Movie Review -- The Ward

So last night, I was in the mood for a scaa-ry movie.  I was going to rent Insidious, but -- I chickened out.  Seriously, if the trailer makes you turn on all the lights, well, watching the whole movie isn't going to help be much better, is it?

So, I went with John Carpenter's The Ward instead.  Mr. Carpenter has directed some awesome movies, including one of my favorites -- The Thing.  As in, "Oh goody, The Thing is on!"  Somehow I don't think you'll find many girls saying that on a Sunday afternoon flipping through the channels....

But I digress.  John Carpenter.  Halloween.  The Fog.  The Eyes of Laura Mars.  Escape From New York.

Classics.

Of course, not everyone bats 1,000, and sometimes people lose their touch (especially when they've been making movies for decades).  I had my reservations since I hadn't heard much about this movie, but I thought I'd give it a go because it had Carpenter's name behind it.

I was pleasantly surprised.  Let me qualify and say that it's not the greatest -- certainly not Halloween or The Thing, but it did have some good scary moments, as well as a plot that kept you guessing.  The ending, well -- it's something I've seen before, not often, but if you've seen it once, I think it loses it's novelty.

The setting is 1966, and we see a blonde-haired girl in a slipdress running through the woods.  Next, she's got a hold of some matches somehow (slips don't have pockets) and is setting fire to a run-down cabin.  Police come, girl gets hauled off, and we all know what happens to half-naked girls who set fire to cabins in 1966 -- they end up in mental institutions.

I'm not a fan of horror movies set in mental institutions -- it seems kind of cruel to scare people who are already prone to horrors, but this one worked, although I'm not going to tell you why as that would reveal the ending.  Suffice it to say that the blonde arsonist, Kristen, is the new girl at a mental institution which includes Danielle Pannebaker (Sky High, Friday the 13th) and I always like watching her.

And someone is after the girls, a gruesome-looking ghost.  But why?

It's an interesting little mystery, kind of Gothika meets Girl, Interrupted, though it's got some Carpenter-creepy moments in it (at least I thought so, but I scare easily, gang!).  It's not perfect, and there are a few plot holes, but I was really surprised -- usually movies released with this little fanfare are BAD, and this one actually had a decent plot, twists and turns, surprises, and a different ending.  All in all I would recommend it if you've got nothing to do and feel like clutching a pillow for an hour and a half!