The Ward Blu-ray Review
He’s baaa-aaaack.
Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, August 22, 2011
It's been ten years since a John Carpenter film last graced—or, in the case of 2001's deplorable
Ghosts of Mars,
disgraced—the silver
screen, but now the influential action/horror director is back with
The Ward, a low-budget psychological thriller that will disappoint fans hoping
for a return to form. And I don't think anyone would argue that when we say "form," we mean the John Carpenter who gave us
Halloween
and
The Thing, the two bonafide, time-tested classics that stand out in his filmography. You can make concessions for the merits of
Escape
From New York,
Starman, and
They Live—and, to a lesser extent,
The Fog and
Big Trouble in Little China—but
the fact remains: aside from the near-perfect horror filmmaking of
Halloween and
The Thing, Carpenter's work has been wildly
uneven, especially throughout the 1990s, when his critical and commercial success was spotty at best.
The Ward certainly isn't the director's
worst film, and it's better than a large percentage of the horror films I've seen this year, but it's too conventional and too familiar, especially given its
twist ending, which has appeared in at least two other horror films from the past ten years.
Drive Angry actress Amber Heard stars as Kristen, a troubled young woman whom we meet bolting barefoot through the Oregon woods—
circa 1966—in a teddy. When she comes upon an old farmhouse, she takes a box of matches and lights the curtains ablaze in a pyromaniacal fit,
only to be apprehended by the cops and hauled off to the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital, the kind of creepy, towering, thunder-and-lightening-
prone Victorian-era facility you've seen in a hundred other films set in mental wards. Fittingly—and disappointingly—the stock setting is populated by
a number of stock characters, who seem to have migrated to
The Ward from better films like
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and
Girl, Interrupted. There's Roy (Dan Anderson), the nasty chief orderly who may or may not be raping the patients, and the Nurse Rached-
esque Nurse Lundt (Susanna Burney), who wears a perpetual pinched expression and doles out psychogenic meds with no tenderness whatsoever.
Then there's the mysterious head psychiatrist Dr. Stringer (
Mad Men's Jared Harris), whose methods include "experimental therapy" and
"futuristic kind of stuff." (Although we never see him engaged in any unusual treatments beyond shock therapy—pretty normal for the time—and
group counseling.) Kristen also shares the women's ward with an assortment of female crackpots; aggressive Emily (Mamie Gummer), artistic Iris
(Lyndsy Forseca), infantile Zoey (Laura-Leigh), and red-headed seductress Sarah (Danielle Panabaker).
"Why am I here?" asks Kristen, to which Dr. Stringer replies, "that's the sixty-four thousand dollar question." And indeed it is. The main mystery in
the film is why Kristen burned down the farmhouse and what exactly is wrong with her, although this gradually gives way to a more pressing
concern—the presence of a rotting, gross-ass female ghost on the ward, a stringy-haired specter named Alice who has a bone to pick with her
erstwhile inmates. It starts innocuously enough, with eerie nighttime premonitions and visitations in the shower room—cue gratuitous ogling—but
soon the patients are dying one after another in tired slasher film fashion. One gets a needle through the eyeball and into the brain. Another fries on
the electroshock table. A third threatens to slit her wrist, only to have the ghost cut her throat for her. You know the drill. Carpenter goes for old-
school practical special effects instead of CGI most of the time—which gives
The Ward a vintage quality beyond its 1960s setting—but the
ghost of Alice, with her goofy make-up, is unintentionally hilarious anytime she appears onscreen, which saps the scariness right out of the picture.
Horror films like this need atmosphere—mounting panic, inescapable terror, the looming threat of death—but Carpenter ruins the dread he does
manage to muster by giving us a corporeal ghost who looks silly and acts even sillier.
More asinine still is the movie's "twist" ending, a shockless anti-surprise that will only catch you off-guard if you've never, ever seen a psychological
horror film before. And this is a serious problem; once you figure it out, the rest of the film is a tedious exercise in counting down to the inevitable.
