FILM SPOT - The Ward (2011)

So, Halloween is upon us, it seems only right I review a horror film and so here is The Ward, a return to films by John Carpenter who after the disastrous Ghosts of Mars (2001) took a great deal of time off. This time he partly spent directing episodes for the Masters of Horror series, an occasionally hit and miss anthology of horror stories that seemed to get him back to basics with the whole horror thing. For those who saw any of these episodes, you can definitely see shades of them in 'The Ward', particularly the episode 'Pro-Life' which was set in an abortion clinic. The Ward concerns Kristin (Amber Heard), a young woman who torches a farmhouse to the ground and is then put into a psychiatric ward. As she adjusts to life there, she becomes aware of disappearances and strange happenings in the night. It becomes pretty obvious to her that nobody leaves the ward, and she starts to work out why. Now, the refreshing thing about this film is that it is relatively free of shoddy CG effects and is stage-managed extremely well by Carpenter. The jump scares actually work, and there is a very disturbing atmosphere to the whole piece. Now, I am a huge John Carpenter fan, and you can see his auteur fingerprints all over it. The pacing is superb, and he manages to suffuse the film with a dread that hangs on even as the numbers start dropping, something which a lot of modern horror films are unable to do. This may sound like it is leading up to a point, and yes I have been skirting around the matter of the script for a reason. Specifically, that the script itself is actually quite disappointing. It isn't that it is badly written per se, I have seen badly written horror films and this is not one of them. The problem is that it becomes far too 'been there done that' for its own good. The twist of 'The Ward', and I will not reveal it for spoiler reasons managed to galvanize a single reaction out of me.

'Is that it?' 

Amber clearly just saw the Human Centipede.

                                   
 It's just a rather banal explanation, which while explained well, has never worked in my opinion. It didn't work when Identity (2003) did it, and it will not work now. It's an intriguing idea that nobody can execute because it feels like the 'It was all a dream' twist of horror films, i.e a great big fat Deus Ex Machina to explain and resolve plotlines. I will also briefly mention the performances. They are largely fine, although I have to be honest; how on earth is Amber Heard quite this prolific? She isn't a bad actress, but I would hardly describe her as the next big thing so it is a surprise to see her in so many films at the moment. Her performances are largely functional, and her mechanical performance in this is kept on the rails pretty much by John Carpenter's assured direction. There is little point mentioning character development, as their lack of 'character' or histories is somewhat tied in to the big twist which again somewhat disappoints me and leads me unable to say much more about it. Overall, it's a good bash at the horror film but I would have expected more. It does cheer me however that John Carpenter has not lost his touch, and perhaps gifted with a better script, he could be right back at the top of his game again.