The Ward (John Carpenter)

[Morris Schæffer]

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=29837

[Dukefrukem]

fuckin finally. Now tell me where I can see it.

[Kurosawa Fan]

At some point, shouldn't he lose the "Master of Horror" title? I mean, no offense, but he hasn't exactly been "masterful" since the 80s.

[Wryan]

Hook him up with Kurt Russell again and I'd watch anything.

[Boner M]

I liked this movie.

[number8]

At some point, shouldn't he lose the "Master of Horror" title? I mean, no offense, but he hasn't exactly been "masterful" since the 80s.

I think once you get the Master title, you get to keep it forever. Kind of like how Ridley Scott is considered one of the great sci-fi directors despite the fact that he hasn't made a sci-fi film in almost 30 years.

[B-side]

Ugh. Looks like shit.

[Sven]

Maybe it's the Carpenter fanboy in me that will make sure I see this ASAP, but I thought that looked relatively engaging. Bone-daddy, you really liked it?

[KK2.0]

youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWrnTbLRmMA


I liked this movie.

should i expect a return of b-movie Carpenter or nay? i dig the "hot babes in mental institution meets psycholgical horror" concept :D

[Boner M]

Not many people who saw it in Toronto share my enthusiasm, but I thought it was a classy piece of filmmaking despite some major flaws (jump scares galore being the main one). Surprisingly well acted too (esp. Amber Heard), and I thought it retained the Carpenter touch despite what its detractors said. There's a really great late-film ward escape scene that's kind of a trumph of spatial coherence, however strange that sounds.

Maybe my reaction had something to do with preparing for the worst.

[Spun Lepton]

I'm there.

[Grouchy]

At some point, shouldn't he lose the "Master of Horror" title? I mean, no offense, but he hasn't exactly been "masterful" since the 80s.
Memoirs of an Invisible Man
In the Mouth of Madness
Vampires
Cigarette Burns

In my opinion, those are all "masterful" movies. We'll have to see about this one.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Wow. That's a pile of mediocrity you listed there, Grouchy. Though, I haven't seen "Cigarette Burns." Vampires would be my favorite of the other three, though to call it "masterful" would be a wild exaggeration.

[Sven]

Escape from LA, yo.

[Grouchy]

Wow. That's a pile of mediocrity you listed there, Grouchy. Though, I haven't seen "Cigarette Burns." Vampires would be my favorite of the other three, though to call it "masterful" would be a wild exaggeration.
Out of all four, Vampires is my favorite too. I wouldn't hesitate at all to call it "masterful" - one of my favorite combinations of Horror and Action.

I might be a Carpenter fanboy, but though he's had his stinkers, I think he's still got it. Cigarette Burns is simply an unique film. You should see it.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Escape from LA, yo.

Again, not "masterful," but I dig it.

[Henry Gale]

I honestly think Vampires is terrible, saw it a year or so back and didn't find anything redeeming about it whatsoever. Beyond that, I don't think I've seen anything from Carpenter's later work outside of Ghosts of Mars, which I probably saw when I was 12 and sadly had it as one of (if not the) very first film(s) of his I saw. May have seen Escape from L.A. as a really little kid as well, but only because I've had the vague image of Snake Plissken surfing there in my mind for some time, and I can't place it otherwise.

But luckily, I've found myself watching (and even subsequently re-watching) a lot of his older, greater stuff more recently, and that's been enough for me to look forward to anything new he may be up to. So I wouldn't mind seeing this, as unremarkable as that trailer has made it out to be.

[Grouchy]

Am I alone in thinking Vampires is great? I love the hard-boiled Western approach to vampire hunting, and the cast really makes it work.

[megladon8]

Ghosts of Mars, people.

[Russ]

Ghosts of Mars, people.

Yeah, I agree. That one sucks, bigtime!

