At the Martian town of Chryse City, a train pulls in with one passenger: tough cop Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge). She was a member of a team sent to a small mining community to bring back convicted killer Desolation Williams (Ice Cube). She's called in front of a court of enquiry, and John Carpenter's chilling sci-fi horror goes into flashback as she tells her story...
Arriving at the mining camp, Ballard and her team find it empty but for corpses. Then they find a lone survivor who tells them what's happened: mining revealed a doorway that released the ghosts of the long-dead original inhabitants, who invaded the bodies of the humans, turning them into zomboid killing machines, wreaking revenge on those who dared lay claim to their planet. Now the team and their prisoner must fight for survival as the Ghosts of Mars attack...
The film is gloriously OTT with lashings of gore. Carpenter is quite happy to pay homage to himself, referencing Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing and Village Of The Damned as the action unfolds with both Henstridge (ironically a bloodthirsty alien in Species) and Ice Cube holding centre screen as their companions (including the iconic Pam Grier) meet their ends.
Ghosts of Mars is a Film programme that first aired in 2001 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
