Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

John Carpenter's The Ward (2010)

Time Out rating

Average user rating

3 reviews

Synopsis

A long-awaited return to the big screen for director John Carpenter, who heads back to the creepy hospital setting of 'Halloween 2' for a straightforward stalk-and-slash thriller.

Movie review

From Time Out London

The title is marketing 101: how to sell a schlocky, throwback genre picture on the back of the past glories of a director who once dealt solely in amped-up, literate and ballsy entertainment such as ‘The Thing’, ‘They Live’ and ‘Halloween’? This latest effort – arriving nine years after his previous lame duck, ‘The Ghosts of Mars’ – has a superbly designed opening title sequence, with sinister images refracted in cracked glass. But it’s swiftly downhill from there, as we’re given a panache-free, ’60s-set thriller involving a gang of teenage girls locked up in a psych ward for reasons unknown. Feisty Kristen (Amber Heard) is the newest inmate and makes the strongest effort to discover why a creepy quack (Jared Harris) is keeping them there. There are a few scares, but beside the fact that it’s all totally illogical and the girls seem able to escape from their high-security block at will, the film doesn’t have anything important or timely to say about youth, medicine, post-traumatic stress or anything. Just don’t call it a comeback. No seriously, don’t.

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 2109: 20 – 26 January, 2011

Email Tweet Share

User reviews of this film

Tony Emery said...

Posted on May 08 2011 20:23 No release bar a WEEK in the UK. DVD has been delayed and no trailers or TV spots! What is wrong with Warner Bros not pushing this movie. It's John Carpenter for Christ Sake! You know - the guy that made Halloween and The Thing???!!! I did manage to see it in January and thought it was amongst his best work. Reminded me somuch of Prince of Darkness, Halloween and In the Mouth of Madness. Great score by Mark Killian and it was short, snappy and slick. Welcome back John - it's been way too long....

Report as inappropriate
Malcolm said...

Posted on Jan 22 2011 20:10 'In the Mouth of Madness' was arguably Carpenter's greatest, and certainly last, great movie.

Report as inappropriate
Jimmy Dodger said...

Posted on Jan 22 2011 18:51 Do Carpenter films STILL, contracturally, have to be released as 'John Carpenter's Whatever...'? It took me a good five minutes to find the title on Cinewrold's website (not showing anywhere near me, no great surprise). Does the name even mean anything to today's googleplex crowd?
And for the distributors to release the film without a single ad or TV spot (that I've seen) suggests that they are more concerned with cutting their losses (and a quick DVD release than anything else.

Report as inappropriate