thomas4cinema

Hah, John Carpenter still makes movies? And movies that stick to the idea that as long as you put a pulsing soundtrack on top of everything, they will end up being creepy? Don’t get me wrong, the Carpenter films I love I do love more than many films from most other directors, but maybe Carpenter is a creature of the 80s, and should never have left them. With the almost-all-girl setting in the mental hospital, the general motif is such a common and overused one (think the terrible Sucker Punch, the mediocre Section what’s the number, or the ok Shutter Island) that it would be very hard to make something out of it under the best of circumstances. The circumstances here are less than ideal: it seems apart from the setting, Carpenter has very few ideas on what to do with his characters. The plot is so generic that trying to think of the resolution is terribly hard… was it a real ghost that was haunting the girls, or was it some locked-up and forgotten prisoner? There is plenty of lobotomy, in any case, and performed in a nice and gory fashion, but without dramatic consequences really. A bit of a sad story for Mr Carpenter, I am afraid there is little hope left that he will return to the form he once had. Sad as it is, the 80s are over… Oh, I just remember the final plot twist, and I have to say, it is more copy of than reference to one of the other films mentioned above.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_ward/