Stevieboy666
Set in 1966 Amber Heard plays Kristen who sets fire to a farm house and consequently finds herself in a psychiatric hospital, which appears to have only a handful of young, attractive female patients. She soon becomes convinced of an evil presence in the shape of a female ghost. Hardly original, there are countless movies about haunted mental asylums, and to be honest most of them are rubbish. But with horror maestro John Carpenter at the helm surely this was going to be good. It's well acted, has good production values, a few cheap jump scares, a couple of gore scenes, a reasonable twist ending and a good closing credits musical score.
Sadly the film is just not scary, or even memorable. Apart from the fact that it is a John Carpenter movie that's a million miles from his classics.
kitarstar
Carpenter is a master of cinema and I will not dwell ... On this movie you'll see a case of dissociative disorder with multiple personalities who is experienced in first person accompanying the protagonist in the progressive discovery of the truth of himself. What makes the film interesting and well done is precisely the process in which every veil lifted approaching albeit with some anxiety to the solution; while the film looks like a survival horror, as it is not absolutely a horror but a psychological thriller with some horror scenes but nothing particularly scary in my opinion. Instead prevails the atmosphere, the tension that permeates little or much every second of the film, and you know that here Carpenter is a master. In short, the film will be all the more appreciated as you seize the psychological subtleties of the plot. I liked it a lot.
Gregory Mucci
There are two things director John Carpenter has for certain, and that is an undeniable talent for genuine horror, and the diverse creativity of contributing to almost every facet of the filmmaking process. Whether it's composing the score (Halloween), producing (Halloween II), acting (Village of the Damned) or writing (Assault on Precinct 13), John Carpenter has a knack for putting every little bit of himself into his work, which is a true sign of passion and dedication. However, with The Ward, Carpenter's potential "return" to both the genre and form that he helped mold, we are offered up very little of both. Coming off as a poorly crafted extension of The Masters of Horror series rather than a new start, The Ward gives us nothing above the bare minimum of a stale plot and jump scares, disappointing fans of Carpenter and horror alike.Beginning with the death of one of North Bend Psychiatric Wards patients, The Ward quickly introduces us to Kristin (Amber Heard), a bruised and cut woman on the run who is picked up by the police for burning down a seemingly random barn. Brought to North Bend and placed under the supervision of Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris), Kristin is soon introduced to what fellow patients Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca), Sarah (Danielle Panabaker), Emily (Mamie Gummer), and Zoey (Laura Leigh) are terrified of when the lights go out. As the patients begin disappearing one by one, Kristin must work fast if she wants to make it out alive and uncover both her past and the secret that resides within the walls of North Bend.Playing a deviant, determined, yet puzzled woman, Amber Heard gives a moderate performance, though scream queen she isn't. When the scene commands it, Heard often appears too timid to embrace the horror, or perhaps the horror is too timid to embrace the characters. Either way, as the horror unfolds, we are treated to a sense of restraint, as if everyone is awaiting the cue that never seems to come. Surrounding the patients of North Bend are characters that seem to have filtered in from other, much better pictures such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Shutter Island, and most recently Sucker Punch (and that's saying a lot). Seeing these characters walk in shoes that have been previously filled, it is clear that Carpenter himself took little part in the writing process, causing both story and horror to suffer greatly.With writers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, whose only other contribution prior to this is a straight to DVD horror thriller entitled Long Distance, it's really no shock that the script leaves almost zero psychological horror for the viewer, even when taking place in an insane asylum. Instead, the Rasmussen brothers toss cheap and predictable jump scares our way, all the while taking plot elements directly from Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. Now I'm certainly not one to criticize a film for being unoriginal, but when the similarities are this glaring, it's difficult to bite one's tongue. From the random flashbacks to the twist ending, everything that gave The Ward its apparent uniqueness can be attributed back to another film, one that displays a greater sense of suspense, and ultimately terror.While one can certainly attribute John Carpenter's latest to the sheer fact that his absence in developing The Ward is significantly missed, I would have to disagree. Though this is a director that has produced some of the most significant films of their genres (Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Thing), Carpenter has contributed little in the way of quality since 1993's In the Mouth of Madness. Perhaps returning to form is no longer an option for the veteran filmmaker, or perhaps his greatness is only exposed when he has control over all sides of the filming process. What I do know is that The Ward contributes nothing to the filmography of John Carpenter, due in large part to lazy writing and predictable horror devices, only moderately improving upon his entries in the Master of Horror series.
