|
The Ward
| Released |
21 January 2011 |
| Director |
John Carpenter |
Starring
|
Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Lyndsy Fonseca, Jared Harris, Laura Leigh, Mika Boorem |
Writer(s)
|
Michael Rasmussen, Shawn Rasmussen |
Producer(s)
|
Peter Block, Doug Mankoff, Mike Marcus, Andrew Spaulding |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
88 minutes |
| Genre |
Horror |
| Rating |
15 |
|
|
Close it down.
John Carpenter was once regarded as one of the masters of the horror genre with classics like Halloween, The Fog and The Thing. It’s a long time since those films though and he’s made some stinkers in the meantime such as Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Escape from L.A. and Ghosts of Mars. The Ward has been hailed as a return to form by some, but those people must have been on crack, ‘cause this is dire stuff.
Amber Heard is the pretty young thing who had supporting roles in Pineapple Express and Zombieland. She bears a striking resemblance to Elizabeth Berkley, the actress who starred in the infamous Showgirls. You’d hope for Heard’s sake that her career doesn’t go the way of Berkley’s but if she does a few more films like this, it could well do.
Heard plays Kristen, who we first meet as she burns down a farmhouse in 1950’s America. She’s arrested and put into a special psychiatric ward with four other girls with distinct personality types. There’s the vain Sarah (Danielle Panabaker), the bookish Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca), the unpredictable Emily (Mamie Gummer) and the child-like Zoey (Laura-Leigh). Doctor Stringer (Jared Harris) is in charge of the ward, using experimental therapy to help cure the girls.
However Kristen can tell straight away that all is not right in the ward. There’s a ghostly apparition walking the halls at night. Apparently it’s the spirit of Alice, a former patient on the ward. Soon the girls are getting bumped off one by one and Kristen is desperate to get out of the place.
This is awful stuff, a complete waste of time from all involved. The scenes where the ‘ghost’ chases the girls are about as scary as a Scooby-Doo cartoon. You can see the ‘big twist’ in the plot coming from a mile off and it’s incredible what a blatant rip-off this is of a John Cusack movie from a few years back. The script is functional at best and there’s very little for the cast to work with. Heard is unconvincing as Kristen and the rest of the girls are no great shakes either. Meryl Streep’s daughter, Mamie Gummer, at least brings a bit of life to her character but it’s a losing battle.
Its biggest crime is its sheer dullness. At only eighty-eight minutes long, at least it’s short, but even at that length it still drags. This is just a pointless, lazy, derivative mess and it’s sad that a director like Carpenter has been reduced to this.
Perhaps it’s time for retirement?
-
Jim O’Connor |
