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Amber Heard in The Ward

Photo: Arc Entertainment Note: This review was first published on September 14, 2010 after I saw this film at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. It's being reprinted as it hits limited theaters this weekend.

It seems while Rob Zombie was busy with his horrible remake of John Carpenter's Halloween and Universal is now busy making a prequel to his 1981 classic The Thing, Carpenter has been at home figuring out how he too can get in on the generic horror genre. Taking that into consideration, he's succeeded wildly with The Ward, a subpar psych ward thriller that mines the most cliche of horror film plotlines with laughable performances by the entire cast of twenty-something actresses.

The Ward takes place in North Bend, Oregon in 1966 and centers on Kristen (played to an amateurish thud by Amber Heard) who's just been picked up for torching a local barn. Admitted...

2011 - 93 mins. - Rated R

D: John Carpenter

C: Amber Heard, Lyndsy Fonseca, Danielle Panabaker, Mamie Gummer, Jared Harris, Mika Boorem, Sean Cook, Laura-Leigh, Sydney Sweeney, Jillian Kramer, Milos Milicevic, Sali Sayler, D.R. Anderson, Susanna Burney  

Young woman placed in a mental ward must contend with having to deal with a vengeful ghost that is murdering off the other patients.  

Disappointing return to the horror genre for director John Carpenter. The Ward is bland and uninspired. It plays out like a modest budgeted variation on Shutter Island, but without the suspense, visual sophistication or top notch cast that helped in part to make Shutter Island a memorable film experience. The Ward spins a story that involves elements of mystery, but the answers to that mystery are all too obvious The final twist, the big reveal at the end isn't even all that surprising. So what other reasons are there to watch The Ward?...

I don't know what to do about The Ward. When I first heard about it, I was cautiously excited -- after all, it is a new John Carpenter movie, and anyone who knows me knows that Carpenter may well be my favorite genre film maker of all time. Of course, that was before he started slipping into mediocrity. Somewhere around the early 90's, either he stopped trying, or he failed to evolve his techniques, or he simply ran out of ideas. But Carpenter has been struggling to find his place in this modern cinematic landscape. He tried science fiction (Ghosts of Mars), and failed. He tried horror (In The Mouth Of Madness, Village Of The Damned, Vampires), and achieved middling results. He tried going back to his roots (Escape From L.A.), and assembled an utter, miserable disaster. He's had only two honestly successful efforts -- Cigarette Burns and Pro-Life, his...

June 8 is almost here and thus you'll finally be able to see John Carpenter's The Ward on various VOD platforms. I'm absolutely dying to know what you think. With a limited theatrical run slated for July 8, XLrator Media has released the film's official U.S. trailer. What do you think? "The story follows a girl (Heard) who is admitted to a psychiatric ward, meets other girls there with distinct personalities and discovers a mysterious girl haunting the halls at night." Heard, Danielle Panabaker, Mamie Gummer, Jared Harris, Mika Boorem, Lyndsy Fonseca, Laura-Leigh, Sydney Sweeney, Dan Anderson, Susanna Burney and Sali Sayle all star. You can read our review from last September's Tiff where the film had its world premiere.

John Carpenter's The Ward will finally be available on VOD come June 8, with a limited theatrical run slated for July 8. Moviefone has been granted exclusive rights to debut the official one sheet that depicts Amber Heard it quite a pickle. There are a handful of ghouls clawing at her... "The story follows a girl (Heard) who is admitted to a psychiatric ward, meets other girls there with distinct personalities and discovers a mysterious girl haunting the halls at night." Heard, Danielle Panabaker, Mamie Gummer, Jared Harris, Mika Boorem, Lyndsy Fonseca, Laura-Leigh, Sydney Sweeney, Dan Anderson, Susanna Burney and Sali Sayle all star. You can read our review from last September's Tiff where the film had its world premiere.

Either something is wrong, or the people behind XLrator Media are doing a horrid job of promoting their big acquisition, John Carpenter's The Ward, which is listed as being released on April 15. While we attempt to firm up this date, inside you'll find a trio of clips (unfortunately in Italian), ones of which features Amber Heard showering. My only thoughts were, "Turn around, Turn Around!" The story follows a girl (Heard) who is admitted to a psychiatric ward, meets other girls there with distinct personalities and discovers a mysterious girl haunting the halls at night. Danielle Panabaker, Mamie Gummer, Jared Harris, Mika Boorem, Lyndsy Fonseca, Laura-Leigh, Sydney Sweeney, Dan Anderson, Susanna Burney, Sali Sayle also star.

Crazy hot girl is hot, I guess. Is there something perceived to be sexy about mental illness? Cuz there would appear to be no purpose to John Carpenter’s The Ward unless it’s intended to get lonely horny guys off on the idea of the tediously banal Amber Heard -- who is apparently Officially Hot -- locked in a depressing mental institution and subject to electroshock therapy rocking her bod. The year is 1966, and someone is killing the coeds in the crazy ward! It’s probably not Nurse Ratched (Susanna Burney), and probably not Dr. Jared Harris, who’s the same sort of indefinably creepy guy he is on Mad Men as resident English dude Lane Pryce, and may be putting poor Heard (Zombieland) through some sort of experimental treatment. So who’s left to be stalking the suspiciously gorgeous girls of the suspiciously incoherent hospital? If you don...

