John Carpenter’s first feature film since the disappointing GHOSTS OF MARS sees him in the obvious guise of director-for-hire, as he was for that movie and other lesser career steps like MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN… as opposed to the wild, inventive, cynical genius who put a clear individual stamp on earlier movies like THE THING and THEY LIVE. At certain points during THE WARD, a creeping tracking shot or an ominous bit of corridor-camera-prowling reminds us who’s calling the shots, while an evocative score (not by the director in this case) nicely homage’s some of Carpenter’s pulsing musical hallmarks.
The set up of THE WARD alludes to Sam Fuller’s SHOCK CORRIDOR (it takes place in Oregon in 1966, three years after that movie’s controversial release) and various other associated asylum-bound genre pics. Its lineage veers from SESSION 9 (with which it shares a protagonist with multiple personalities and a graphic frontal lobotomy) to the third ELM STREET movie (a group of psychiatric patients picked off one by one) and last year’s Fuller-indebted SHUTTER ISLAND.
There’s nothing radical or bold about the concept or the unfolding script itself : in truth, there was a lot more originality and taboo-trashing on display in Carpenter’s two MASTERS OF HORROR entries, the admired “Cigarette Burns” and loopy “Pro-Life”. Its old fashioned feel, however, turns out to be one of the movie’s modest qualities : there’s something appealing about its unflashy, workmanlike storytelling and pleasantly old-hat about the way it combines the now out-of-vogue vengeful Japanese ghost type plotting with a post-Shyamalan montage-assisted final twist. Unencumbered by torture, CG gore or smug humor, here’s a straight forward thriller punctuated by decent scares and well done splashes of unpleasantness.
Gorgeous Amber Heard, becoming something of a genre veteran, is found at the outset wandering in the woods in her nightie with no memory of where she has come from ; she is promptly admitted to a nearby institution, where she joins a small group of variously troubled young women. They are under the care of experimental, mildly sinister doc Jared Harris (underplaying to the point of sleepiness). Heard quickly starts to encounter what appears to be a ghost wandering the old-school asylum’s dark corridors, while the girls’ recollections of an earlier patient who died in sinister circumstances suggest something supernatural at work.
THE WARD is a slow-burning, borderline-bland horror flick that – gory throat slashing and sporadic gruesome deaths aside – feels more than a little like a 1970’s American TV-made horror picture. The performances are decent, though no one gets a standout showcase, and the restrictive backdrop does add a sense of sustained claustrophobia. The final twist is executed well though it still feels like a composite of various twists we’ve seen throughout the post-SIXTH SENSE decade. It’s still great to have Carpenter back, despite the movie’s weaknesses. It’s also interesting to note how the legendary filmmaker, working with an almost all-girl cast for the first time, is touchingly discreet for the film’s communal shower sequence.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
