The Ward

I felt it was very drawn out. Tiny little pieces were given along the way and it built to a huge, twist finish. The characters were believable and there left enough unclosed at the end to make your own decision, without any confusion - it ended without ending.

It is very riveting despite the drab surroundings, the acting does grip you, the baddies frustrate, the goodies you want to cuddle and there's one mysterious character. The doctor, it's impossible to determine which side he is on.

Very good film by a great man. Not a John Carpenter classic but worth a watch.

Nicely shot, if slightly claustrophobic, thriller set in the 60's, that was better than I expected.

After a young woman is found setting fire to an abandoned house she is taken to the local asylum. There she meets 5 other young women, all patients because of various mental 'illnesses'.

What follows is a ghost story which, at times, had me quite spooked.It seems that the girls have upset someone who is unwilling to forgive them. Various escape attempts, therapy sessions and red herrings follow. OK, it's no classic, but it had a genuinely interesting story that kept me hooked until the end.

Well worth a watch

John Carpenter has made some of my favourite films, however, his more recent efforts have been a little wide of the mark. So it was with much trepidation that I hit the play button for this one; the reports I'd read had not been encouraging. Sorry to say the reports were right to some extent, although I don't think it deserved some of the vitriolic bile aimed at it. I'll tell you what I mean by that after this brief summary.

When the young Kristen is sent to a psychiatric ward in 1966, she finds herself with a group of young women who all have different problems. On her first night someone steals her blanket and yet she is locked alone in her room. The others, Emily, Sarah, Zoey and Iris are all adamant that there is no way out, but Kristen wants to leave. Things come to a head when she is attacked in the shower; not by one of the other girls, but by a ghost! Investigating, she finds the name, Alice Hudson and, as her fellow inmates begin to disappear one by one she gets more desperate to escape! But there's a problem and her physician, Dr. Stringer, holds the key. I won't say any more or the Spoiler Police will be locking me up (again).

It's all quite well shot, but (to me) it has the feel of quite a low-budget picture. I felt some of the acting was quite forced, if not poor, in places (particularly at the beginning). Since nobody really stood out I will give honourable mentions to; Amber Heard as Kristen, Mamie Gummer as Emily, Danielle Panabaker as Sarah, Laura-Leigh as Zoey, Lyndsy Fonseca as Iris and Jared Harris as Dr. Stringer.

Some of the reviews I've read about this film have been really venomous in their criticism of it. To some extent I agree, John Carpenter is capable of making much better films than this. But on the other hand; what he has produced, if not entirely original, is still quite watchable (after a while) and there are some genuinely frightening moments in it. In conclusion I guess what I'm trying to say is yes, it's not all that good, but at the same time it's not all that bad either. There are some good ideas here but the execution didn't quite work this time… As far as recommendation goes, I'll leave that entirely up to you.

My score: 4.9/10.

IMDb Score: 5.6/10 (based on 10,186 votes at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 32/100 (based on 65 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 27/100 (based on 9,057 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).

Returning to the director's chair after a ten year absence, you might think that during all that time, director John Carpenter would have gone through a lot of proposed projects and picked the best one of all for a comeback. I have absolutely no idea why Carpenter picked "The Ward" for his comeback. It isn't a terrible movie - for a somewhat low budget movie, it looks fairly professional, and it isn't boring at any moment. But throughout the movie, I kept telling myself, "You've seen this all before." This includes the "surprise" twist towards the end the movie - most likely you'll have some idea of what will be revealed before it actually happens. And when you think about the twist after the movie has ended, you will realize that some other parts of the movie don't make much sense with the knowledge of this twist. The confusing twist, along with the unsurprising makeup of the rest of the movie probably explain why this movie didn't get a theatrical release in North America.

There has been a lot of "mental health" stuff in the cinema recently, and in almost all cases the storyline has played a trick on the audience in the manner of the brilliant "Sixth Sense". There is history in this too with the Three Faces of Eve standing out as the way to entertain, enlighten and educate film goers.

Although "The Ward" is reasonably well done it just isn't disturbing enough at the personality level to convince. Perhaps that is down to the acting but I would question a screenplay which is more about shocks than about insight. Yes there are signposts along the way just as there were in the Sixth Sense, but they are not as carefully constructed nor as lovingly lingered with as they could and should have been. It seemed to me director Carpenter wasn't too convinced of the robustness of the story told in a different, more true to life, way and instead took the route most likely to shock people with it's "twisted" end.

Most of all I felt this film lacked claustrophobia, the shackles and chains that surround mentally disturbed people both in their minds and in the places where they are secured.

There was a lot of wasted talent here and that is a great shame.