The Last Days On Mars features an ensemble cast that includes Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas, Olivia Williams, Goren Kostic, John Harris, Tom Cullen and Yusra Warsawa star as scientists on Mars who shortly before they are due to be relieved from the six month stint trying to find evidence of extraterrestrial life on the red planet discover a bacteria that spreads from host to host somewhat in a muddled way and turns the living into murderous flesh eating zombies.
Filmmaker Ruairi Robinson states in the making of featurete, which also includes cast interviews (15:17), that he told his agent he wanted to direct a film like John Carpenter's The Thing. Unfortunately for him he got something more akin to John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars meets REC, but with no real sense of thrills. The film is well acted. It also refreshingly seems to pay attention to real science. The effects look terrific, but aside from creating an atmosphere of doom, the Director does not appear to be adept at creating scary moments. This is terrible because the premise of what is essentially zombies on Mars is such a disappointment that at least if the film were exciting, scary, fun and anything else other than bleak then maybe it would have been easier to deal with the absurd concept.
The DVD features a clear 16 by 9 enhanced standard definition widescreen presentation with an average English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack. English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded as options.
Besides a making of featurette, there is an analysis of the visual effects produced for the film with puzzle like motion transitions between what was shot on location all the way through to the completed scene (8:00) and there is also a behind-scenes picture-in-picture comparison of the film set with the completed scenes in the little box toward the lower right corner. (4:01). A short look at the film that aired on ASXTV (3:12) and a reel of advertisements for Europa Report, Here Comes The Devil, Beyond Outrage, How I Live Now and the ASXTV Network itself (8:23) wraps up the bonus features on this DVD.
The Last Days On Mars will debut on DVD as well as Blu-ray Disc, but sold separately on Tuesday, March 4, 2014 at retailers on and offline courtesy of Magnolia Home Entertainment.
(C) Copyright 2014 By Mark Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