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Easy though it is to laud John Carpenter’s endlessly entertaining early works – from robustly mounted fare such as Assault on Precinct 13 and The Thing, to sillier but no less enjoyable flicks such as Big Trouble in Little China – the auteur’s output as of late has been, to be kind, pretty naff. And by saying “as of late”, we mean for the last two decades, for his last work to truly resonate was his deliciously subversive, Rowdy Roddy Piper-starring They Live. That was 1988. Efforts in the interim have ranged from the sporadically enjoyable guilty pleasures of Vampires and Escape from L.A., to the resolute horror – and not in the way Carpenter intended – of Ghosts of Mars, his last feature film.

The Ward, a seemingly legitimate horror vehicle by premise and cast alone with which Carpenter could rebuild his throwback style, is less a...

Apparently, insane asylums have become veritable sorority houses for mentally unstable hot girls.

In case you missed the memo -- or the awesome trailer for Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch" (in theaters March 25) -- the U.K. trailer for horror maestro John Carpenter's "The Ward" is here to drive that point home. And how does it hammer that into our brains and retinas? With prolonged shots of sexy young mental-ward patients like Amber Heard, Lyndsy Fonseca and Danielle Panabaker scrubbing themselves clean in a communal shower, naturally. Hit the jump to watch!

Of course, there's more (or at least a little more) to the film than that. Heard plays Kristen, a young woman who's locked up in a creepy mental institution after supposedly torching a house. There she meets a gaggle of also-hot ward patients played by Fonseca, Panabaker, Mamie Gummer and Laura Leigh, as well as one formerly...

Amber Heard in The Ward

Photo: Echo Lake Productions/A Bigger Boat It seems while Rob Zombie was busy with his horrible remake of John Carpenter's Halloween and Universal is now busy making a prequel to his 1981 classic The Thing, he's been at home figuring out how he too can get in on the generic horror genre. Taking that into consideration he's succeeded wildly with The Ward, a subpar psych ward thriller that mines the most cliche of horror film plotlines with laughable performances by the entire cast of twenty-something actresses.

The Ward takes place in North Bend, Oregon in 1966 and centers on Kristen (played to an amateurish thud by Amber Heard) who's just been picked up for torching a local barn. Admitted to North Bend Psychiatric she begins her treatment under the care of Dr. Stringer played by Jared Harris whom you may remember as the tattooed tug...

Yet another big film playing at the Toronto International Film Festival's "Midnight Madness" is John Carpenter's hotly anticipated The Ward, his big return to horror that stars both Amber Heard (Zombieland, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, The Stepfather) and Danielle Panabaker (Friday The 13th, The Crazies). Inside you'll find the first two official images featuring Heard as a girl who is admitted to a psychiatric ward, meets other girls there with distinct personalities and discovers a mysterious girl haunting the halls at night. Mamie Gummer, Jared Harris, Mika Boorem, Lyndsy Fonseca, Laura-Leigh, Sydney Sweeney, Dan Anderson, Susanna Burney, Sali Sayle also star.

Yet another big film playing at the Toronto International Film Festival's "Midnight Madness" is John Carpenter's hotly anticipated The Ward, his big return to horror that stars both Amber Heard (Zombieland, All the Boys Love Many Lane) and Danielle Panabaker (Friday the 13th, The crazies). Inside you'll find the first two official images featuring Heard as a girl who is admitted to a psychiatric ward, meets other girls there with distinct personalities and discovers a mysterious girl haunting the halls at night. Mamie Gummer, Jared Harris, Mika Boorem, Lyndsy Fonseca, Laura-Leigh, Sydney Sweeney, Dan Anderson, Susanna Burney, Sali Sayle also star.

Get your butts on over to Canal Plsu to check out the first footage from John Carpenter's latest horror venture, The Ward, which features the kickass cast of Amber Heard, Danielle Panabaker, Mamie Gummer, Jared Harris, Mika Boorem, Lyndsy Fonseca, Laura-Leigh, Sydney Sweeney, Dan Anderson, Susanna Burney and Sali Sayle. While the footage is in French, it's still nice to get an early look at a highly anticipated film. The story follows a girl (Heard) who is admitted to a psychiatric ward, meets other girls there with distinct personalities and discovers a mysterious girl haunting the halls at night.

Jared Harris (From Within, Resident Evil: Apocalypse), Mika Boorem, Lyndsy Fonseca (Kick-Ass), Laura-Leigh, Sydney Sweeney, Dan Anderson, Susanna Burney, Sali Sayle will all be joining the previously announced Amber Heard, Danielle Panabaker and Mamie Gummer in John Carpenter's The Ward, reports the IMDb. The story follows a girl (Heard) who is admitted to a psychiatric ward, meets other girls there with distinct personalities and discovers a mysterious girl haunting the halls at night. Heard can be seen in this October, Panabaker toplined New Line's Friday the 13th remake. John Carpenter kicked open the slasher franchise with his indie film Halloween back in 1978.