The Ward (2011)

Powerful

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

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

Horror fans are familiar with Carpenter's split personality: the great film-maker and the lousy/lazy film-maker. So who better to do a movie about schizophrenia? The snag is that the lousy Carpenter was in charge when this was made. Perhaps electro-shocks might have helped? Great film-makers can use huge plot-twists without lying to the viewer, whereas lousy film-makers can't.Meryl Streep's daughter is pretty much the least appealing, worst actress I've seen in ages. When Carpenter screws up, he screws up real proper, and casting his movies with nepotists and bland wallpaper is an integral part of the inept Carpenter. The film looks plastic and uninspired, with a dumb plot-twist reminiscent of "Identity". All the insane-asylum cliches are covered too. Carpenter doesn't even have the decency to show us any of the women's breasts in the shower scene, that's how far gone he is in his laziness and cluelessness. (I don't include Meryl's demonic offspring, she can stay covered as far as I'm concerned.)

Carpenter's early films were not even half as scary as this film, as someone who was growing up with his films since the early 80's, to me The Ward is a triumph, even a few seconds of the score or just few images of the film can scare me to death, Carpenter hit something deep within the psyche of the collective consciousness., a truly powerful film setting the stage and an imprint for artistic expressions about the discovery of identity and its redemptive freedom within the theme of mental illness and fluidity of reality. The same like Halloween, there was Black Christmas and Texas Chainsaw Massacre before too, just like there were a few others before The Ward too within the span of 10 years, but all of them together are part of a new wave. Nothing comes along alone, or standing apart, everything always comes in groups, everything, all inventions, all new things are reflected by others wihout being aware of one another, because everything is connected in this universe. The Ward is a reminder of our inter-connectedness at a microscopic level, there's many lives and personalities inside of us, reflecting us, in our private universe as well as this wider universe.

Carpenter is a master of cinema and I will not dwell ... On this movie you'll see a case of dissociative disorder with multiple personalities who is experienced in first person accompanying the protagonist in the progressive discovery of the truth of himself. What makes the film interesting and well done is precisely the process in which every veil lifted approaching albeit with some anxiety to the solution; while the film looks like a survival horror, as it is not absolutely a horror but a psychological thriller with some horror scenes but nothing particularly scary in my opinion. Instead prevails the atmosphere, the tension that permeates little or much every second of the film, and you know that here Carpenter is a master. In short, the film will be all the more appreciated as you seize the psychological subtleties of the plot. I liked it a lot.

I was never scared in this film. This was due to it's lacking in basic horror techniques which have proved to be effective through past films. John Carpenter's own Halloween (1978) definitely carried far more tension than this film ever could, instead of being over reliant on a huge quantity of mindless jump scares. The film follows a violent young woman into a mental hospital where she is haunted by a ghost. Although it is better than it sounds, it isn't a remarkably intriguing story by any means. Eventually my intrigue was struck however nearing the end of the film, where is soon attempts to fall back on a twist ending which. Although not entirely predictable, it does feel unoriginal and unsurprising. The ending did however give slight gratification to the time I have given this film, although (despite it's already short run time) fails to restrict an unfortunate amount of filler. This is not to say no one will like, enjoy, or be frightened by this film. Surly however anyone who finds this film scary is far from familiar with the horror genre as a whole, as they may learn some day that this isn't as horrifying as they thought.