John Carpenter's the Ward - Die Station

John Carpenter has made some of my favourite films, however, his more recent efforts have been a little wide of the mark. So it was with much trepidation that I hit the play button for this one; the reports I'd read had not been encouraging. Sorry to say the reports were right to some extent, although I don't think it deserved some of the vitriolic bile aimed at it. I'll tell you what I mean by that after this brief summary.

When the young Kristen is sent to a psychiatric ward in 1966, she finds herself with a group of young women who all have different problems. On her first night someone steals her blanket and yet she is locked alone in her room. The others, Emily, Sarah, Zoey and Iris are all adamant that there is no way out, but Kristen wants to leave. Things come to a head when she is attacked in the shower; not by one of the other girls, but by a ghost! Investigating, she finds the name, Alice Hudson and, as her fellow inmates begin to disappear one by one she gets more desperate to escape! But there's a problem and her physician, Dr. Stringer, holds the key. I won't say any more or the Spoiler Police will be locking me up (again).

It's all quite well shot, but (to me) it has the feel of quite a low-budget picture. I felt some of the acting was quite forced, if not poor, in places (particularly at the beginning). Since nobody really stood out I will give honourable mentions to; Amber Heard as Kristen, Mamie Gummer as Emily, Danielle Panabaker as Sarah, Laura-Leigh as Zoey, Lyndsy Fonseca as Iris and Jared Harris as Dr. Stringer.

Some of the reviews I've read about this film have been really venomous in their criticism of it. To some extent I agree, John Carpenter is capable of making much better films than this. But on the other hand; what he has produced, if not entirely original, is still quite watchable (after a while) and there are some genuinely frightening moments in it. In conclusion I guess what I'm trying to say is yes, it's not all that good, but at the same time it's not all that bad either. There are some good ideas here but the execution didn't quite work this time… As far as recommendation goes, I'll leave that entirely up to you.

My score: 4.9/10.

IMDb Score: 5.6/10 (based on 10,186 votes at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 32/100 (based on 65 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 27/100 (based on 9,057 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).

Returning to the director's chair after a ten year absence, you might think that during all that time, director John Carpenter would have gone through a lot of proposed projects and picked the best one of all for a comeback. I have absolutely no idea why Carpenter picked "The Ward" for his comeback. It isn't a terrible movie - for a somewhat low budget movie, it looks fairly professional, and it isn't boring at any moment. But throughout the movie, I kept telling myself, "You've seen this all before." This includes the "surprise" twist towards the end the movie - most likely you'll have some idea of what will be revealed before it actually happens. And when you think about the twist after the movie has ended, you will realize that some other parts of the movie don't make much sense with the knowledge of this twist. The confusing twist, along with the unsurprising makeup of the rest of the movie probably explain why this movie didn't get a theatrical release in North America.

Nicely shot, if slightly claustrophobic, thriller set in the 60's, that was better than I expected.

After a young woman is found setting fire to an abandoned house she is taken to the local asylum. There she meets 5 other young women, all patients because of various mental 'illnesses'.

What follows is a ghost story which, at times, had me quite spooked.It seems that the girls have upset someone who is unwilling to forgive them. Various escape attempts, therapy sessions and red herrings follow. OK, it's no classic, but it had a genuinely interesting story that kept me hooked until the end.

Well worth a watch

There has been a lot of "mental health" stuff in the cinema recently, and in almost all cases the storyline has played a trick on the audience in the manner of the brilliant "Sixth Sense". There is history in this too with the Three Faces of Eve standing out as the way to entertain, enlighten and educate film goers.

Although "The Ward" is reasonably well done it just isn't disturbing enough at the personality level to convince. Perhaps that is down to the acting but I would question a screenplay which is more about shocks than about insight. Yes there are signposts along the way just as there were in the Sixth Sense, but they are not as carefully constructed nor as lovingly lingered with as they could and should have been. It seemed to me director Carpenter wasn't too convinced of the robustness of the story told in a different, more true to life, way and instead took the route most likely to shock people with it's "twisted" end.

Most of all I felt this film lacked claustrophobia, the shackles and chains that surround mentally disturbed people both in their minds and in the places where they are secured.

There was a lot of wasted talent here and that is a great shame.

I'm 36 years old and in 1981 the first horror movie I saw was John Carpenters "Halloween". I was 6 year old and subsequently I became an úber fan of the Director. I've worshiped the great ones (Assault on precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York, The Thing, Prince of Darkness) enjoyed the good (Christine, Star Man, Big Trouble in little China, They Live, In the mouth of madness, Vampires) and stomached the bad (Escape from L.A, Village of the damned, Memoirs…, Ghosts of Mars). "The Ward" seems to fall into all of these categories. Sometimes it's great, more often than not it's good but regrettably when it's bad it's really bad. Perhaps it was the lack of a traditional Carpenter score (although the score by Mark Kilian is suitably haunting, memorable and atmospheric) or maybe it was the somewhat derivative "jump" scares or could it have been the inconsistent overall tone because to me it felt like I was watching a movie made by someone trying to emulate Carpenter rather than a movie by "The Master" himself. Don't get me wrong, technically it's excellent and it contains a few moments of genuine tension but there was something missing from the ingredients that make a great Carpenter movie and I think that something is called suspense. It's a shame really because with its eerie location, its linear, albeit uninspired storyline and its quirky characters this had the potential to bring the Director back to the top where he truthfully belongs but throughout I couldn't help feel that Carpenter's become jaded within the genre. His techniques that were groundbreaking during his prime have been exploited by every other Horror Director of the last 20 years. So instead of evolving above this and carving a revolutionary way forward as he once did so gracefully, Carpenters now imitating his old self and his techniques just don't seem to cut it anymore. To be fair it's an enjoyable and fast moving 88 minutes but from an old Pro like John Carpenter I was expecting something a lot more terrifying. When Carpenter reviewed his initial cut of "The Fog" back in 79 he found it plodding and just not scary enough so he went back and re-shot scenes then re-cut it into the classic it is today. I think if Carpenter had taken the same approach with this movie it could've been up there with the best of the best but something tells me that he's become indifferent, lost his passion and dare I say "only in it for the money". Over time I may grow to love this like I grew to love "Prince of Darkness" but as of right now it's left me feeling somewhat dis-satisfied.