SNOOZING VIEWER JOHN CARPENTER'S GHOSTS OF MARS: Horror. Starring Ice Cube and Natasha Henstridge. Co-written, directed and music by John Carpenter. (R. 98 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Mars, as everybody must know by now, is inhospitable to movies -- remember "Mission to Mars" and "Red Planet"? John Carpenter, who elsewhere can be a master B-movie maverick, spins out of control in his new Martian sci-fi horror film.

It has his fingerprints all over it. "John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars" -- not only is his name before the title, it's part of the title -- is a tired and dispiriting affair that takes forever to get going. Flashbacks crash into each other and pile up, and the exposition keeps turning back on itself. When the story finally struggles free, it's no spellbinder. Dialogue just lies there and wiggles.

A couple of centuries from now in a future dominated by a matriarchy, a space cop (Natasha Henstridge) goes to the ends of Mars to bring back a criminal (Ice Cube), and in the process, dormant demons are unleashed that take over and possess people. We can tell because their vision turns red and jumpy.

What Carpenter has co-written and directed is more horror movie than sci-fi.

He throws everything at the screen -- zombies, decapitations, massacres, self- mutilations, peeled-off faces used as masks -- but there is only one legitimately earned thrill. It comes so late in the movie that the audience is too numb for it to register.

Ice Cube is a distinctive personality, pudgy and authoritative at the same time, but he needs something to work with. Clunky, self-explanatory dialogue and the obvious expletives aren't it.

Henstridge ("Species," "Species II") does what she can -- and more, once stripping to her underwear -- but the character she plays, a Mars police lieutenant, is no walking advertisement for matriarchy. One of her decisions is so stupid even the audience starts hooting at her.

Needless to say, Mars is not great duty. The occupants give each other baleful stares, like losers on "The Weakest Link." The best thing this movie has going for it is the end-of-the-world bunker look of the colony and its heavy-duty train-to-nowhere. John Carpenter's Mars, by the way, has an atmosphere earthlings can breathe. Heck, they can see it. No need, anyway, for ponderous spacesuits. Everything else is ponderous enough.

Pam Grier ("Jackie Brown") shows up as Henstridge's superior, and Jason Statham, who was in both Guy Ritchie's "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch," has interesting rough edges as a team member who puts the make on Henstridge. Her reaction is one of the few surprises in the movie.

Advisory: Contains violence and gore.