Review: Last Days on Mars… Same Problems, Different Planet
Wow, yet another space movie! They should make a habit of these…
Again I hit up the Toronto After Dark Film Festival and I was able to see yet another of their Sci-Fi titles. This time, Last Days on Mars. I was crazy excited to see this film ever since seeing the trailer before watching The Europa Report. LDoM stars Liev Schreiber in the monotone acting that only he can make charming, as well as a great supporting cast including Elias Koteas (who among other things, reminded me that he was Casey Jones in TMNT!)
While I did like this movie, I will warn people thinking of seeing it to back away if you have ANY issues with flashing lights, “shaky-cam,” or both at the same time. I went with a friend and she had to duck out of the movie due to really bad motion sickness (and she can usually handle things like that). If that’s not an issue for you, definitely go see this film.
The plot is, in essence, what would happen if we found life on Mars, and it turned out to be a bad idea that we even went there in the first place… LDoM was a fairly standard horror movie, but I will spoil it slightly (more information than the trailer leads to) so consider this your warning…
Ok… so picture everything you’ve ever seen in a standard zombie movie and make the setting Mars. That is this movie. Lets go down the list shall we?
-Virus/Bacteria that kills and reanimates people as mindless monsters.
-Guy who’s infected, but hides it from everyone.
-Pretty girl who only wants to go home.
-Pretty girl gets infected, Hero says she can fight it.
-Hero has to emotionally kill infected pretty girl who’s turned to a zombie. (With a ROCK!!)
-Rescue team shows up, is subsequently attacked and killed by zombies.
-Zombie hunched over dead body, sucking on entrails.
-Hero has final fight with infected guy who hid it earlier, is “possibly” infected during the skirmish, fade to black awaiting further rescue.
The zombies aren’t so much brains obsessed as they are water obsessed, which is understandable for life on a (not so) dry planet, to the point where they will suck the moisture out of you after disemboweling you. It was nice to see that even though they are fast zombies when they’re close to you, after a certain distance away, they slow down and become the shambling kind that I know and love. I love this kind because of the terror that comes from thinking you’ve gotten away, then forgetting about them until they’re right on you again.
If you’re a fan of zombie movies in general, and can handle a LOT of camera movement, I say give this movie a go. As well, the more money space horror movies get, the more likely we are to get more of them!
