Steven Spielberg’s Ghosts of Mars might have been a blast, and I would have paid top dollar to check out Merchant-Ivory’s Ghosts of Mars. But John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars? Atrocious.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 18, 2025

It’s hard to make a case for this pretty brainless perpetual-motion machine getting the critical reevaluation merited by some of the director’s other commercial failures...

| Feb 2, 2024

A fun and underrated movie deserving of any Carpenter fan’s affection.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 9, 2023

...the public didn't get it, but Ghosts of Mars has great action scenes, some cool tension, and funny dialogue...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 23, 2021

No one's favorite John Carpenter movie, least of all Carpenter. But it's much like Carpenter's Jack Burton character - amusingly cocksure in its constant clamoring, prone to the wrong place at the wrong time, similarly accidental in success it finds.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2021

With the synthesizer-heavy soundtrack, practical gore effects, and macho attitudes, the film is instantly recognizable as a work by director John Carpenter.

| Original Score: 2/10 | Sep 29, 2020

...a low-budget throwback to the gorefest action sf of the sixties.

| Mar 11, 2020

Final score of the 2000-2001 movie season: Mars 3, Viewers 0.

| Original Score: 2.2/5 | Jan 10, 2020

Lacks taste or anything innovative.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 21, 2017

A rather sturdy modernized mash-up of Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 14, 2011

Cheesy D grade popcorn guilty pleasure...

| Apr 29, 2009

Mad Max Heads for the Angry Red Planet on a Pitch Black Night of the Living Dead.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Mar 27, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 7, 2008

"Ghosts of Mars" is not Carpenter at his best. It may very well be Carpenter at rock bottom.

| Original Score: D- | Feb 14, 2008

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 30, 2006

A turd wrapped up in a nice bow is still a turd.

| Original Score: 1/10 | Dec 31, 2005

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 6, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 20, 2003

More Mars lacks than Mars attacks and an outing for Carpenter die-hards only.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 4, 2003

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 8, 2002