Ya'll Gonna Make Me Lose My Mind. Up in Here. In The Ward

MAX:  Hey! Haven't seen you in a while, Mike.

MIKE:  I was going to say the same thing to you!

MAX:  Where did you get that hospital gown, dude?  You need to tie that part up in the back.

MIKE:  Where did you get yours? You do realize that your gown is on backwards, right?

MAX:  Oh....right.  Thanks for pointing that out.  I've been rather forgetful since I underwent that radical treatment procedure.  Basically what they do is, they lock you in a padded room and make you watch this John Carpenter movie called The Ward on repeat for a week straight.

MIKE:  Really?  That sounds awful.

MAX:  Yeah it was.  So what's your story?

MIKE:  I was getting some.

MAX:  At a mental hospital?

MIKE:  I like crazy bitches.

MAX:  And....scene.

MAX:  The Ward (2010) is a new thriller from the original master of horror, John Carpenter.  Set in a mental hospital during the 1950's, a girl named, Kristen (Amber Heard), with a mysterious and troubling past, is desperate to escape from the women's ward, in fear that there may be a (dead) former patient, who is disposing of the other in-patient ladies, one at a time.  The more Kristen investigates this matter, the more she thinks that all the people around her may be hiding something.

MIKE:  The film’s opening shows promise; the old artist renderings of how the mentally unstable have been treated over the last few hundred years, shattering in slow moving shards across the screen, had an unnerving effect.  Though, arguably, I think the effect would have been more disturbing if the images remained intact and the credits just faded in and out, superimposed on the images.  Then we're watching this girl in a white gown run through the woods, and we see a local sheriff patrol on the hunt for her.  Kristen comes across an abandoned farm house and sets it on fire.  When the police arrive they take her to the mental hospital where she is placed in The Ward.  There the nightmares really begin--or did they?

MAX:  I agree that the opening shows a great deal of promise.  I really enjoyed the illustrated images of the plights that have been visited upon patients over the years at the hands of doctors.  Kind of reminded me of that time you and I wandered into the Scientologist run "Psychiatry Museum of Death" in Los Angeles.  While that museum was certainly heavy handed, to say the least, it can't be denied that psychiatry has had its share of abuses in history, which can make for chilling horror stories.  That being said, as much as the opening credits in this flick are foreboding, I would have to liken them to Dario Argento's Mother of Tears, where we are promised some serious demonic stuff (i.e. the illustrations of Hieronymus Bosch) and instead are given about two hours of not demonic crap.  In the case of The Ward, lets look at the first sequence you mentioned, where we are curiously observing Kristen in her white gown and wondering what she's going to do.  After a while she burns down a farm house and we realize that the men in white coats are coming to take her away (Ha-ha.)  Not particularly stirring, but we can assume that there's going to be a slow build.  Once inside the hospital, Kristen experiences flash backs that super obviously correlate to the farm house.  It's pretty safe to assume from the get-go that she was held captive there and molested and etc. etc.  The action within the hospital, which basically lasts for the duration of the film, is extremely monotonous, filled with bad dialogue and worse performances, offering very little of the ominous psychiatric practices alluded to in the opening credits. 

MIKE:  That's what I wanted: lot's more of those out-dated methodologies, and less cute actresses doing bad acting.  I won't say that the whole thing was terrible, I mean, a couple of the girls shine dimly as believable mental patients, and the nurse and doctor were good, but as a whole (especially when concerning the lead, Amber Heard) the acting is flat and unmoving.  I like stories that deal with the darker side of psychology, even when it's a bit fictitious (taking things with a grain of salt like we did with that Scientology museum), and you know how much I love a good ghost story, so you would think that if you mixed those to elements together you'd get a damn awesome horror flick.  Sadly, what you get is tasteless fluff. Did I mention that the movie is directed by one of my favorite horror directors, John Carpenter?  It's like getting a famous chef to do catering for your party, and what he serves for appetizers are corn chips and cheese whiz sauce.  So, disappointing.  Don't hate me Mr. Carpenter!

MAX:  Yes.  The famous chef with the cheese whiz appetizers is a good metaphor to use in this case.  It's awkward to criticize Carpenter, as he has made so many fantastic films, but the unfortunate truth is that this movie was a doozie.  I think even the very setting of a mental hospital allows for all kinds of interesting scenes in dark corridors, with long creepy hallways and strange voices in the shadows (think Session 9, which is sooo much scarier than this).  Alternately, in The Ward, all we see for the most part are bright lit shots of girls trying to act mental and scared at the same time.  Nothing really happens too much in this movie, and when it does, it's almost irrelevant, because so much of the "suspense build up" time has been spent on group therapy couches. The story is one part Girl Interrupted and one part Shutter Island with a little homage to Suspiria here and there.  In my opinion, this movie didn't know quite what it wanted to be, which is why in the end it doesn't really work out.  Personally, I didn't much care for the performances from the hospital staff.  I found the orderly to be very confusing, playing it alternately between somewhat sympathetic and pervy creep.  The nurse was obviously a total authoritarian, but not evil enough in her actions to make it convincing (that may have actually been more of a problem with the script).  Then there is the doctor, who once again, could be creepy, or just an unorthodox shrink who is super-committed to his practice.  Some of these questions I had about the hospital staff were answered to a degree in the conclusion of the film.  Although I'm not sure I really cared about anyone in the film by the time that came along.  Also, the biggest question I have is why the 1950s?  I wasn't really clear why this needed to be a period piece.

