Day 2 - The Last Days on Mars | 31 Days of Halloween

Day 2 of the 31 Days of Halloween, we’re shifting from cosmic dread on Earth to existential terror on the Red Planet. Today’s theme is Terror in Space, and I went with a film that tends to fly under the radar, even for dedicated sci-fi horror fans: 2013’s The Last Days on Mars.

Starring Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas, Romola Garai, and Olivia Williams, this is a movie that plays somewhere between The Martian and Ghosts of Mars. A traditional infection/zombie thriller, just with a surprisingly high production value and a grim tone that works better than you’d expect.

Is it perfect? No.

Is it memorable? Also, no.

But, what it is, is an atmospheric and tense movie that is absolutely worth including in a space-horror Halloween lineup, and that’s exactly why I revisit it every few years, only to forget 90% of it once the credits roll. Somehow, that quality has become part of its charm.

A Grim, Dust-Covered Story of Isolation & Infection

Set during the final hours of a research team’s mission on Mars, the movie begins like straightforward hard sci-fi with detailed sets, clunky suits, and the monotony and dread of living in space long-term. The crew is tired, frayed at the edges, and ready to go home. You can feel the tensions that have built up between them.

It’s at this point that they make a dark discovery. A microscopic Martian organism that begins infecting the unlucky crew members one by one as things quickly spiral out of control. What follows is kind of a zombie movie and kind of a “Martian infection nightmare,” where the real terror is in how quickly their protocols and loyalties fall apart along with all stability and reason.

The movie treats space as a place where help is just out of reach, hope is dwindling, and every mistake becomes a death sentence.

Where it Succeeds

Visually, the movie really holds up. You can tell the production team cared about the sets, lighting, and realism. There’s a grounded authenticity in the ship interiors, vehicles, suits, and landscapes. Its major strength here comes in approaching the subject matter from a starting point of realism. It doesn’t feel like a cheap B-horror movie. It feels like a legitimate attempt at science fiction filmmaking, and releasing less than two years before The Martian, it fits in pretty well with the style of that feature.

There’s a claustrophobic tension throughout the whole movie. Each scenes carries a sense of dread like no one is safe and anything can happen at any moment. The type of movie where you expect random random explosions and chain reactions to claim victims at any moment.

It also hints at an ancient, unknowable evil that it never really goes into detail on, but sometimes the unknown is far scarier. Overall, this isn’t just space zombies.

And, finally, it benefits from strong performances and A-list actors. Liev Schreiber in particular sells the emotional exhaustion of someone who has spent too long in a place that was never meant to support human life.

Where it Stumbles

In my opinion, this could have benefitted from committing to what type of horror movie it wanted to be. It hovers in the middle ground between legitimate science fiction, zombie horror, and psychological horror, but by not committing to any one sub-genre, it doesn’t end up being fully successful in any of them tierh.

For example, let’s talk about the gore aspect. Many of the kills take place off-screen, leaving us to discover the aftermath later on. or more into the psychological horror aspect. That choice can work, but here it sometimes softens moments that needed teeth.

The movie hangs out in this middle ground, which is unfortunately what makes it so forgettable. There’s no one scene I can point at that “wow’s” me whatsoever.

Interestingly though, that absence of spectacle also gives the movie a strangely quiet, somber quality that sets it apart from other infection thrillers. It’s more “slow burn” than “spectacle,” and that may work really well for some people.

Final Thoughts

If The Last Days on Mars you end up really digging this off-world horror pic, then I have a recommendation for you: Europa Report. This is a criminally under-seen found-footage space horror that delivers one of the best modern examples of scientific dread meeting cosmic terror. There aren’t many space-based found footage films, but this one stands as my favorite. It stands as a perfect balance of all of the different aspects of space horror: psychological, technological, and biological.

The Last Days on Mars isn’t a Halloween knockout, but it is a moody, atmospheric, and well-crafted space-horror thriller that deserves more attention than it gets. It’s the kind of movie you stumble upon when you’re in the exact right mood, and when that mood hits, it scratches a very specific itch.

Give it a watch as part of your 31 Days of Halloween if you’re exploring off-world horrors beyond the usual classics, and join me tomorrow for Day 3, When Animals Attack!

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