It's a little late in the game for filmmaker-of-all-trades John Carpenter to start putting his name on his movies, isn't it?

Besides, few other directors would even want to lay claim to the recent volley of films that do bear his name — "John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.," "John Carpenter's Vampires," and now, "John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars" —the latest evidence of the continual eroding of the filmmaker's once-formidable skills.

Mind you, this science-fiction thriller isn't completely terrible — after all, a bad movie by his standards is still more watchable than at least some of today's cinematic mediocrities. But it is disheartening to see someone with his talent stealing from himself. (Among the Carpenter films evident here are "The Thing," "Into the Mouth of Madness" and "Assault on Precinct 13.")

The first sure sign of disaster should have been when the production lost its original star, rocker Courtney Love, who departed after "spraining an ankle." Replacing her is Natasha Henstridge (from the "Species" movies), who stars as Lt. Melanie Ballard, a member of the 22nd-century Mars Police Force.

As the film begins, Ballard is trying to justify recent actions to her superiors, and the story is told in flashback. It seems that she and a team of officers were sent to a mining town, Shining Canyon, to pick up and deliver a murder suspect, James "Desolation" Williams (Ice Cube).

However, when they reached their destination, they were puzzled by what they found — Shining Canyon appeared to be a ghost town — albeit, one with dismembered corpses strung up as grim warnings.

Apparently, the majority of the miners had been transformed into maniacal killing machines by a long-dormant Martian life-form trying to reassert its claim to the planet. So the remaining survivors, cops and criminals agreed to a rather uneasy truce just to get out of town alive.

In typical Carpenter fashion, the film's content wobbles unevenly between splattery gore and cheeky humor. (Frankly, he might have been better off playing things fast-and-loose in the latter fashion, as he did with his cult favorite "Big Trouble in Little China".)

Worse, he's unable to sustain any tension or terror for more than a couple of isolated scenes, which puts a terrible burden on the lead actors — only one of whom is up to the task. While Henstridge does have the physicality required for her role, her acting is pretty wooden. On the other hand, Ice Cube seems to be enjoying himself.

"John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars" is rated R for graphic violence and gore, occasional strong profanity, simulated drug use (hallucinogens and nitrous oxide) and some crude sexual banter. Running time: 98 minutes.

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