The Ward

John Carpenter‘s return to the film director’s chair, after an absence of nine years, is not what everyone hoped it would be.

Kristen (Amber Heard) is committed to the cleanest, most spacious mental hospital ever, in the company of four pretty inmates. She was picked up by two police officers after they found her stranded and half naked, staring at her burning house. Resident psychiatrist Dr Stringer (Jared Harris) assures her that his therapy is going to help her get better. Meanwhile, the ghost of Alice Hudson (Jillian Kramer) is offing the inmates one by one.

Seeing how Mr Carpenter spoilt us, in decades past, with chillingly atmospheric films, The Wardhad a lot to live up to. Unfortunately it doesn’t. The film lacks character, grasping at overused tropes in a vain attempt to beat some life into what is ultimately a rather dull, run-of-the-mill supernatural thriller. If you’re familiar with mainstream asylum films, you’ll wreck your brains looking for novel ideas in here. Even the ‘surprise’ ending lacks originality. There are indications that this might/should have been a macabre take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll via American McGee via John Carpenter) but even this particular reading is allowed to fizzle into insignificance.

Let’s hope that Mr Carpenter’s next project is more The Thing than Ghosts of Mars.