Last Days on Mars (Ruairi Robinson)

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1709143/?ref_=sr_1

I've been excited about this one for a while now but it looks like it's nearly here. Will be premiering at Cannes next month.

On one of the first man missions to Mars, the crew of the Aurora discover evidence of life on Mars..and it’s not friendly.

Cast: Liev Schreiber, Romola Garai, Elias Koteas, Johnny Harris, Tom Cullen, Olivia Williams.

The synopsis of it don't make it sound that great. In this interview with Robinson he says he was inspired by films like The Sting and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

http://www.screendaily.com/reports/features/last-days-on-mars/5044494.article

There hasn’t really been that kind of claustrophopic, characters at each others throats, densely packed movie in a while. I haven’t really seen it since the first Alien.

You can watch his short film BlinkyTM on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/21216091

Galvasean

Liev Schreiber? Consider me cautiously optimistic...

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Here's a better synopsis...

As their last day on Mars draws to a close, the astronaut crew is on the verge of a major breakthrough – collected rock specimens reveal microscopic evidence of life. Meanwhile, communication is underway with Aurora, the approaching spacecraft that will relieve the crew of their operations. In their last hours on the planet, two astronauts go back to SITE 9, a cavernous valley on the surface of Mars, to collect further evidence of their discovery. But a routine excavation turns deadly when one of them falls to his death and his body taken host and re-animated by the very life form they sought to discover.

And a picture of Schreiber, which is the only bit of anything that's been revealed so far....

Duggy747

The Thing on Mars

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

There's a short clip from it here.... http://www.cineuropa.org/vd.aspx?t=video&l=en&did=238280

Not sure what to make of it, seems to have been pushed back to September too.

Saw this on the US Netflix so decided to give it a watch. I can't remember the last time I saw a film so derivitve, it's pretty much Alien meets the Thing meets Ghosts of Mars by way of every space horror of the past 30 years. There isn't a single original moment to be found here and it's one of those films that squanders a great cast and an tense set up on a genreic and bland zombie tale.

Still, taken for what it is, a low budget genre piece it's not half bad and features some nice suspense, gorgeous visuals and a wonderfully evocative score which is responsiable for creating most of the tension.

Decuc500

I saw this at the recent Dublin Film Festival and enjoyed it.
It’s certainly derivative but if you’re a fan of the movies it borrows from there’s much to enjoy and for a low budget film it had a very impressive look.
Well made, escapist entertainment.

TerrorFirmer

It's a bit predictable and offers very little creativity but to its credit, for a low budget film the visuals are fantastic. It's worth a watch. I definitely wouldn't compare it to The Thing or Alien in terms of content or vision though, personally speaking. It really is a dumb, unoriginal b-movie at its core which happens to have exceptionally good visual effects and decent acting - it doesn't have any credible tension or dread at all. Really I'd just call it a dumb zombie/infection type feature.

Another low budget film with astoundingly good visuals is 'Europa Report', anyone who likes sci-fi should really enjoy that one.

Skerries

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Another low budget film with astoundingly good visuals is 'Europa Report', anyone who likes sci-fi should really enjoy that one.

I just came here to say the same thing as Europa report is a much better film told with more realism

pixelburp

I saw it a while back myself and like others above, I found the whole thing extremely derivative - had forgotten I even saw it until I noticed the updates to this thread. The actual horror elements were poorly executed, with some pretty shoddy internal logic to boot. The influences of Alien and The Thing are there, but for me the film most resembled a recent Dr. Who story, 'Waters of Mars'; a broadly similar story, albeit one told with more energy, creativity and imagination than this film

That said, I found myself wondering if this was a classic case of a script suffering from an overly pushy producer or funder; the way the film just changed direction and descended into a pretty abysmal zombie film made me suspect the script got nuked, that whoever was funding it wanted something sexier & more exciting so it would be an easier sell to distributors. Because up until the zombies appear, I actually found the group dynamic kinda interesting: the action seemed heavily character focused and driven by the divisions within a crew that had obviously given up trying to get along. Olivia Williams' character being the most obvious example here, an intentionally divisive antagonist driving everyone crazy; it was clichéd, but effective. Then the space-zombies appeared, logic went out the window and it all became a tedious base-under-siege film.

And yes, Europa Report is a much superior film, though that wouldn't be hard in this case.

The score is the best thing about the film but even it feels overtly familiar.

Tracks from the score feel like Bear McCreary's score for Defiance by way of a few others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGu43cjoX8M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmxyNZBdwhE