The Last Days on Mars
Tags: comedy, violence, flashback, insanity, claustrophobic, suspenseful

Plot synopsis:
In the 2040s, a Martian research base, Tantalus Base outpost, is created. The eight person crew, who have been stationed there for six months, are only nineteen hours from the completion of their research mission. The spacecraft Aurora is inbound from Earth and will collect the team by lander from a prearranged site. Mars scientist Marko Petrović has found samples that may point to life on the planet. Without revealing his discovery, he devises a ruse for one last sojourn on the surface. Crewmate Richard Harrington drives Petrović in a solar powered rover to the spot where he had found the sample. After he obtains soil with the biological agent present, a fissure swallows Petrović.
Captain Charles Brunel and crewmate Lauren Dalby plan to explore the pit to retrieve Petrović's body. Dalby remains at the pit but disappears before the team can return with equipment. Brunel authorizes Vincent Campbell to explore the pit, and he finds a fungus-like life that grows in the fissure. Dalby and Petrović reappear at the main outpost, but the Martian bacteria has mutated them into fast, aggressive, zombie-like creatures with blackened skin and no trace of their original personalities. Harrington dies from a power drill attack by one of the zombies, and he subsequently revives as a zombie himself. The remaining crew hold off the zombies while Brunel and Campbell return. Brunel is also fatally injured and reanimates, which provides the crew with new insight into the symptoms: thirst, memory loss, and aggression.
Eventually, after several fights and escapes from the zombies through the habitat modules, mission psychologist Robert Irwin deliberately leaves scientist Kim Aldrich, who had often infuriated her crewmates, to die. Rebecca Lane is also stabbed in the leg during the frantic escape to a rover. With their rover's power low, the survivors – Campbell, Irwin, and Lane – decide they must get to the other rover, which is still at the site of the fissure. Under the pretense of a scouting operation, Irwin steals the second rover and unsuccessfully attempts to persuade Campbell to abandon Lane, who he states is infected. Irwin meanwhile conceals evidence of his own possible infection.
While Campbell and Lane wait for the sun to rise and the solar powered batteries to recharge, they discuss the nature of the zombies, and Lane questions whether any human consciousness remains trapped in the zombies. Campbell attempts to comfort her and falls asleep. When he wakes up alone, Campbell realizes that Lane has fled into the desert, and he chases after her. Lane, who knows she is likely to turn, unsuccessfully attempts to deter Campbell from following her and, in desperation, commits suicide by removing her helmet. After she dies, Lane reanimates and begs Campbell to destroy her. Campbell reluctantly complies by bashing her head in with a rock.
Campbell and Irwin separately converge on the Aurora lander, where the reanimated Aldrich kills the lander's crew. The other zombies appear desiccated and inert. An obviously infected Irwin initiates a launch, which takes him and Campbell into orbit. Campbell stuns Irwin and ejects the body and virulent blood droplets into the vacuum of space. In a message to mission control, Campbell says he does not have enough fuel for a rendezvous, but supplies aboard can last for months if they want to launch a rescue. He tells them that this may not be advisable, as he may be infected and if so he has just enough fuel for re-entry and a fast death. Campbell concludes that it will take 15 minutes for the transmission to be received and will be awaiting their reply. He subsequently ends the communication, still floating alone in space.

Review: The premise is there is a team of scientists on Mars carrying out research until they make a discovery that will jeopardise their mission with just a few days left till they return home.The tension and feeling of the crew going a bit stir crazy is very well done in this film.
The film very simply suggests that the characters be taken as real people who are reacting to the situation in front of them, just on a different planet where the rules of survival are equally alien.TLDOM is worth watching because of the skill and confidence of the people making it.
Performances were good, but the story went from scientific to space horror a tad too quickly.Liev Schrieber was adequate but his character had no emotion until the very end of the film.
Other performers were sort of character actor types and their length of time on the screen was based much on either who is the prettiest or the most foolish.There was decent suspense early on and a curiosity as to what happened earlier in their lives, but not in the movie and I guess it had played a part in the plot, but with no explanation, it was kind of oddly placed.It's a decent watch and only killed about 98 minutes, so you won't find it to be a total waste of time.
If you watch it with the thoughts of real early science fiction, you can see how it fit into the genre.Some people may be surprised by the ending or you'll wonder what happened next.Take the time, enjoy the ride and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, but not overwhelmed.Just my thoughts!.
"The Last Days on Mars" doesn't exactly follow in that tradition and leaves you guessing up until the moment the horror is realised.Although location and purpose is completely different i couldn't help but associate it with "Sunshine"; of course with a less stellar cast.
I would usually score this an 8, but at the time of my posting it scored a 5.5 which makes no sense to me.You would never know by watching it, but this is a low budget movie (about 10% of what Oblivion cost to make).
It is a dark SF story (like Alien), but does not follow your typical Hollywood ending (which I always like), but is my guess why it gets panned in the reviews.I story line is strong, I didn't find myself say "come on!" during this movie once (which is rare for me in SF pictures), that is not to say there are no moments, that are a little bit of a stretch, but all in all a good ride.
Quick summary: astronauts nearing the end of their stay on the Martian space station compete with each other for a great scientific discovery only to find pre-existing life on Mars that turns men into zombies.
However, if you've an open mind, and enjoy watching films for the storytelling and overall quality, then you've got a winner with The Last Days On Mars.
My overall enjoyment of the movie was pretty decent, its nothing something I'd watch numerous times, but it was alright for a one time view.The acting was pretty good, as were the sets, makeup etc.
Now I like the occasional zombie movie, but I've only read the brief description on IMDb before watching,and I personally expected something different, something a bit more original.
You could replace Mars with an island, the infected with zombies, the bacteria with, well, a bacteria and the rescue pod with a rescue ship for example, and basically have the same movie.All in all, if you're like me, and enjoy watching some low budget sci-fi, this is a movie I'd give a try..
They have better suspense, stronger characters and are more gripping.This is a dreadful, dreadful film, the direction is awful, the camera-work dull and un-inspired, with poor choices of camera positioning mean we are constantly crossing eye-lines and it can be confusing who is talking to who in a scene where there are only 3 people.
This film starts with the pretence that it is 'scientifically accurate' then at about minute 20 that just dissipates and we are suddenly in some sort of horror movie with VFX so bad you'd think it was a student movie.The film-makers have managed to make what could possibly be mankind's greatest achievement - sending humans to Mars - the most tedious thing imaginable.This film is just awful.
One of the biggest conundrums I ponder on is "how to best space diseases?" This movie tells well of what doom life in space may bring us, or us to it.It's not a fast action gun shooting zombie survival horror, but it's very good given the scenario.
Last Days of Mars' post effects were top notch (i read cinefex, so I should know) and like I said, had me immersed in the reflected night illumination of a foreign moon(s) and awakening in the light of a distant dawn of our sun and it's so familiar spectrum.
Movie or not, deciding to do the worst thing possible (as leave you in control here, although it's apparent there is an issue at hand, which doesn't even play into all of it in the end and other things complicate things and weigh on the movie as a whole), is not really something it had to do.The actors do a really good job and while most of this is predictable, you will be entertained, if you are only slightly interested in Science Fiction and horror.
Really enjoyed this movie, wasn't quite sure what to expect when I began watching it, but once the plot was revealed it reminded me of a number of other films.
Nice work, those angles and camera frame-up's really worked, but I am still mad at you because you "got me".Really enjoyable acting, nice directing, great Cinematography, a quality film with an interesting story.This film would have scored a little higher with me, if it hadn't left me feeling unresolved with the ending.
The movie starts out already on Mars so no time is wasted getting there and character development is quick but gives you enough info to realize why these Martianauts act they way they do.
The entire movie is pretty much spent trying to find a way to beat the virus and return to their ship in space after a six month or so voyage of exploring the red planet.
Fun space movie and looks like a nice budget film.
It's great, this slow burn of a plot line.If you're a fan of these kinds of stories, then you'll really like this movie.
I had expectations from this movie to turn out to be something intelligent and awe-inspiring, but I was thoroughly disappointed with this film.There are some good things here, namely, the Special effects and the theme in general, coupled with some pretty decent acting.
Do NOT watch "The Last Days on Mars," unless you're a 14-year-old boy who likes crude zombie flicks.
The saddest aspect of this film is that they actually put a lot of money and resources into assembling a decent cast with some quality sets, and had real potential to make an intriguing and engaging movie about prospects for human space travel.
I reckon overall its a good horror movie and has nothing to do with titles such as "Alien", "The Thing" or "Prometheus".
there was no scientific explanation given behind why a bacteria would turn people into zombies.Acting was horrible and flat, with almost zero range of emotions.The set was a shoddy rip-off off the movie Alien.The story was nonsensical!
Mars IS, after all, normally a dead planet.The quality of the sets and the overall design is surprising (in a good way) given the tiny budget that the movie worked with!
The film is very well shot and looks very much how I would expect Mars to look, the scientific base and the vehicles also look very believable, I don't know what sort of budget they had but it doesn't have a low-budget look to it at all.There is a lot of suspense as it is sometimes unclear who is infected by the virus and where the infected people are on the base.
When people are infected by the virus they are basically turned into zombies and the zombies are done quite well, much more convincing than lots of conventional 'zombie films' I have seen.I haven't really seen Liev Schreiber in much apart from the Scream films but I think he did a pretty good job.
What it is not is something completely original that covers any story element not already seen in another movie, in that respect it would be almost as pointless as the remake of The Thing which although I enjoyed that the original in my opinion is like The Exorcist which also stands the test of time.
Guy crashes through thin layer and dies.So far pure science and beautiful film work with great acting all around.Here is where everyone who marks this movie down gets it wrong.
I gave this movie a 10 out of 10 to try and balance it against the negative reviews (it deserves at least a 6.5 or 7) Without adding any spoilers, I'll only say it's well worth a watch, the acting was good enough that I actually lost myself in the movie without thinking "god this is a movie", it isn't reality.I very nearly gave it a miss, I'll never trust negative reviews again until I've seen the movie and made up my own mind.What really sets this movie apart from many others is you're left feeling well, 'disturbed' thinking what if...
Good acting and excellent props are wasted on this - I can't believe people watched it til the end let alone score it higher than 5.
Combine that with a sterile screenplay and bored looking actors and you've got a 2013 movie that feels like a tired 1992 sci fi straight-to-DVD flick.
Take a really bad movie like "Prometheus" substract any kind of talent and you get "The Last Days on Mars" Worse than that cheap rip off of a script, the bad acting, lighting, directing, cinematography, the cheesy music etc etc is the fact that you never get the feeling that you are actually on Mars.Mars really looks like some desert in Nevada with some filters put on the camera lenses.The "actors" (if you really like to call them that) run around in ridiculous space suits from a 50s B movie and nobody must have told them that there is some other kind of gravitiy on Mars.Speaking of "Gravitiy".Go and watch the movie of the same name if you like to see how a real space movie is done and skip the utter disaster which is "The Last Days of Mars"..
But there are lots of different between both from characters to things that happen around.In my opinion, this movie was not bad as many say nor good.
No over the top monsters or huge special effects, but an inspiring film that runs along very smoothly and grips your attention right until the end.The acting is very good, the story is original, and the scenery on Mars is breathtaking.Would I watch this film again?
The end of the movie isn't so bad, more interesting camera angles here, but you've long since lost the will to enjoy it by then.Olivia Williams was good, Liev and some other actors were OK but otherwise the acting was ill conceived, dull and uninspiring; the script even more so.
Olivia Williams' character provides some tension at the beginning but her demise was underwhelming, just like the entire movie.Poor timing of the scenes and their relationship to one another killed it- there's just no sense of it going anywhere - no tension or aplomb- the whole film mushes into one big bag of poop.
Then go hire decent actors but get worst of the lot director to direct it.Possible that director was being "directed" by financiers but any good director would have been reluctant to put their name on this "piece of art"Don't watch it if you hate bad horror movies where someone goes to the basement, without turning on the lights, with a flash light with almost dead batteries, to investigate growling sounds coming from the basement, just because their stupid cat MIGHT be down there.Here kitty, kitty, kitty.As if to say, "Please do this world a huge favor and put me out of my misery by torturing me to death."Wasted 2 hours of my life.2 stars for good acting by female actresses ONLY..
