DAILY FILM DOSE: A Daily Film Appreciation and Review Blog: TIFF 2010 - John Carpenter's "The Ward"

Wednesday 15 September 2010

TIFF 2010 - John Carpenter's "The Ward"

The Ward (2010) dir. John Carpenter
Starring: Amber Heard, Jared Harris, Susanna Burney and a bunch of babes I've never heard of.

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By Greg Klymkiw

Okay kiddies, "Let's do the math."

Veteran genre-meister John (The Thing, Halloween, Vampires, Escape From New York, Ghosts of Mars, Starman) Carpenter directing.

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A horror film set in the 1960s where none of the babes have hair-styles remotely resembling 60s hair-styles.

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One mouth-wateringly hot Amber (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) Heard, incarcerated in a creepy old asylum after committing arson in a nightie.

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As luck would have it, the ward Amber gets thrown into is replete with babes (including a single-bagger woofer who grows on you and is, after all, kind of a babe, too). One of the babessucks her thumb and plays with dolls (Hubba! Hubba!) and another is a mega-sexpot (Double Hubba! Hubba!).

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One by one, the babes are butchered.

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Amber keeps seeing some weird chick wandering the halls, but is told it's just her imagination.

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Amber is manhandled by burly male nurses, zapped with electro-shock therapy and gets trussed-up in a straight jacket. (Triple Hubba! Hubba!)

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In one of the more disgusting moments in horror movie history, one of the babes is electro-shocked until... well, I won't ruin it for you, but trust me - it's pretty fucking gross!

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The ghost is one super-gnarly monster: mucho-drippings of the viscous kind.

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A great performance from Jared Harris as an unbelievably creepy psychiatrist engaging in (what else?) unorthodox experiments.

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An equally great performance from Susanna Burney as an ultra-butch and thoroughly detestable ward nurse who gives Louise Fletcher a run for her money in the Nurse Ratched Mental Health Caregiver Sweepstakes.

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Tons of cheap scares that make you jump out of your seat and, God help you, if you have difficulties with incontinence, you better bring along an extra pair of Depends Adult Diapers.

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A kick-ass climax and a Carrie-like shocker ending.

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One free blowjob for the Toronto International Film Festival's (TIFF) Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes for selecting the film to premiere at the venerable Hogtown celebration of celluloid and especially for getting me into the sold out midnight screening after I fucked up getting my ticket from the right place at the right time. Said blowjob shall occur once someone carves glory holes into the public washroom stalls of the new Bell Lightbox complex where TIFF is now housed. One free blowjob and rimjob for John Carpenter for making this film. Said delights for Mr. Carpenter shall occur once he finishes (I kid you not!) jury duty in El Lay (which kept him from attending the festival and doing a Q and A session).

And that, kiddies, is your Mathematics lesson for today.

Be good.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

One of the greatest movie reviews I have ever read. Greg needs to be hired by the New York Times immediately.