Mars Attacks… but Make It Existential
Let’s face it: if humans ever colonize Mars, it’ll end one of two ways — we’ll either become gods of science or die horribly inside a glorified soda can. The Last Days on Mars chooses the second option and does it with style, dread, and just enough dark humor to make you question why NASA keeps sending people anywhere.
Directed by Ruairí Robinson and starring Liev Schreiber — who’s built like he could personally punch the Red Planet into submission — this movie is The Thing meets 28 Days Later meets Gravity’s depressed cousin. It’s smart, spooky, and surprisingly emotional for a film that basically boils down to “Mars gives everyone space rabies.”
Red Planet, Red Flags
We begin on Mars, 2040-something. The Tantalus Base crew has been there six months, and they’re only nineteen hours from going home — which, as we all know, is the universal sign in horror movies that everyone’s about to die.
The mission has gone smoothly, which means morale is low, boredom is high, and everyone is either chain-smoking in their helmets or talking about what they’ll do once they’re back on Earth. Liev Schreiber plays Vincent Campbell, the weary astronaut who’s basically one “we’re not getting paid enough for this” away from mutiny. He’s joined by a roster of suspiciously attractive scientists who make NASA look like a modeling agency: Elias Koteas as the noble captain, Romola Garai as the moral compass, and Olivia Williams as the scientist you just know will say “we can contain it” seconds before everything explodes.
Then, because scientists never learn, one of them — Marko Petrovic (Goran Kostić) — finds bacteria that might prove life on Mars exists. Naturally, he tells no one, because if Alien taught us anything, it’s that secrets on space missions lead to fun group bonding activities like cannibalism and corpse reanimation.
Within minutes, Marko falls into a Martian sinkhole, and everyone’s like, “Wow, that’s tragic, but we’re still clocking out in 19 hours, right?” Spoiler: no, they’re not.
When Martian Dirt Fights Back
Soon enough, the team goes searching for Marko and discovers he’s come down with an unfortunate case of “turning into a zombie.” But these aren’t your garden-variety undead — they’re fast, strong, and clinically insane, with skin that looks like it’s been left in a tanning bed since the Nixon administration.
Before long, everyone’s catching the Martian infection faster than you can say “is this covered by space insurance?” What was once a high-tech research base becomes a haunted house in slow motion, complete with power failures, claustrophobic corridors, and astronauts getting drilled to death — literally, not metaphorically.
The film’s real villain isn’t the disease, though; it’s science’s relentless optimism. Every time someone says, “We can fix this,” Mars basically responds, “Hold my dust storm.”
Liev Schreiber: Astronaut, Therapist, Martian Puncher
Liev Schreiber carries the film like an overworked dad on a road trip from hell. His Vincent Campbell is part soldier, part philosopher, part man wondering why the hell he agreed to this job. Schreiber plays him with the perfect mix of stoic despair and “I just want to go home and pet my dog.”
There’s something darkly hilarious about watching a man this capable reduced to running from space zombies in slow motion while muttering about antibiotics. He’s the kind of astronaut who could probably fix the ship and give you a moving speech about humanity’s place in the cosmos while doing it.
Romola Garai, meanwhile, gives emotional weight to Rebecca Lane, a scientist who somehow manages to look glamorous even while covered in Martian dust and despair. Her chemistry with Schreiber gives the movie a rare heart — it’s less “love story” and more “trauma bonding in low gravity.”
And then there’s Johnny Harris as Robert Irwin, the mission psychologist who turns out to be less “calming presence” and more “gaslighting coward who throws people to zombies.” Every mission needs a traitor, and Irwin fills that role beautifully, sweating through every lie like a man who’d sell his own mother for an oxygen tank.
Space Zombies Done Right (Yes, That’s a Thing)
Let’s talk about the undead in the room: this is one of the few zombie films that actually makes the monsters scary again. Robinson doesn’t treat them as lumbering corpses but as tragic echoes of humanity. The infected astronauts don’t just attack — they remember. They use tools, recall friendships, even hesitate for brief moments of lost emotion before lunging for your jugular.
It’s a small touch, but it adds a terrifying existential edge. These creatures aren’t mindless; they’re victims. And when one of them starts drilling his former colleague’s face in what used to be the mess hall, you can’t help but think: “You know what? Maybe colonizing Mars was a bad idea.”
Martian Mood Lighting
Visually, The Last Days on Mars is a beauty — in that bleak, desaturated, everything-is-dying kind of way. The red dust clouds roll across the landscape like biblical plagues. The base interiors feel claustrophobic, metallic, and depressingly believable — a place where no one’s vacuumed since landing day.
Cinematographer Robbie Ryan (of Fish Tank fame) deserves credit for making Mars feel both enormous and suffocating. Every frame oozes dread. The sky isn’t red; it’s the color of dried blood. And when the sun sets, it’s not romantic — it’s a death sentence.
The film’s pacing mirrors its environment: slow, deliberate, and constantly edging toward collapse. It’s not an action-packed zombie gorefest; it’s a creeping panic, a study of humans unraveling one oxygen tank at a time.
The Existential Horror of Being Too Smart to Survive
What makes The Last Days on Mars more than just a space zombie flick is its undercurrent of cosmic futility. These people are scientists — trained to solve problems, to understand life. But on Mars, life doesn’t want to be understood. It wants to kill you, then wear your body like a spacesuit.
As the infection spreads, the movie becomes a metaphor for human arrogance. We come to new worlds, drill holes, collect samples, and assume the universe owes us a thank-you card. But here, curiosity doesn’t just kill the cat — it kills the entire research team and possibly Earth next.
There’s even a darkly funny streak to how matter-of-fact everyone is about it. When one astronaut gets infected, the others barely flinch: “He’s got the disease.” “Well, that sucks. Pass the antibiotics.” It’s workplace nihilism in space.
The Ending: Houston, We Have a Problem (and a Zombie)
By the time we reach the finale, Liev Schreiber is the last man standing — because of course he is — trapped in orbit with an infected crewmate and more bad decisions than fuel. The final moments are bleak and oddly poetic.
He floats in space, sending a message back to Earth that’s part confession, part warning, part voicemail for anyone dumb enough to try this again. He’s infected, doomed, and yet strangely calm. “Don’t come for me,” he says, “I might be contagious.” It’s the most polite suicide note in sci-fi history.
And then he drifts off into the void, heroically ensuring that humanity won’t be zombified — at least until the sequel that mercifully never happened.
Final Thoughts: Death, Dust, and Deadpan Despair
The Last Days on Mars may not have the grandeur of Alien or the heartbreak of Sunshine, but it’s a smart, eerie slice of sci-fi horror that punches above its weight class. It’s grim, beautiful, and darkly funny in that “this is fine” kind of way.
If The Martian is about human ingenuity and hope, this movie is about human stupidity and decay — and honestly, that’s the more realistic take.
So, if you like your horror with a touch of philosophy and your astronauts with a dash of existential dread, strap in. Just don’t forget your antibiotics.
Rating: 8 out of 10 Martian Sinkholes.
Smart, spooky, and redder than a politician’s face during a scandal.