MIKE:  Well, I would like to assume that mental hospitals back then were very unpleasant places--historically they still were up through the 80's.  But the movie fails to deliver on those stories, and really fails to show those goods in action.  I mean, there was the scene with the shock treatment (two scenes really), and those were all right, but I wanted more of that abuse and negligence that these places had infamously become.  I would like to say that on the plus side of things the special effects were done well.  John Carpenter was never the overtly gory type of director, and I thought the make-up for the dead girl haunting the ward was really good.  Holy shit, did I love seeing her flesh crawl.

MAX:  Yes, you are correct.  I suppose that was the whole point.  The past brutalities of psychiatry, which as we've both established, weren't really delivered in entirety.  I didn't find the special effects to be particularly memorable, myself.  While I agree that Carpenter has never needed to rely on gore to get a good scare on, I felt like the death scenes were sort of half-assed and executed (so to speak) without too much thought.  The dead girl's face, when seen up close, did not impress me too much.  By the time her and Kristen are wrestling with each other she has just ceased to be scary.  Of course we understand the significance of the wrestling in the context of the film, but seriously, isn’t there some other way to do that?  As much as I love me some wrestling, I tend to think it's better left outside of horror movies.  Another disastrous occurrence like this was the werewolf wrestling match between Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro in The Wolfman remake.  I think wrestling between horror movie characters is an automatic suspense killer.  As one can probably gather from this rant, I was also not a big fan of Freddy vs. Jason, although I'd probably rather watch that than The Ward.

MIKE:  I hated Freddy Vs. Jason.  Seriously, nothing bored me more than that snoozer.

MIKE(continued):  Anyway, (SPOILER ALERT) I really enjoyed the way the needle through the eye was shot.  It wasn’t nearly as suspensful as that one scene in Dead and Buried (such an amazing movie), but the effects shot was still good.  I will agree that I am not really a big fan of monsters battling it out, unless it's a Gozilla flick.  Think back to those early Universal--and non-Universal movies--that thought it would be a great idea to watch Dracula battle the Wolf Man, or the Frankenstein monster, or the Lagoon Creature; those films are laughable at best, and just plain boring at their worst.  I'm not even a fan of the Underworld series.  I love werewolves, but pitting them against vampires, as though this feud has been going on for centuries, is tiresome and old. 

MAX:  EPIC SUB-TANGEANT ALERT.  There are some exceptions to the “battling it out” rule.  Godzilla and Mothra would be the most noteable, I agree.  Also, basically anything with the Universal Monsters was permissible.  I happen to kind of like the Underworld movies—it is a shameful, dirty secret of mine.  I think they are a whole lot of fun, but I do not consider them to be horror movies, basically on account of the fact that it is an action/versus sort of set up.  I thought Underworld Rise of the Lychens was particularly good.  It's the Braveheart of Werewolf Movies.  Anyway....tying back into The Ward, I thought the bit with the eye was alright, but not so much in the grand tradition of other eye torture sequences (Like Argento's Opera, for example.)  I'm not denying that there are worse horror movies out there than this one, but for a Carpenter flick, I think this ranks on the low end of what he's done.  I know that some of his fans feel that the criticisms of this film have been too harsh, but I would disagree.  I love watching Carpenter movies.  I keep The Fog on a constant rotation in my house.  Unfortunately, The Ward is the sort of film I wouldn't even watch a second time, not to mention, I would not want to screen it multiple times.  It's basically pretty forgettable.

MIKE:  This goes up there with Ghosts of Mars as one of Carpenter's worst movies.  You're right, I won't be adding this to my collection anytime soon (I love Carpenter films, people, but I refuse to buy Ghosts of Mars or The Ward).  I guess what I wanted more than anything, was for The Ward to be like The Fog or In the Mouth of Madness—you know, something that scared you and kept you on the edge of your seat.

MIKE:  I guess this leads to our conclusion.  The Ward is missing what I have always loved about Carpenter Films--suspense.  Instead he dishes up sloppy, cold second helpings of tired Twilight Zone-ish tricks (and I LOVE The Twilight Zone), supported doldrums acting that leaves a nasty aftertaste.  If you've never seen ANY of the movies that Max and I have listed that are similar to this one, then you just might enjoy this film.  But, like us, if you have seen all of those movies, then just stay clear of this buffet table.  I wish I could give this movie one nub up, but that would be a disservice to all of our readers.  Two Bloody Nubs down.

MAX:  I agree.  It was bad.  Two Bloody Nubs down.  I'd rather undergo shock treatment.  Or watch Frogs.