Where to begin....I hope Liev Schrieber and Elias Koteas got paid...or were they doing someone a favor as I cannot understand how their agents let them into this disaster...First the story is painstakingly unoriginal and almost crosses the line into plagiarism and doing such in a very sophomoric fashion and feel....some of THE worst choppy editing I have seen even for a B grade release...even worst than a Troma effort...secondly the dialog when discernible consisted of a bunch of mumbling until some action takes place...these MarsOnauts seem to be perpetually on Ambien when not screaming at each other...then there is that cookie cutter cheesy music you have heard in just about EVERY movie made after oh 2005 or so....the drony sad piano...which just makes this an even worse watch...Bottom line...an unoriginal effort where the science is hardly interesting...the acting is nonexistent despite the better cast members...the story is just a sleep inducer....I wouldn't even recommend watching this on a rainy or snowy night with the lights out and some popcorn...watching the popcorn would be more interesting....
There are Other Annoying Modern Movie Making Clichés Like Flashing Red Lights to the Point of Distraction and So Forth.Overall, the Good Cast and Curiosity About the Combination of Zombies in Space and Astronauts in Space is Enough that Makes it Worth a Watch for the Undiscriminating.
Greetings all, And so it comes to pass that this film has become either loved or loathed, much to my dismay.Let me start off by saying I thoroughly enjoyed this film, so much so that I even allowed it a place in my bluray collection.Since the days of Pandorum I have longed for a decent scifi horror that's not overly heavy on gore or shocks and focuses more on atmosphere and feel, this is it.Firstly, what can I say but commend the excellent job done on the set design and locations.
And what it offers is a good piece of entertainment, set up in a well-built environment with just the right mood and feel and with a decent cast.Yeah, I admit the plot is far from being original, the characters are a bit flat and hollow and some of the scenes are too expected (killing the surprise factor) - but still - I enjoyed every bit and the movie had me pinned down to the chair, definitely more than most of the Sci-Fi movies I've watched lately.So don't listen to the others here, don't take it too seriously and just enjoy the movie as it is.
This movie had ability, but it didn't perform.Its a take of something we've all seen in other sci-fi, Red Planet type of films, but this one adds a "zombie" genre to it.
This film is more believable reality-wise then for instance, the Mars Zombie film, Ghost of Mars.Unfortunately its not written well, or directed well...This movie was a waste of good actors and from what it looks, a decent budget.The screenwriter mails it in at the end as well, where plot holes are abundant, wasn't that "rover" out of power like 3 different times???
Bounds' 175 short story 'The Animators', it pits a research crew during the final 19 hours of their mission on Mars against a virulent strain of bacteria from the planet that turns humans into zombies - and just to be clear, we're not talking slow-moving ones like 'The Walking Dead' but something more akin to the zombies on steroids in 'World War Z'.There is no doubt an inherent cheesiness to the premise in this day and age, so in order to be taken seriously, it would need a compelling enough script to hook its viewers in.
Other supporting acts like Williams, Romola Garai and Elias Koteas also lend solid support, but are otherwise hemmed in by a script that doesn't seem bothered to develop their respective characters over the course of the movie.On balance therefore, 'The Last Days of Mars' is neither appalling nor outstanding; indeed, it is mediocre in almost every aspect, and is unlikely to do for Robinson what 'Moon' did for Duncan Jones or say 'Monsters' for Gareth Edwards.
It's a film, admittedly with a bad storyline, with some of the greatest direction I've ever seen in a space movie.
It seems like they built the film around the awful last act in Sunshine - which in turn was a cheap knockoff of Alien and every other something around the corner space horror scenario.
28 days later crossed with Event Horizon.Good special effects, OK the plot may have been done before but it's a decent film to watch.***** possible spoiler alert*****Leiv Schreiber plays the main character who is the hero whilst trying to keep it together.
Just thought I'd put that out there.It's basically a zombie movie set on Mars.
It made me feel like everything was filmed on mars, or in a space station etc.Long before I ever saw this movie I recall having read that it was very low budget.
This movie won't ever top some of my favourites, such as Solaris (1972), or Moon (Sam Rockwell), but once again, if you want to see a movie where the sets and technology make you feel like you're in space, you will get some enjoyment out of The Last Days on Mars.