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Getting "free" movie channels for a few days.  Saw bits and pieces of many current films and some older ones.  The only movie I actually watched other than GHOSTS OF MARS was... IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT...!!!  This should illustrate the quality of the films offered.  IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is shown often on TCM, yet, that was the best offering.  

Now that GHOSTS OF MARS... what a DUMB movie!  PAM GRIER (in an absurdly long MATRIX coat) is completely WASTED.  The script is STOOPID.  That little tiny train heeheehee is so obviously a miniature in the long shots.  The lines, the plot, the flashbacks... So, the "possessed" are cutting off faces and wearing them like masks!  But, eh, no, they ain't.  And and and they're ripping at their own flesh and faces... but leaving enough face to apply some awesomely amateurish theatrical KISS makeup... Mississippi goddam!  WTF???  I would write a dumb film review if I thought anybody'd read it.  

GHOSTS OF MARS is a truly ROTTEN movie.   :thumbdown: :lookingup:

The pay for view movie networks-i.e.-Showtime,HBO-are a waste of time and space. I could actually just have 2 channels on TV and be happy-TCM and PBS.
Oh waitaminnit-I like COMET too-. At least they play "bad" movies like MUTANT HUNT (1987),old Vincent Price movies,old obscure stuff like GRAVEYARD OF HORROR (1971), and the original Outer Limits TV show reruns.

GHOSTS OF MARS is one of the biggest, steaming piles of giraffe poop I have ever subjected my poor eyeballs to.  Just goes to show that John Carpenter can make some decent/good movies (HALLOWEEN, THE THING, THEY LIVE, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS) and some serious dreck as well (PRINCE OF DARKNESS, MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN, ESCAPE FROM L.A., and this crap).  I hate Ice Cube even more than Samuel L. Jackson.  And that's saying something.

I find Ghosts of Mars to be fairly amusing in its awfulness.

What amused me the most is that the head Ghost of Mars zombie thing is basically just Marilyn Manson. 

They file their teeth!  Uhm... they do a great job... when you see them thar teeth on Gene Marilyn Simmons Manson his pointy teeth are all so beautifully pointy and scary  :lookingup: (yuk yuk yuk)... Gee!  I'd have thought that filing your own teeth (especially if you're a crazed possessed kookoo) you'd break some of them...

.........................I legitimately like this movie a lot

I really tried...I really wanted to loved this movie. Loved everything Carpenter did up to this point...but there was just no way.

With all these dreadful comments, this thread is making me want to watch this movie. And I'm drinking for the first time in nearly 3 months, sooooo...it's probably gonna happen.

A couple of hours later --

Hoe Lee Shee It!

You know, I could expect something this muddled and stupid from Zach Snyder, except he would at least make it look pretty. But THIS? From John Carpenter?

First, the movie could not make its mind what it wanted to be. A gun-fest? A western? A commentary on American Imperialism? An emo-death metal wank-fest? It was all over the place and doesn't even qualify as a tribute to any of the classic films that you can kinda, sorta, see that Carpenter was wanting to reference. It just didn't have the weight needed to carry through on anything it set up simply because it felt thrown together, story- and plot wise.

Second, was everyone in front of the camera high? Every actor seemed to be in their own movie and couldn't bother acknowledging the other actors. Freaking Joanna Cassidy seemed the most animated, but that boils down to her acting like she was tweaking on crank. Clea DuVall seemed to be dosed on Valium or Xanax. The only person who gave a halfway decent performance was Pam Grier, but, sadly, the role was a throwaway.

Third, what in hell was up with the annoying MTV-style editing? Just f**king show people walk into a room and stop with the repeat fade cuts. It didn't speed up anything. If anything, it made it seem like someone was bored with the film and just felt like trolling the audience with the pointless attempt at -- I dunno, art?

I looked for something to indicate this film was made by the same guy who kept me freaked out and on the edge of my seat with his other films. When I finally gave up on any hope of that, I tried to just watch it as a fun little action film, but even that didn't work as the characters kept making poor choices and the action (what there was of it) amounted to shooting stuff and blowing things up with no real drive or focus. "Let's do this. Oh, well, that was a dumb idea. Let's hide again until we can do something else that won't work. And let's make sure we do NOT do anything reasonable, like get the hell out of there and come back with a real plan."

Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it is the worst John Carpenter film I've seen. Yes, AHD, worse than Escape From LA, which was lame but could be written off as a pulpy piece of twaddle.