« MONTE CARLO | Main | BLADE RUNNER — CLASSIC FILM PICK »

July 03, 2011

THE WARD

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon

 

 

Colesmithey.comJohn Carpenter, the man responsible for reinventing the horror genre in 1978 with "Halloween," retains his trademark ability to wrench suspense.

Unfortunately, his dated sense of character and narrative development has diminished considerably over the years. Screenwriters Shawn and Michael Rasmussen are of little use in this department. So it goes that Carpenter's first film since "Ghosts of Mars" in 2001 comes off as a naively pleasant but rambling exploration in old-school horror. You'd have to be a pretty inexperienced audience member to catch a chill up your spine.

Movie Review - 'The Ward' And Its Director, Haunted By The Past : NPR

Amber Heard holds her own as Kristen, a koo-koo-in-the-cabeza abduction victim consigned to North Bend Psychiatric Hospital, a '60s-era mental institution, after she burns down the farmhouse where she was once victimized.

The Ward (R) - The Movie Buff

Under the supervision of electroshock-therapy proponent Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris), Amber takes her place among four fellow female crazies of classic horror character archetypes. A gray-skinned ghost-girl lurks the ward at night intent on killing the lunatic inmates one by one. The sane-seeming Kristen figures out that she must escape the hospital at any cost if she is to survive. A cruel nurse and a not-so-cruel orderly don't present as much menace as the filmmakers imagine. We never experience a sufficient level of dread or danger. Auditory sound queues signal knee-jerk shocks that never go beyond the ears.

A Mighty Fine Blog: Film Review: John Carpenter's The Ward (2010)

Cinematographer Yaron Orbach's widescreen camera work invigorates the limp storyline. Nevertheless, bland production and lighting design elements give the film the look of a cheap soap opera. "The Ward" is a mediocre horror movie that needed a couple of major rewrites to be ready for modern audiences. Not even John Carpenter can shine this turd.

John Carpenter's The Ward' - Review - The New York Times

Rated R. 88 mins.

2 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been saved. Comments are moderated and will not appear until approved by the author. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them.

Featured Video

SMART NEW MEDIA® Custom Videos

COLE SMITHEY’S MOVIE WEEK

COLE SMITHEY’S CLASSIC CINEMA

Throwback Thursday


Podcast Series