How ‘Ghosts of Mars’ ended John Carpenter’s career
The horror genre has developed so rapidly over the past few decades that for those of us who weren’t around to see the premiere of 1978’s Halloween, it’s hard to imagine how groundbreaking it really was. These days, it feels like the genre has seen it all, from violent slashers and brutal torture movies to satirical horror comedies, but in the 1970s, the horror landscape was drastically different.
Movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas were some of the first real slashers, both emerging in 1974. These films pushed the boundaries of the scary movie – the villains weren’t supernatural creatures or giant monsters; they were real people. John Carpenter was inspired by these films to make his first horror movie, which resulted in 1978’s Halloween.
The movie was made on a shoestring budget, with its rough-around-the-edges aesthetic making it feel even more realistic and scary. The movie’s opening sequence, which featured a POV shot of a young Michael Myers committing his first kill, was revolutionary, putting us in the shoes of the villain and leaving us truly unsettled. The narrative is simple but gripping, with the masked murderer’s presence always looming over us, regardless of whether or not he’s on screen.
Halloween was an unexpected success. It grossed $70million despite being made on just a quarter of a million dollars, suggesting that indie films had the power to be just as profitable as mainstream studio releases.
Carpenter was the new horror director on everyone’s lips, and he followed Halloween with The Fog, this time having a go at making a scary movie with supernatural themes. Like Halloween, the film also starred Jamie Lee Curtis, establishing her as one of horror’s greatest ‘scream queens’. The film might not have been as successful, but it proved Carpenter to be a master of the horror genre, and he soon shared more evidence to back this claim in the form of The Thing, Christine and They Live.
Unfortunately, the late ‘80s and ‘90s saw Carpenter expand into other areas, such as fantasy, romance, and comedy, which were nowhere near as successful. Movies such as Big Trouble in Little China and Memories of an Invisible Man were commercial failures, suggesting that Carpenter was much better equipped to make horror and sci-fi movies. His attempts at comedy and writing strong dialogue often fell flat, leaving people to wonder why Carpenter was in charge of movies that were out of his comfort zone.
Still, the ‘90s saw Carpenter release movies that received mixed reviews, like In The Mouth of Madness and Vampires, as well as Escape From L.A., which is now considered a cult classic. Interestingly, it was a horror movie that truly marked his downfall – 2001’s Ghosts of Mars. After a series of releases that were just average, this film, which was both a critical and commercial flop, became the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Ghosts of Mars was criticised for being rather stupid and unserious, and you only have to look at the bizarre cast list – Ice Cube, Jason Statham, Pam Grier, Cleo DuVall – to understand how strange of a movie it is. It lost $14m after a poor theatrical run, leading Carpenter to stop making films for nine years.
He returned in 2010 with The Ward, starring Amber Heard, but it was similarly derided and only emphasised Carpenter’s inability to make movies as good as he did in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Since then, he’s worked on the new instalments of the Halloween franchise as a composer and executive producer, ensuring the legacy of the film that made him a horror icon in the first place. However, it seems like his days as a director are firmly over.
