull it off. And a Carpenter movie is always fun, not some overproduced schlock. but schlock produced on a budget. Worth an upgrade anyway

I had a copy of the original DVD release, but could never get the ending to play without skipping a few minutes even after buying 3 different copies. Now with this bluray release I finally got to watch the movie beginning to end without streming or finding the missing part from the internet. The movie looks so much better updated also and no up and down volume because of the the too low voices or to loud explosions etc.

If you’re a John Carpenter fan, you’ll enjoy the cheesy goodness of Ghost of Mars. I’m not one for slasher films but if you give me a monster flick of some sort/kind-I’m in! I like most of Carpenters work-there’s a few I can pass on but this film isnt one of them.

I just watched ice cube toss grenades at rabid colonists from Mars and it all looked like it was filmed yesterday. Thanks Blu Ray. John Carpenter rocks.

This film marks the final decline of John Carpenter but it didn't have to be that way.There are many problems with this film, but the biggest was casting. I mean Ice Cube? I guess he picked that name for cred, because a frozen blick of water has more charisma and screen presence than this "actor."Comparisons could be made between this dog and Pitch Black--both have criminal anti-heroes battling an alien threat and helping the "good guys--except that Pitch Black starred Vin Diesel,, who has acting chops and screen presence. Ice Cube has neither. If you doubt, please note that Vin Diesel was the star of XXX, a big hit, but he backed out of the sequel to be replaced by said block of frozen water and the result was a critical and box office failure.in which more than one critic pointed out Ice Cube's casting as a disaster.Of course there is plenty of blame to go around with this failure--the script for Ghosts of Marx is ham-handed, the sets dull and unimaginative, the costumes Judge Dredd silly and the ghosts--well, the less said about these cheap, directive, third-rate monsters the better.Sad to see a once celebrated auteur fall so hard but it is no surprise this was John Carpenter's final theatrical release.Watch Big Trouble in Little China, watch Halloween, watch the TV movie Elvis, but avoid this turkey like the plague. I only grabbed it because I am a Mars fanatic, but even retro "junk" like Rocketship XM and Angry Red Planet are superior to Ghosts of Mars.Please not that I have nothing to say about Ice Cube's recording career as I only listen to music.

Always been a favorite of mine huge fan of Carpenter ..My dvd cracked so I was pleasantly suprised to find on blu ray and the price is worth it under $10...

I am a huge John Carpenter fan as I do still feel that he is one of the best genre filmmakers of all time. However I can also objectively state that he has made some less than stellar films particularly later on in his legendary career with a few being outright bad. 2001's "Ghosts of Mars" in my opinion falls in the bad category of his directorial filmography and might just be the worst movie he has made as well to date. While I understand that this film has developed a cult following over the years, should you happen to like the film, I am not criticizing your opinon.The biggest issue with "Ghosts of Mars" in addition to the film looking incredibly cheap and ramshackle is that the entire film is told in flashbacks by the main character portrayed by Natasha Henstridge. There are even flashbacks within flashbacks somehow. On the commentary track, John Carpenter admits that the original script was told in linear fashion but he made the decision to restructure the story to instead be told in flashbacks for dramatic purposes. While that can work for some stories, it did not work for "Ghosts of Mars". It is clear that he wanted to do a sci-fi retread combining elements from prior films of his including "Assault on Precinct 13" and "Escape From New York" but it just does not work at all. "Ghosts of Mars" was such a critical and financial disaster at the time of its original theatrical release that John Carpenter would not direct a feature film for 9 years though he directed a couple of episodes for the Showtime series "Masters of Horror" in between during 2005 and 2006."Ghosts of Mars" was originally released on bluray by Sony back in 2009. On the surface the 2019 Mill Creek Entertainment reissue appears to just be a repurposing of that disc right down to the extras which were also ported over though no new extras were included. I do not have the out of print Sony disc to compare, but I have read that while Mill Creek had to use the same HD master provided by Sony, though the 2019 disc features better encoding than the 2009 one, which helps tighten up the picture quality a bit. Presented on a single layer disc utilizing the AVC codec, the 2019 reissue features a rock solid bit rate hovering in the upper 20's for most of the 98 minute film. Detail is good along with nice contrast and black levels which is important as this is a dark film featuring a lot of black and red in its color palette.Sound is presented in 5.1 DTS-master audio sounding punchy with nice separation. English subtitles are included for the hearing impaired. The film is divided up into 14 chapter stops.All extras from the 2009 blu-ray were thankfully ported over to Mill Creek's 2019 disc including the following:– Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter and Natasha Henstridge– Video Diary: Red Desert Nights (17 minutes)– Scoring Ghosts of Mars (6 minutes)– Special Effects Deconstruction (6 minutes)Should you own the 2009 Sony disc, I would say that the 2019 Mill Creek reissue is not worth the double dip other than the slightly better encode. If you are a John Carpenter completionist like I am, then the cheap price of the Mill Creek disc makes it the much better alternative than the more expensive and out of print Sony disc. "Ghosts of Mars" might be a terrible film in my opinion, but it does still have a small but loyal cult following and still gets this film back out in the blu-ray realm for people wanting to own it on physical media but never got around to picking up the 2009 release. I hate the film but this disc is solid from a technical perspective.

of science fiction films but I like this movie. The BR transfer is good nicely illustrating the red hues of Mars. Total Recallis still my favorite "Mars" movie though but this is a film I enjoy. If you like the movie you'll like the BR release.

Ordered on the 3 of September took till the 17 September to arrive , Turned out that this Blu-ray Ghosts of Mars is a REGION A , not REGION B that we have here in the UK , BUT THIS IS NOT DESCRIBED ABOUT WHAT REGION IT IS ON THE AMAZON SITE ☹️

Enjoy this movie, can watch it again and again, so glad to add to my Collection quality of picture and sound are excellent would recommend product and seller, took its time to get to me, but i have the patience.

John Carpenter--what else can you say. I do own a few of his and thought, since I'm a movie collector, that I would make a list of all of his movies just to see what I haven't watched. I find his very early stuff isn't the greatest---but once he did Halloween, The Fog, etc he seemed to find the type of movies he's good at. This one was sort of there and gone when it first came out but it definitely lands in the same category as his movie, The Thing with Kurt Russell.It was enjoyable and had a lot of action in it. The special effects weren't bad and the makeup effects were interesting. I'm glad I bought it.

This is far from Carpenter’s best, (really not one of his best) but it is not even close to being as bad as some people say. There is a fun low budget spaghetti western feel to it even though the horror/sci-fi intentions are not the best. This BluRay is arguably the best on the market. It has all the extras from the Sony release. Really solid video & new cover art. It does not have all the extras from the UK Indicator release, but it is less than half the price of it. Overall this is a welcomed edition to my collection.

An enjoyable, but much maligned Carpenter Sci-Fi futuristic tale. A classic. Think Total Recall (Mars) meets I Am Legends and 28 Days Later (Zombie/Cannibal's). Although a bit dated and some may say not as well written as his other classics. It's still a fun ride. Many critics hate his work. Only for his fans to love them for the cult classics they are. This is another for your Carpenter library.