John Carpenter's The Ward

It's 1966, young teenage girl, Kristen, is thrown in the local psychiatric ward with nothing but her name and the memory of burning down a secluded farmhouse. During the day she shares the ward with an aptly quirky bunch of other teenage girls, but at night the halls are stalked by a ghost! That's it. That's the set-up of John Carpenter's new suspense horror entitled, The Ward, and being a huge Carpenter fan, I will say, I'm very pleased with the result. It isn't exactly what you'd call 'original', in fact, it's far from it, but then you don't go to see a John Carpenter film for the gripping storytelling, you go for the suspense... the atmosphere, and of course, the scares. And there's plenty of those on offer here.

I'm going to start this review (I suppose you could call it that) off with the music. Unfortunately, The Ward doesn't come with a Carpenter-composed score. However, the music done by Mark Kilian is very good, consisting of a suitably “la-la-la” ghostly theme tune, so catchy that I found myself humming it on the way home! And while it would be wrong to say that it sounds Carpenter-esque (it doesn't really), it's effect is the same. Kilian really understands how Carpenter utilizes music in his work and how he integrates it into to the fabric of the film, which could have been a disaster had the music been bad, since it plays almost constantly throughout.

The film itself feels like a cross between Halloween and The Thing, which, anyone familiar with the man's work (and if you're not, what're you doing with your life?!) will know that's not a bad thing but a good one! ...Young, fresh-faced, attractive females stalked by a supernatural force ala Michael Myers in gloomy psychiatric ward, the setting of which, resembles that of The Thing's equally gloomy and isolated outpost 31. Obvious comparisons will be drawn with the familiar 'ghost girl' bogeymen of modern J-horror, but it's quite clear from the get-go that Carpenter is deliberately trying to stay away from that. The ghost in The Ward has a very particular look and it isn't a spoiler to say, that you'll see it from quite early on, and in quite some detail – detail which makes sense to the story later down the line. However, to go into that would be spoiling it, suffice to say that The Ward's ghostly antagonist has a very distinct-sounding walk in that it kind of creepily shuffles, complete with a limp, down the corridor toward its unsuspecting victim. And this is where the fun of the film lies... You know those types of films where you're taken on a ride and made to play detective having to figure it all out as you go along? Well this is like that, only with less emphasis on the 'figuring out' part and more emphasis on the 'ride' i.e. the scaring you out of your pants stuff!

Okay, maybe this won't quite scare you out of your pants, but you get a sense (or at least I did) that part of what Carpenter was doing with this film was testing himself... a test to see whether he is still capable of pulling off those classic techniques that he, in-part, established all those years ago in Halloween (yes, I'm well aware of Black Christmas before it), and later perfected in The Thing. There's opportunity here, with this particular script, to push the story and delve more into the characters, but Carpenter doesn't care about that. However, that's not to say the performances aren't good – on the contrary, they're surprisingly strong, but the focus here is on technique... the lighting, the framing of shots, the music, the slow, creeping movement of the camera etc... And it's nice to find, all these things are still very effective. This is a 15's (in the UK) rated film – there isn't much in the way of bad language or gory violence, at least not by today's standards, but you might just find yourself on occasion having to turn away in fear of the approaching shock-scare. Just as Tarantino films aren't so much about the violence, rather the build-up to it, The Ward isn't so much about the jump-out moments (as shockingly clichéd as they are), but rather the carefully crafted suspense by a man who, at 63 years old, has once again, more than justified his status as a true, honest-to-god, 'Master'.

Final Verdict
This won't dazzle any veterans of the genre, but still a very capable and effective supernatural horror.

Excellent review there RunningFox.

I'm a huge fan of Carpenter so I'm gonna try and catch this over the weekend.

Apologies for the sizing of the title -- I didn't mean for it to be that big!  However, if you're gonna display a name as big as that, might as well be John Carpenter's!

I'm an unabashed John Carpenter fanatic. There, I said it.
Plus the extra bias of handling an exotic animal used in one of his films.
That being said, I'm ecstatic to see the man working in features again.

The Ward is an efficient little shocker that sets an evocative tone.
It's not a landmark film, but I'm thrilled to see Carpenter working again.
The script is malnourished, but has some decent points.
Carpenter gets competent to effective performances from the cast.

Sadly, this is Carpenter's first non-PanaVision film since Dark Star.
The man makes love to the camera with those gorgeous anamorphic lenses.

The Ward is derivative but decent entertainment with a strong visual palette.
It's nothing great, but I hope it signifies an eventual return to form for Carpenter.

E.D.

The Ward is not a terrible film. Carpenter's return is more than welcome as I am a huge fan of his work. Carpenter's direction, with one exception, is very nice and he makes good use of the sets.

