 The Last Days On Mars (2013) Science Fiction & Fantasy On the last day of the first manned mission to Mars, a crew member of Tantalus Base believes he has made an astounding discovery - fossilized evidence of bacterial life. Unwilling to let the relief crew claim all the glory, he disobeys orders to pack up and goes out on an unauthorized expedition to collect further samples. But a routine excavation turns to disaster when the porous ground collapses, and he falls into a deep crevice and near certain death. His devastated colleagues attempt to recover his body. However, when another vanishes they start to suspect that the life-form they have discovered is not yet dead. As the group begins to fall apart it seems their only hope is the imminent arrival of the relief ship Aurora. Rated - R Run Time - 1 hr. 31 min. Directed By Ruairi Robinson Starring Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas, Romola Garai, Goran Kostić, Johnny Harris, Tom Cullen, Yusra Warsama, Olivia Williams |
Although it's safe to say this did bomb at the box office I found it quite watchable. I mean if you're into zombie type films you could do far worse than this one. Based on a 1975 short story ('The Animators') by pulp sci-fi author Sydney J Bounds the plot is essentially that of The Thing or Alien. With a off-beat, paranoid quality that works well – you get the feeling this crew, given enough time, would have attacked each other anyway, space zombies or no space zombies lol. Similarly, the cast are uniformly excellent (Johnny Harris is especially good as shifty psychological welfare officer Irwin) and their interaction feels real, particularly the touching bond between Schreiber and Garai's characters.
Ultimately, The Last Days On Mars isn't without flaws (the zombies are left offscreen too long and some of the action sequence editing is confusing), but this is an intelligent and engaging sci-fi thriller that's well worth checking out.
Also, did I mention it has ZOMBIES?
