With this sci-fi offering, Dark Star and The Thing director John Carpenter has been reduced to repeating his own movies. Set in the year 2176, this has feisty cop Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge) arrive at an isolated Martian mining town to transport notorious killer "Desolation" Williams (Ice Cube) to a high-security prison. The colonists are being possessed by the spooks of the title and transformed into zombies that look as threatening as refugees from a Kiss reunion concert. These Martian living dead then swarm in a siege hugely reminiscent of Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 - itself a homage to Howard Hawks's classic 1959 western Rio Bravo. There are moments of tension thanks to the director's self-penned soundtrack and the rusty-red hues in which everything is bathed. But there are no real surprises here, leaving only regrets that such a talented director is responsible.

In 2176, a Martian police unit is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find the post deserted and something far more dangerous than any criminal — the original inhabitants of Mars, hellbent on getting their planet back.