Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I certainly don't intend to sound disrespectful towards Mr. Carpenter. After all, the man treated us with more than a dozen very good horror & cult movies during the 1970s and 1980s, of which a handful are even downright classic film monuments. But, like most directors from those glorious decades who are still active today, Carpenter isn't really at his place in the new Millennium. What he basically tried to achieve here with "The Ward" is a dark horror/thriller that thrives on sinister atmosphere and a mysteriously convoluted plot. Unfortunately, we now live in an era where those two qualities don't mean all that much anymore. Perhaps if the atmosphere would have been REALLY tense and disturbing, and the plot would have been REALLY original and unpredictable, then perhaps "The Ward" could still have been a modest genre favorite and a standout between the crowd, but everything about this film is frightfully average. Rising star (at least in 2010 she was) Amber Heard plays young Kirsten who gets submitted to a psychiatric clinic in Oregon in 1966, after she was found in a confused mental state near a farmhouse that she burned to the ground. She's placed under the care of the suspicious Doctor Gerald Stringer and resides in the all-girls ward together with four other patients. The headstrong Kirsten discovers that the ward is haunted by an evil supernatural entity; - the ghost of a former patient seeking revenge against those who wronged her. Why is this spirit also tormenting her? Why does Dr. Stringer act so secretive about Kirsten's mental condition? Why aren't there any investigations when the other girls go missing? Personally, I love horror flicks set in eerie mental institutions or vintage asylums, but frankly there are just two possibilities for the plot to unfold. Either the doctors and staff secretly abuse the patients and experiment with unorthodox & cruel treatments, or the entire film takes place in the imaginary world of the protagonist patient. I must state that, thanks to Carpenter's subtle and professionally suggestive direction, you cannot immediately guess the climax, but nevertheless the whole story feels derivative and formulaic from the beginning already. There are several reasons why I wished that "The Ward" was an 80s film rather than a 2010 release. For starters, because then the plot would have been much more innovative and leave a bigger impact, whereas now it's too similar to titles that were only released recently before "The Ward", like "Identity" or "Shutter Island". Another reason is because John Carpenter still swears by old-fashioned atmospheric tension building, for example though slow pacing, creepy music and off-screen killings. I am "old-school", so I can still enjoy this approach, but the newer horror generations grew up with straightforward and explicitly violent films like "Saw" and "Hostel", so they can't appreciate atmosphere anymore. Heck, even us dinosaurs are getting so used to extreme and plotless horror that we also look at these films differently and less patiently than we did 15 years ago.

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.

A woman, Kristen (played by Amber Heard) is institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital after burning down a farm house. The head of the hospital, Dr Stringer, is using an experimental therapy on patients. Soon after arriving Kristen and other inmates are are terrorised by a ghost, Alice.Started well enough, and the intrigue was maintained reasonably well. That that the plot was that original though, but it wasn't entirely predictable. After a point however it just degenerated into standard scare-a-minute and twists-for-the-sake-of-twists horror fare. Ending redeemed it to a slight degree though.Performances were OK. I never mind seeing Amber Heard...

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.