Er, you were saying that it sucks, weren't you? :)

[Bosco B Thug]

Really? Taking away someone's "Master" title? Because of all-too-typical career-end decline? Thankfully the world isn't as unkind as you are, KF. ;)


Am I alone in thinking Vampires is great? I love the hard-boiled Western approach to vampire hunting, and the cast really makes it work. And I could've sworn I was in the minority in thinking Vampires was clearly one of his weakest post-80s works... so maybe neither of us are as alone as we think. *hugs*


Ghosts of Mars, people. Has its positive points and a deserved amount of mild supporters?

[transmogrifier]

Vampires is very good.

[megladon8]

I like Vampires. It was a lot of campy fun. But saying it's among Carpenter's best is crazy.

I really wish John Carpenter could recapture the magic he had in the '70s/'80s.

[Rowland]

Vampires is mean-spirited trash, but it has zest. Escape from L.A. is the last film of his in over two decades that I've really liked.

[Dukefrukem]

Having just watched all of Carpenter's movies this past fall. Vampires and Ghost of Mars are the worst. They Live and the Thing are the best. (among others)

[Grouchy]

How come Vampires is mean-spirited?

It's racist against vampires?

[Wryan]

It's racist against quality.

[D_Davis]

Am I alone in thinking Vampires is great? I love the hard-boiled Western approach to vampire hunting, and the cast really makes it work.

Nope - I love it. It's got some amazing cinematography - the skies and color work are just amazing. It's genuinely funny, and it's quite gruesome.

[KK2.0]

I remember loving the first act of Vampires, but forgot the rest... time for a rewatch.

Cigarette Burns was my favorite Masters of Horror episode.

[dmk]

This will be the greatest. Can not wait.

[Dukefrukem]

fuckin finally. VOD come June 8 and limited theaters.

[MadMan]

Looks rather decent. The only modern Carpenter movie I've seen so far has been In The Mouth of Madness, which I thought was great and one of his best movies.

[Spun Lepton]

Looks rather decent. The only modern Carpenter movie I've seen so far has been In The Mouth of Madness, which I thought was great and one of his best movies.

Cigarette Burns is more recent, and, personally, I liked it a bit better than Mouth of Madness. It's on Netflix Instant.

[MadMan]

Cigarette Burns is more recent, and, personally, I liked it a bit better than Mouth of Madness. It's on Netflix Instant.I completely forgot it was on Netflix Instant Viewing. I'll have to check it out.

[Spun Lepton]

I completely forgot it was on Netflix Instant Viewing. I'll have to check it out.

DO EET!

[MadMan]

OKAY!!!!

[Henry Gale]

I thought this was pretty bad, but I'll agree with the aspects Boner pointed out a few months ago in terms of things like the performances, the score, the "Run Baby Run" scene and its general presentation of atmosphere and geography to be make up the majority of its strengths.

Otherwise, it's a mess. For someone that helped influence so many modern horror filmmakers, Carpenter's work here doesn't play any better than the output of so many generic PG-13 jump scare-heavy, deformed ghost flicks we saw churned out during the aughts (though with just enough gore to push it up to an R). And the ending... anything I say will just become a bigger rant than I care to write, and it'll end up spoiling not only what happens in this this movie, but all the other movies that have done this exact same thing so many times in just the last few years.

It's just that all the best things about it still don't seem to have enough fuel behind them to make them genuinely exciting. Sure it's capably made and sometimes even uniquely stylish, but that's because it's Carpenter. It offers some of well-timed jump scares, but that's all it seems to want to do to keep it classified as horror. The main actors (Heard, Harris and Granger) are perfectly fine, but their characters are never given enough room to breathe beyond the archetypal behaviours expected of them in a story like this. It's a greatest hits of other hospital-set horror movies, only those hits are the ones that have been played so many times that I'm sick of them.

[megladon8]

So the trailer was just released in HD on Apple.com/trailers


Basically - the story of a haunted psych ward whose population consists entirely of supermodels.

Amirite?

[Henry Gale]

So the trailer was just released in HD on Apple.com/trailers


Basically - the story of a haunted psych ward whose population consists entirely of supermodels.

