John Carpenter's The Ward

JOHN CARPENTER'S THE WARD (2010) - Sept. 19, 2010
Not quite the triumphant return of John Carpenter that I might have hoped, this was a kind of mediocre but essentially entertaining film about a young girl who finds herself locked up in a sinister asylum.  Though John Carpenter's command of the camera and the widescreen frame remains intact, there film itself just wasn't all that compelling.  It was pretty obviously leading up to a twist, so I spent much of the film trying to figure out what the twist was going to be, which is never a sign that you're watching a great movie (to the film's credit, aside from knowing that things were obviously not as they seemed, I wasn't able to guess the twist).  The film featured an excess of jump scares, but little by way of tension or dread.  It was basically entertaining, but a bit of a let-down coming from a master like Carpenter.  **1/2