My main issues with the film are the script and Amber Heard. For obvious reasons, I wont go into why I feel this script is weak. It's a very predictable film with very predictable twists. My issue with Amber Heard is that she did not seem like someone from the 1960's setting. Her acting was fine, but it did not seem like there was an attempt to make her seem like a plausible character from the 1960's.

Again, not a terrible film, but any film from Carpenter is welcome. I hope his next feature comes with a better written script, or perhaps, something written by Carpenter himself.

Rob

Hmmm...I'm wondering if I saw the same film as the other posters did.

The film I watched last night was pretty damn bad, extremely slow, dull, and plodding, offered no scares at all, was hokey, cheesy, and then, wrapped it all up in a totally ridiculous "twist", that pretty much makes the entire movie I just watched a complete sham, cause nothing I watched actually even happened.

Damn...what a HUGE disappointment this was for me.  I literally kept checking the runtime on my player, as I just couldn't believe how slow it was, with literally nothing happening.  When the big twist was revealed, my eyes were rolling, my head was shaking back and forth, and I was literally saying out loud, "no...no...please, tell me it isn't so."

The "ghost"?  Yeah, scary, huh?  Uhh, no, far from it , actually.  Cheesy?  Yes.

So, why set this piece of shit in 1966, anyway?  Seriously...why?  So they could include the electroshock therapy?  Any other reason?  I sure can't think of one.  Foolish, IMO.

Overall, this script just really sucked, IMO.  So dull and uneventful.  Why John Carpenter would jump back into the game with this piss poor effort is way beyond me.

For some reason, a bunch of people spent $10 Million and saw a nice WWBO Gross of under $500,000.  Damn...that's just pathetic, but based on the final product, I can see why it was barely released - it sucked!

I can't blame the acting here, the photography, the direction, or anything else...other than the script, the concept, the premise, and the story.  Terrible idea in every way.

How anyone can defend this mess is beyond me.  Pure and utter crap, wrapped up with John Carpenter's name literally in the title.  So weak...

I'm a big-time Carpenter fan, and I'm slightly disappointed like some of the above that he used ask/use the panaglide. While not his worst film (which I think was his previous picture, Ghosts Of Mars) I don't think it's as good as his work from the 80s - and I'm nearly convinced that Carpenter, like other directors of my generation, feel they need to conform to the current film trends/parameters.

It was better than some of the horror remakes of recent years, not as rotten as you make it out to be Jeff. It's also not as great as The Fog or Christine. It's not as enjoyable as Escape From New York or They Live. Next week is the Thing prequel, and it will be another reminder (most likely) of how well done Carpenter's remake of '82 was. Maybe what Carpenter needs isn't a thriller or horror, but a pic like 'Big Trouble In Little China' or 'Starman'. Yeah, read those titles. We know he's great. Or was great. I'm still scratchin' my brain...what the hell happened? Did he get scarred that much on Village Of The Damned? It's like he never regrouped.

Shit, I HATE to say stuff like that. The man has done some the best known cinema known to mankind. We know he's a terrific director, sometimes underrated by his peers. To many of us, he's a cinema hero.

It's nowhere near the "classic" status Running Fox appears to give it. Yes, 'The Thing' may have flopped in its first run back in the early 80s, but that film was rediscovered and got a following. The Ward? If only the 80s were back, maybe. But it's not. This won't get a following. Not in the ssame following as the first Halloween or the cult status of They Live.

Even In The Mouth Of Madness would have a bigger following.

I have yet to warm up to Amber Heard in anything she's been in to date; I seen Danielle Pawnabaker do better work in TV and film as well.

In response to DJS, I will admit that maybe I was a bit harsh on this film, due to it being a John Carpenter film...a long awaited John Carpenter film.

And to be clear, I have nothing against what Carpenter did here.  I really don't.

My issues and problems completely lay with the subject material, which I have to blame the script for, and its writers, the Rasmussen brothers.

IMO, the script, plot, concept, setup, premise, action, and story are all very, very poor and pedestrian.  There's absolutely nothing new or entertaining here, IMO.  I just literally cannot understand why any interest became of it in the first place.

The other big issue I had is the $10 Million budget. Hey, listen, I'm all for spending whatever amount is necessary to make the film be what it's meant to be...but this thing didn't need close to $10 Million, unless Carpenter ate up $5 Million or so.  The sets are all cheap cheap.  The cast is not expensive or big.  Other than the intro house fire scene, the FX was minimal and IMO, not impressive.  I love Nicoterro/Beger for FX and Makeup, but I was very unimpressed with their work here.  IMO, they were not needed.

So, my harshness comes from being completely unimpressed with what I watched...and had looked forward to for a long time.  This could easily have been directed by any no name for $1 Million or so and flown completely under the radar, as the story itself is just completely flatline.