Chill Seeker

“Ghosts of Mars” is more than just the latest science-fiction and shoot-’em-up adventure depicting the fight between the forces of good and evil on the Red Planet.

It also could carry the subtitle “John Carpenter’s Greatest Hits.”

Carpenter, who is credited with creating the teen-slasher movie genre in 1978 with “Halloween” and who has directed and written numerous other movies dealing with the supernatural, the unexplainable and the gory, has infused his latest film with a mix of the most notable elements from his earlier works.

As usual, Carpenter’s name is above the title. There’s the female lead leading the charge against the bad guys (“Halloween”). There’s the evil force that travels ominously through airborne matter (“The Fog”). There are the good guys who suddenly turn bad when they’re possessed by otherwise unseen evil (“The Thing”). There are the hyper-kinetic battle scenes scored by thrashing heavy-metal music (“Vampires”). There are the cheap-thrills “make-them-jump-in-their-seats” moments (“Halloween”). And there is blood (most of the movies Carpenter has made).

And as usual, he wrote the music. He has composed the music for most of his films, including the aforementioned heavy metal.

The white-haired filmmaker chuckles when asked about the similarities between “Ghosts of Mars” and his other films, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

To him, the film is yet another of his tributes to the legendary Howard Hawks, who directed such classics as “Red River” and “Rio Bravo” and produced the original “The Thing.” But finally Carpenter concedes there is an awful lot of his past in the new film.

“I look at this movie as a summation,” said the director, looking very suburban in a well-worn sweatshirt and pants while puffing on a series of cigarettes. “It’s also a jumping-off point. But most of all, it’s a lot of fun. You can’t take it seriously. It’s just a movie--a movie about folks [fighting] on Mars.”

He says the film demonstrates that he has survived in Hollywood through three decades. “There are a lot of directors who we all grew up with that are no longer working, that no longer have any support in the industry. Look at Michael Cimino [the Oscar-winning director of “The Deer Hunter”]. He’s gone, he’s not around. My point is to keep working.”

And he is truly devoted to genre films that may not win Oscars. Carpenter is not looking to make his “Saving Private Ryan.”

“Whenever I think about something like that, the God of Hollow Laughs taps me on the shoulder....The grand artistic statement is just a recipe for disaster.”

In “Ghosts of Mars,” Carpenter finally realizes a long-standing dream to make a film about Mars that isn’t a “space helmet” movie. “I wanted to make something in which Mars would be colonized, and the air is breathable.”

The movie imagines Mars in 2176, where people live in distant outposts, mining the planet for resources. But the mining has unearthed the remains of an ancient Martian civilization, and its spirit-warriors have set about taking over the bodies of the human residents to regain control of the planet.

Meanwhile, the Mars Police Force is transporting James “Desolation” Williams (Ice Cube), the planet’s most notorious criminal, to justice. The police and the criminal eventually join forces to combat the deadly warriors.

The film cast also includes Joanna Cassidy and Pam Grier, who is working for the second time with Carpenter. She starred in his sequel to “Escape From New York,” called “Escape From L.A.”

“There’s always a balance when working with John,” said Grier, who plays the no-nonsense but sexually active veteran of the police force.

“He really wants the actors to have fun, and he doesn’t want them to take things all that seriously,” she said. “But on the other hand, he is very demanding. He strikes that balance, and he won’t work with any actor who doesn’t work as hard as he does.”

Despite the far-fetched premises of his movies, Carpenter never approaches them as exercises to wink at audiences. “I take every story that I write and every movie very seriously. It’s as if this is really happening. It’s not a joke.”

He writes in an office in Van Nuys behind a nondescript residence. The office is crammed with artifacts from old horror movies such as “King Kong,” posters and pictures from his films, a massive amount of books and scripts and a sizable supply of junk.

An object many young writers might find most scary and intimidating sits on his desk--an old IBM electric typewriter. It’s the instrument Carpenter uses to compose his scripts. “I need to see the word on the page,” he said. “I can’t get that on a computer.”

Carpenter has honed his craft for more than 30 years; he won a 1970 Oscar as a USC film student (under the name John Longenecker) for his short film, “The Resurrection of Bronco Billy.”

Carpenter went on to direct several low-budget films, such as “Dark Star,” “Assault on Precinct 13,” and “Halloween,” the film that really launched his career.

Carpenter downplays the significance of “Halloween,” which sparked several sequels and whose impact can be seen in recent films, including the “Scream” trilogy and the “Scary Movie” spoofs. He’s drawn to the genre because there’s something enduringly visceral about it.

“You cannot kill horror,” he explains. “You cannot stop it. It’s one of the essential elements of mankind. We’re all afraid of the same things.”

He is pleased with “Ghosts of Mars,” finding it a satisfactory addition to his creations.

“All I really want is to have a body of work,” says Carpenter. “And to survive.”