Film Reviews

The Ward

• Rating:
• Director: John Carpenter
• Starring: Amber Heard
• Details: US / 88mins (16).

There were vicious rumours that The Ward was John Carpenter's return to form. Ten years after the disappointing Ghosts Of Mars, no one needs a hit like this former God of horror. Rumour Control: Here are the facts: The Ward is sadly a continuation of the downward spiral that has blighted the great man's career.
The Ward opens in 1966 with the predictable and formulaic pre-credit scare. A woman cowers in her room in a psychiatric hospital. Footsteps approach the door. The woman knows what's coming and can't do anything about it – she trembles in the darkness and, before we can see what's what, she screams. Then the credits. Then there's Amber Heard running in her nightie through a forest to a secluded house, which she sets fire to. She's hauled off to a psychiatric hospital and placed in 'the ward', occupied by four other women, where rumours abound that there's a ghost of an ex-patient trying to kill them. Why doesn't the doctor (Harris) understand that their lives are in danger?
There are other questions that are more important. (1) 'Why isn't The Ward scary?' being one. (2) 'Why would a doctor place a sharp letter opener in easy reach of a dangerous patient?' being another. (3) 'If the girls live on a ward where you've a better chance of electroshock therapy than a shower, why do Heard and co. look like they've just being treated to a hair and make-up session at a model shoot?' Here's a stab at the answers: (1) Because it's formulaic and predictable. (2) Because the under-written plot demands she posses one later. (3) Stop asking questions.
The Ward is a tension-free horror thanks to Carpenter's rushed story telling. There's no time to get to know the characters, no time to care about them and no time to create a mood. The whole venture smacks of a filmmaker low on confidence. Usually there is some imagination in Carpenter's films and even though he leaves the scripting duties to the unknown Michael and Shawn Rasmussen to concentrate on directing alone, he still can't bring his former panache to the visuals. In fact, The Ward plays out like an unsure director making a debut instead of one who practically invented the schlock horror genre.
The Ward is short at 88 minutes but there's still time to imagine on-set conversations like these:
John Carpenter: We need a sturdy steel chair for Amber to jam up against this door.
Set design: All we have is this rickety wooden one that would collapse if a small dog sat on it.
John Carpenter: It'll do. Give it here.
Easy plotting like this shadow every moment of this poor excuse for a horror.

Review by Gavin Burke