Ward 13
Ward 13
| 01 January 2003 (USA)
Ward 13 Trailers

After a car accident, Ben wakes up in hospital. Not knowing where he is or what is going on, he starts exploring the corridors...only to find that the staff don't have his health in mind! The hapless patient must pull himself together and do everything he can to escape. It's an action/horror/comedy — ending with the wheelchair chase from hell!

Reviews
Fairaher

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

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Abbigail Bush

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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Philippa

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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Fleur

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

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Polaris_DiB

A man falls onto a road, and next thing we know he's in the hospital with bandages over his head... only the hospital is more like a mixture of hell and Lovecraftian horror imagery.This short is featured on the Animation Show 2005, and it is the strongest animation of them all. It is an absolutely stunning display of almost seamless stop-motion animation that is at times hilarious and disturbing. What is of particular interest to the craft of the feature is the way the expressions of the patient are done only with slight changes to his eyes, while expressions of other things range from full-faced to slightly hidden. The animator, Peter Cornwall, seems to have real control over his animation and storytelling.This film speaks towards the fear of being hospitalized... there you are, in a weakened state, with strangers and strange things around, with fear of surgery, drugs, and blood, and sometimes you don't know if you'll ever get to leave. It illustrates this issue with a man who runs, hides, fights, and blows his way through obstacle after obstacle to check himself out, and all the situations and things he comes across... a wheelchair chase, a Lovecraftian monster, sadistic surgeons, pills of head-explody... everything that says fun! A very entertaining time that will leave your mouth agape at the end, struggling to decide what exactly to feel about it... see it if you can.--PolarisDiB

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tributarystu

This really geeky animated short simply manages to crawl in a most unpleasant way under your skin. After an accident, a rather sinister looking patient wakes up in a rather sinister looking hospital with a load of weird and creepy nurses/doctors. So, once he discovers the cable to the big red "I need you nurse" button has been cut, our friend and patient starts wandering the long and confusing corridors of the hospital. On his way to freedom he faces not only the terrible doctors, but also the monstrosities resulting from some seemingly inhumane experiments. And let me tell you, the road to freedom has never seemed so long.All the characters look really spooky and the "things" our patient encounters - both objects as well as...beings - were humor-fully thought of and brilliantly implemented. It's a "parodical" and yet scary short, which keeps clinging onto you like some slimy liquid you wish not to have stepped in. Totally awesome!

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wickham316

This film excels in so many areas.It has won awards or jury mentions for almost every facet of movie making including the script writing, film editing, "for amazing timing and extreme imagination in animation,""action sequences (which) are in no way inferior to those of live action thrillers", fast paced editing, and numerous audience awards. Audiences connect really well with WARD 13, and a full theatre, in hysterics during the screening, was quite an experience. I have seen this film several times, and it continues to amaze, with the fine attention to detail, and the hilarious wheel chair chase at the finish, said to "out-Ben Hur, Ben Hur". The only surprise was that it was not nominated for an Oscar.

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Greg75

The qualities of this little animated gem obviously remind me of Aardvark Studio's work : the same efficient use of plasticine for round-shaped and exquisitely expressive characters, the sense of humour and irony within a specific genre, and the constant cinematographic references. Here, it is the horror film that is spoofed, with an inclination toward the "hospital horror" sub-genre. But it is never done to the detriment of the rhythm or of a strong story line : the humour within the fear is always sharp and witty, and the director even winks at Nick Park's specific work with a chase in the hospital hallways that is clearly an hommage to the chase between Gromit and the penguin in The Wrong Trousers. With such impressive skills, I don't really worry about Peter Cornwell's future : it looks bright.

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