Amirite?

This is the least of the movie's problems, and without spoiling anything, it can be read in a way that actually works. Either way, having Amber Heard, Danielle Panabaker and Lyndsy Fonseca looking gorgeous is hardly the most superficial thing about this movie's sense of reality.

[Boner M]

TEAM THE WARD

[Dukefrukem]

The Internet says this movie is supposed to be on demand on June 8th... it's June 11th and I don't see a thing...

[Dukefrukem]

This sucked so much. What has Carpenter become?

[Boner M]

I rate this the same as Escape From New York. Easily 2011's most unfairly maligned film.

[Rowland]

I rate this the same as Escape From New York. Easily 2011's most unfairly maligned film.Yeah, that didn't go unnoticed. For what it's worth, you have some solid support from the likes of Croce, Uhlich, and Pinkerton.

[Dukefrukem]

I don't know how this could be anything above mediocre. I was bored out of my mind while the movie was trying to get to the point.

It should also be of note I hated Identity too. These movies practically rub it in your face when you haven't figured out they're all the same person. It probably should have been obvious since she's in a mental hospital but what kind of hospital has one patient hmm? Top it off by throwing in the girl from the Ring as the monster killing all the multiple personalities… it was hard for me to accept. Carpenter’s style is completely lost. It’s almost like he’s trying to reinvent himself.

[Boner M]

Yeah, that didn't go unnoticed. For what it's worth, you have some solid support from the likes of Croce, Uhlich, and Pinkerton.
Ooh, I didn't know Uhlich liked it. Ignatiy gave it a thumbs-up on Ebert Presents and used it as a stick to bash Insidious which I also did upon the TIFF premieres of both, so hooray.

[Henry Gale]

Ooh, I didn't know Uhlich liked it. Ignatiy gave it a thumbs-up on Ebert Presents and used it as a stick to bash Insidious which I also did upon the TIFF premieres of both, so hooray.

He pointed out most of the same (few) things I liked in it, but I still sided with Lemire almost entirely otherwise. Like she said, at least Insidious tried to have fun. The Ward is just an intermittently interesting slog towards a horrible conclusion.

[Bosco B Thug]

Full of striking aesthetics, even if low on meat behind them. Full of confident stylization, even if Carpenter's Scorsese-ing (in more ways than one, amirite people-who-know-the-story?) falls short of making the story really click. And despite some very creaky scripting and story mechanics, the story's cool.

The film is, yes, a wholesome version of Identity, and literally a remake of Shutter Island, but it's also a very echo-y transplantation (despite it preceding it, of course...) of Sucker Punch's moral fable.

[Bosco B Thug]

Cont. from the 2011 Consensus Thread:


It's nice-looking, and I appreciated all the smooth steadicam work, which he seemed to have increasingly abandoned with his later work, but I didn't find the mood of the film to be all that stylish or expressive.

It certainly failed for me to evoke much in the way of atmosphere or tension, and the same goes for the excessively snappy pacing, which especially didn't feel Carpenter-y at all. The film's not excessively Carpenter-y (unfortunately; it should've been a lot more tense and suspenseful), but there's still the lots of smart ensemble staging. It tided me over.


The thing rarely had a moment to breathe, which is why I appreciated small moments like: It also helps that in a film with so many actresses unable to make anything of their lousy dialogue (and direction?), they were afforded a moment to just shut up and have some fun. Perhaps I'm just taken with the actresses, but I thought the performances were uniformly very good (mums on the dialogue). Particularly Meryl Streep's daughter, who I didn't know existed before this..


I couldn't help thinking about how blatantly it evoked Prince of Darkness, only in a markedly half-assed manner. I gueeesss, but I still love the image.

A non-CGIed, or effect-ized, completely unboogeyman-looking Amber Heard popping out with tiger claws (not literally) as if she was just back there doing repairs. It's strange and slightly evocative.