This wouldn't be so bad if
The Ward were more terrifying and/or entertaining—a few genuinely good chills can make even the most
predictable horror movie worthwhile—but most of the scares in the film are of the superficial, something-jumps-in-the-frame-accompanied-by-a-
loud-sound-effect variety. The biggest deficit, though, is the lack of any real psychological depth. Considering the stigma attached to mental
treatment in the 1960s and the second-wave feminism that partly defined the decade, you'd think
The Ward would have more on its mind
than rote killing. There are so many better directions the story could've gone, but these potential leads are left unexplored. The period sets and
costumes are really just window dressing. What's most disappointing is that there's nothing particularly John Carpenter-ish about the script—written
by Michaela and Shawn Rasmussen—or its execution. Whatever you think of his career, Carpenter was rarely imitative or derivative or dull, but here
in his not-so-triumphant return, it feels like he's going through the horror movie motions.
The Ward Blu-ray, Video Quality
This is the first film since
Dark Star that John Carpenter hasn't shot with Panavision anamorphic lenses—he notes in his commentary that they
just could've afford it here—but
The Ward still looks great on Blu-ray, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's crisp, natural, and true-to-
source. The Super 35mm image retains its inherent grain structure—a rich but fine veneer that gives the picture some cinematic warmth—and there's
no evidence of DNR or excessive edge enhancement. As you'd expect from a contemporary film, there are no problems with the print either—no
scratches, specks, or staining. The image isn't quite as sharp as those of bigger budgeted movies with cash to blow on the very best lenses, but there's
plenty of high definition detail on display, especially in the places you look for it first—hair detail, facial texture, and the weft of cloth in costumes and
other fabrics. Carpenter isn't a big fan of stylistic digital color grading—another detail he reveals in his commentary—and this is evident in the film's
usually realistic color palette, which is dense without appearing oversaturated. (Only a few select scenes—mostly flashbacks—have been given a more
impressionistic treatment.) Black levels are deep while still preserving shadow detail, and there are no issues with blown out or wishy-washy contrast.
Aside from some slight noise, I didn't spot any real compression issues either. I think the film looks great.
The Ward Blu-ray, Audio Quality
We've come to expect loud, immersive sound design from our horror films, and in that sense,
The Ward doesn't disappoint. The film's lossless
DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is filled with the unsettling and bombastic, only letting up for the dialogue-driven scenes that bridge the scare
sequences. Alarms blare in the rear channels and thunder peels loudly, activating the LFE channel. Disembodied whispers circle the space around your
head, along with a variety of ghostly swooshes and jitters, and mental asylum ambience creeps in often. All the effects are clean, punchy, and
dynamically rich. Fans might be disappointed to find out that John Carpenter did
not do the score for
The Ward—he explains in his
commentary that he's getting too old to do
everything—but Mark Killian's music suffices, even if it is a bit overdramatic, with spiraling, stabbing
strings that go berserk anytime Alice's ghost appears. There's also a kind-of cheesy
ha ha ha ha Ha-ahhhhhh vocal motif, but what would a
modern horror movie be without a pseudo-creepy minor key vocal riff? Dialogue throughout is clean and easy to understand. The disc includes optional
English SDH subtitles.
The Ward Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
John Carpenter is back after a 10-year hiatus, but
The Ward is by no means a triumphant return to form. If anything, the dryly predictable film
seems like an attempt to ape the style and storytelling of the many new horror directors who were inspired by Carpenter's work in the early 1980s. The
asylum setting, the mysterious doctor, the hardass nurse, the twist ending—it all feels so tiredly familiar and devoid of any new ideas. I got the same
feeling watching this as I did on viewing George Romero's latest
Dead films; both Carpenter and Romero are formerly innovative horror auteurs
who just can't make decent films anymore. Longtime Carpenter fans will probably still want to check out
The Ward, however, and this Blu-ray is
definitely the best way to do it, with great picture quality, some bombastic sound design, and a worthwhile audio commentary from the man himself. A
rental is probably in order.
