Review of The Ward (2010) by Russell G — 05 Nov 2013

People are just too mean to this latest John Carpenter film. The man hadn't made a film in ten years, and he has had a long and illustrious career. Not only that, but he directs widely acknowledged camp and horror films.

This film, though certainly flawed, overindulgent, and mindless at times, is nothing worse than he had previously put out. There are a lot of great elements at work in this film, but it also has a bland follow-through and a hollow ending.

There seem to be a lot of great things about the film, but nothing that brings it together to make it anything close to memorable. Carpenter cast indie darling Amber Heard, who is reaching acclaim in roles that usually have her driving fast cars, giving guff, and wearing breast baring clothing.

This film is no different, as her first scene has her barefoot, wearing a slip, and covered in dirt. She is exploited, as are others, as the entire film revolves a group of girls. Kristen (Heard) is admitted to a psychiatric ward where she meets several other girls, each of whom are as bland and tasteless as the next.

That's the one horrendous oversight in this film: none of the characters could be real people. Female characters are not well written in most films, I understand that, but here they made up the entire film which is too much to bear.

They throw in a really cutesy little girl persona onto a young woman as well, and it's the most despicable thing I've ever seen. Still, having the setting be a 1966 psychiatric ward, having period clothing and sets, and having a ghost who is psychologically disturbed terrorizing and murdering patients? That sounds amazing.

Even the ending was at least a bit inspired and somewhat original. The execution was just all wrong. Carpenter has done some amazing things with goofy premises before, but here he doesn't reign in the temptation to be crass and shallow.

It's just not big enough or smart enough to understand its own premise, and that's a true shame, because this could have been as eerie and intelligent as "The Haunting" if it was given a chance.