dinsdag 21 juni 2011

The ward - be warned!

Yesterday I decided it was going to be one of those bad horror movies night. Well, I picked the right movie for that cause, because it's been a while since I've seen a horror as bad as The ward


Well, as any one can see, the movie's directed by John Carpenter, whom we all know (or at least should know) from the horror classic The thing (which is getting a remake by the way). And if you don't know John Carpenter's The thing, then you should at least know Halloween for he is the man who started the whole franchise. And while the latter isn't one of my favourites (as the whole slasher genre isn't really my cup of tea) I have to agree that the movie has been of significant value to the horror genre. Halloween may not be the first in the slasher genre (Tobe Hooper and his The Texas chainsaw massacre have that honor) but it sure has kicked open some doors. No, I like The thing better, and even that one isn't one of my absolute favourites. But I know and respect my classics! Alright, now that we're done with the little history lesson, let me get back on topic: The ward.

So, the story is quite simple: a girl, Kirsten, gets placed in a psychiatric hospital and becomes terrorized by a ghost. The ghost, of course, has claimed other victims before the arrival of Kirsten. And this is immediately the first mistake The ward makes: Kirsten gets placed in the room of the last victim. While at first this seems logical: the room is vacant after all and maybe the ward doesn't have any other rooms left (I doubt that though, since there aren't that many girls there...) but as the movie continues, you'll understand just how much of a cliche and just how much of a 'coincedence' that really is: the whole movie sucks so hard, that you just can't believe the director put Kirsten there for another reason other than that the last victim resided there. 

Kirsten gets placed in the room and soon after we will meet the other residents of the ward. All girls. What meets the eye first is the fact that they all look downright beautiful. (Aside from the one that's just been born ugly ;)) They all look very well taken care off, very refreshed, with their hair all nicely done, make-up that doesn't get washed off under the shower, clothes that are all ironed and clean. They're all on whatever cocktail of drugs, and yet somehow they all manage to put on mascara without their hands shaking uncontrollable. 

Yes, these two really are staying in a psychiatric hospital

And make-up's written all over her face!

If I wouldn't think that the 'scaryness' is in fact CGI, I'd say the 'girl' in the background's got the most make-up done!
So we've got ourselves beautiful girls, locked up in a psychiatric hospital, while some scary person is haunting the halls at night. Oh, did I mention they get to go without supervision when the nurse feels so? Yes, there's one nurse and one male nurse who every once in a while comes around to give the girls their medicines. But the head nurse's the only one constantly present at the ward, unless, of course, she feels like going somewhere else. The girls stay behind without any form of supervision (the movie's set in 1966, so I doubt they have the same fancy security measures as we have nowadays) and can do whatever they feel like. For example: entering (it isn't even needed to break in: they can just walk in as if it's not off limits) the nurses office and steal whatever they want.

Now these are the basics and I haven't even mentioned the acting yet. It is poor. Poor isn't even the proper word to describe it, but I'm afraid my English vocabulary is lacking here so I don't even know what to call it. Let's just say that it's another teen-is-lost-in-whatever-haunted-building-and-all-that-she-really-requires-to-do-is-scream movie. The girls aren't even trying to act that they're crazy. Aside from this one girl who keeps giving her teddy bear a bottle with milk, but I guess talking slower and in a slightly different voice than your own doesn't really count as being crazy. Oh and this other girl who keeps shouting random stuff and who, according to the other girls, should be ignored, but I believe she's just always this annoying. 

Well then, if the movie isn't worth watching for the basics and the acting, then at least it should be scary, right? I mean, it is supposed to be a horror movie after all. Neh-eh, WRONG! Not. Scary. At. All. The thoughts that ran through my head while watching the movie were more scary and those involved innocent things like: I think I'm going to sleep in a bit. Which, by the way, I did. So yeah, I didn't watch the whole movie, but after watching an hour or so of cliches, stupid girls crying over nothing,  girls we've all seen before in any other Z-horror movie (yes, because it actually is worse than a b-movie), girls who are supposed to be scared, but who apparently are as impressed with the ghost as I am, because all I've seen them doing is trying to be scared and of course a ghost that, if you ask me, should see a psychiatrist itself because it obviously doesn't know its place, I thought I wouldn't miss anything if I'd go to sleep. 

The main reason why this movie isn't scary isn't at all because the girls can't act, but because the ghost just is not scary. Not to me anyway. I'm a big fan of psychological thrillers because they get in your head and what people fear most, is their own imagination. (And if anyone out there knows me, then you surely must know how wild my imagination is :P) Carpenter completely fills in what the ghosts look like and I'm sorry to say that it isn't any different from any other pre-made ghosts I've ever seen. Maybe the dude should borrow some of my imagination, because what I have in mind is clearly a lot more scarier than what he's got in mind. I don't think his power lies with the supernatural horror genre, because he does know how to build tension like he did in The thing and Halloween. But the difference with The ward is that the former two aren't supernatural horrors: those are horrors that require visual monsters, one way or another. Getting your viewers to be scared of a serial killer on the loose isn't that difficult to achieve: it's something we all can relate to, to some extent. At the very least it's something we all can imagine and the fact that it's a human that can do things like that to us, make it scary. It doesn't work the same way with a ghost. If you make a ghost look like a human being, one way or another (and do a poor job at it too), you take its sole identity away from it: then it's no longer a ghost, but a human acting like a ghost. And that's exactly where Carpenter went wrong with The ward: there's no ghost in this movie, there's some actor in a ghost suit, with poor make-up and poor computer effects. The shock effect that should come from the viewer's mind, just because a ghost is supernatural and therefore we in essence don't know what it is or looks like, is taken away from the viewer by giving the ghost a face that often doesn't fit in the viewer's idea of the ghost. And if you're stupid enough to be as obvious with your 'scary moments' as Carpenter was in The ward, then you've got yourself a horror movie that's wrong in every possible way. 



2 opmerkingen:

  1. Mijn reactie op De Nachtvlinders: "De hele trailer geeft me het idee dat het niet een bijster originele film is." Ik was dus al niet van plan om deze film te gaan kijken, maar nu al helemaal niet meer :P

    In de recensie op De Nachtvlinders staat overigens dat de film inzakt, maar dat het met succes wordt afgesloten door Carpenter. Misschien toch maar het einde kijken? :P

    Mooie recensie :)

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  2. Inderdaad niet de moeite van 't kijken waard, als je 't mij vraagt hahaha. Hmm... ik geloof niet zo in een succesvol einde, maar misschien als ik eens niets te doen heb, dat ik 'm dan nog afkijk. After all, slechte horror films vind ik tóch leuk om te kijken.

    Dank je! :D

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