The Ward

Summary

In 2010, John Carpenter released his final film The Ward. This came a full nine years after his film Ghosts of Mars. The film stars Amber Heard and Jared Harris. I have been working my way through all of John Carpenter’s films and despite the critical beating the film took upon its release, I checked it out for myself.

In 1966, on a stormy night, a young woman inside of an asylum is murdered by someone or some thing. The film then shows a young woman running in a slip. She sets a house on fire. Police arrest her. She is taken to North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. Her name is Kristen (Amber Heard.) She is admitted and taken to the ward. When questioned by Dr. Gerald Stringer (Jared Harris) she has no recollection of anything prior to burning down the house. She had the address written on her hands when she was picked up by the police. On the ward, nobody believes her pleas of sanity. The workers and the young women in the ward all assume that she is crazy. In the ward with her are several women – the childish Iris (Lindsy Fonsecca,) the aggressive Emily (Mamie Gummer,) the artistic Zoey (Laura Leigh,) and stuck-up Sarah (Danielle Panabaker.) In the showers, Kristen is attacked by an apparition- a decomposing woman. To make things worse, the hospital begins using experimental therapies on Kristen when she complains of the attack in the shower. 

Reading reviews of the film online, I had prepared myself for the worst. Reviews had beaten the movie up pretty badly. Watching the film, I found that it was basically a forgettable film and not by any stretch of the imagination a great film, but it wasn’t as terrible as people had made it out to be. The big issue with the film is that it does not feel like a John Carpenter film. The script was written by Shawn and Michael Rasmussen who also wrote last year’s Crawl. The script does not feel like it is part of Carpenter’s canon, feeling a bit too “paint by the numbers.” It is not the worst script ever and has some clever moments, but it isn’t something that people will remember a day later. The next issue is that Carpenter did not score the film. This is the only time I can remember him completely outsourcing these duties aside from on The Thing where Ennio Morricone knew exactly what to do. Without Carpenter on the script or the compositions, the film feels fairly flat compared to the rest of the director’s work. The acting in the film is sufficient but there are not any real standout performances here.

Overall – The Ward is an outlier in John Carpenter’s canon. It is the only film that does not feel like it benefits in some way from his own unique vision.

Video

The film looks great on Blu-ray with an MPEG-4 AVC encode in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The film does not exude much stylistically like the other films in John Carpenter’s filmography, but the video presentation capably presents the film. Fans of the film will definitely be happy to see it in high definition.

Audio

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track sounds very good. The soundtrack by Mark Kilian fits the film, but it is not memorable. The dialogue is clear and the surround track is fairly immersive throughout the proceedings.

Supplements:

• Audio Commentary: With Director John Carpenter and Actor Jared Harris.
• Theatrical Trailer

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.5/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 2.5/5

Overall – 3/5

The Ward is not a triumphant return for director John Carpenter on his last film. It is not necessarily a bad film, it is just not a memorable film. It is the only John Carpenter film that does not have any indication that it was made by the master director. I checked it out as a huge fan of his work and that took care of my curiosity. I can’t imagine that I would have any real reason to revisit it in the future. The audio and video presentation on the disc are solid.