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[The Ward]
Plot:Set in a mental institution where a young woman, Kristen (Heard) is haunted by a mysterious and deadly ghost. As danger creeps closer, she comes to realize that this ghost might be darker than she could have imagined.
Cast:
Amber Heard,
Danielle Panabaker,
Jared Harris,
Mika Boorem,
Lyndsy Fonseca,
Laura-Leigh,
Sydney Sweeney,
Dan Anderson,
Susanna Burney,
Sali Sayle.
My Thoughts:Foiled by it's own folly.
Review:"The Ward" is the first genre offering from legendary filmmaker John Carpenter in a long time. The movie follows a young woman named Kristen, who after committing arson, is whisked away to mental institution. While in The Ward, she meets a collection of young girls who all have their own different issues. But they aren't alone in The Ward, a deadly, vengeful spirit is also living amongst them.
"The Ward" tries it's best at setting up scares for future reference. It doesn't scare you right off the bat. It kind of toys with you a bit, throwing in the usual spat of lightning/thunder storms, lights going out, and ghost pop-in's and out's-scenes. The movie at a point should begin to become tedious, but it staves that off for a short while. But...not forever. While the film offers up a golden opportunity to be psychologically creepy and spooky, ala the 1999 remake of "House On Haunted Hill"...it drops the ball because of how predictable it is.
For example, why is it that every horror movie set inside a mental ward full of girls, has to have cat-fight dialogue, or some sort of ridiculous ramblings from a few characters that passes for dialogue? Why can't there for once be a twist that you don't see coming? Why do the characters in films like this always have to be one-dimensional? The chicks in "Ginger Snaps 2" were far more entertaining a group of "chicks with issues", than this bunch.
Danielle Panabaker, who is a fast-rising scream queen in the genre, gives the best performance of all the kooky girls. Heard, the lead however...well...you just fail to really care about her character at all. She seems to try and garner pity at times. And at others, she seems to not really care if the viewer despises her at that moment or not. The character is ver sporadic, and her character also waits way too long to try and make a break for it. Or find out why a pissed off ghost is killing the ward's patients.
I cannot tell you how many times Heard's character asks the other girls for hints on how to convince the head doctor (Harris), to allow her out of The Ward. It's like, you were carried off to a mental hospital due to an arson you may or may not have committed. How about showing some courage and trying to break out on your own? Unfortunately, by the time she actually gets this idea in her head, Heard's character Kristen is losing her Ward friends fast and furious, as the ghost closes in on her.
So when one of the girls drops soem knowledge on Kristen about an ex-patient who was tricked into a scenario where she was smothered to death...Kristen decides to stick around and play savior. I was hoping the films third act, with this kind of set up would really kick the movie into high gear, but unfortunately that did not happen. Other than the musical score of act three, there really wasn't much to it. And when the film reaches the end...and reveals it's proverbial twist...you just hang your head at how it takes the easy way out.
If you're a fan of horror movies and have seen plenty of them, you'll recognize this ending from atleast 10 other psychological-thriller-horror films. I sure as hell did. And I also think I recognized it from the ending of a few old tv shows as well. "The Ward" isn't an epic fail, but comes pretty close. It's a shame too because the movie had a chance at breaking some new ground with how the story was set up. Instead...it decides to embrace everything we hate about the A-typical mainstream horror movie. Reaching into the bag of cliches and "been-there-done-that's" at the end pretty much puts a nail in the movies coffin also.
It's not a bloody and super violent movie. But it does have graphic violence and blood in those need-be scenes. But that's not really the point. I didn't expect a gorefest here. What I expected was a quasi-return of John Carpenter. Instead, I got a movie which was shot well and scored well. But seemed to have been written by the average indie screenwriter who just wants to pile his movies cast with up-and-coming scream queens.
All the while robbing the audience of their time with a crappy ending. Had atleast a small amount more creativity been put into the finale, I might've actually called this movie a break even. Instead...because the finale is so lazily done, I weap for the filmmakers.
Positives:Good score, great directing. Some cool death scenes too.
Negatives:Not enough drama, or character development, or strong, solid scares. The ending is a mess, and extremely cliche to boot.
Overall:One and a half stars out of four.
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