I originally reviewed this movie in October of 2013 at ThEpic Review.
I just watched The Ward for the first time and I'll say off
the bat that I'm disappointed. The movie isn't bad in the sense that
you're going to groan your way through it, as it's well directed with a
creepy atmosphere, features great visual effects, and has cast of strong
actresses that you'd have to be crazy not to want to be locked in an
asylum with. The Ward's problem is one that many mainstream
horror movies struggled with in the 2000's, a problem which I refer to
as M. Night Shyamalan syndrome: Twist endings that radically alter the
movie in such a way as to make everything you've watched feel
meaningless. I'm going to try to make it through most of this review
without spoiling everything, as the film is relatively new (it was
released in 2010) but expect a fair amount of ranting here not because The Ward is terrible but because The Ward had the potential to be a very good film, kind of a horror version of Girl, Interrupted. Read on for more thoughts, after the break...
In 1966 Kristen (Amber Heard) burns down an old house in the
country. She gets caught at the scene by some police officers who seem to
know who she is and is soon taken to a secure ward at the North Bend
Psychiatric Hospital. Along with fellow residents Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca),
Zoey (Laura Leigh), Emily (Mamie Gummer), and Sarah (Danielle
Panabaker), Kristen deals with the bullying orderlies, the cruel head
nurse, and the appearance of a mysterious and haunting figure that
begins stalking the girls on the ward. Trapped within the ward, Kristen
begins trying to uncover the mysterious disappearances of previous girls
that she's learned about from her fellow patients while concocting a
plan to escape before she suffers a similar fate. Listen, setting a film
in a mental asylum, especially in the past, just automatically makes a
film creepy. Asylums are a great setting for horror films and this one
utilizes the setting well.
While the movie does have a creepy and tense atmosphere at times, it
really relies on jump scares. I won't argue too against jump scares
here because to be honest, I have to admit that most of them got me. I
will say that if I were watching this film without knowing who the
director was, I never would have guessed John Carpenter. That's not a
good or a bad thing, just a fact. Typically Carpenter's inimitable style
is immediately recognizable, but that's not as transparently on display
here. There's no reason that a director can't utilize a different style
in their methods, but I am curious as to what drew Carpenter to this
film. It's just so...ordinary compared to most other films that
Carpenter has worked on or written. I really should listen to the
included commentary track (I'm not one that often listens to commentary
tracks, sorry!).
OK, FYI----HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!!
So, it turns out that the film is really about a girl who has
created multiple personalities and all of the residents of the ward that
we've been meeting are not actual residents in a mental hospital but various aspects of the main character's personality. The main
character, played by Heard, is actually named Alice and a part of her
original personality is killing off the extra personalities through
treatment. Yes, all of this is happening inside of someone's head. I
hate that. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Unless a movie is extremely clever
or extraordinarily unique, I hate when a film discounts everything
we've seen or the characters we've grown to love. It's the narrative
equivalent of learning that something was "just a dream" and it just
feels like the audience has been cheated. The first two-thirds of this
movie were great. The characters and the plot were set up well and the
movie was both frightening and mysterious, but when this plot element
gets introduced it just makes me feel like everything that matters has
flown out the window. It feels almost exactly like the plot twist at the
end of the film Identity, which is another film that isn't bad,
but feels like a great concept that gets robbed of a satisfactory
ending. I didn't dislike The Ward, but it wasn't ultimately as satisfying of a film as I hoped.
Confirmed: Eh and a 1/2
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