beware of movies with the director's name in the title . take " john carpenter's ghosts of mars " ( please ) . if the carpenter brand name wasn't superglued to the title , this embarrassment would surely have bypassed theaters entirely and gone straight to its proper home on the usa network . and i would have been spared a headache . the latest from the director of " starman , " " halloween " and " escape from new york " is a lousy western all gussied up to look like a futuristic horror flick . the production is set on mars in 2176 , where humanity looks for relief from the overpopulation strangling their home world . six hundred and forty thousand people in a matriarchal society live and work at outposts all over the red planet , terra-forming to make it more hospitable for future generations . a matriarchal society . terra-forming . sounds pretty intriguing , eh ? well , don't get your hopes up .
