The word horror film

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The Ward
Film poster
Directed by	John Carpenter
Written by	Michael Rasmussen Shawn Rasmussen
Produced by	Doug Mankoff Peter Block Mike Marcus Andrew Spaulding
Starring	Amber Heard Mamie Gummer Danielle Panabaker Laura-Leigh Lyndsy Fonseca Mika Boorem Jared Harris
Cinematography	Yaron Orbach
Edited by	Patrick McMahon
Music by	Mark Kilian The Newbeats
Production companies	Echo Lake Entertainment[1] A Bigger Boat[1]
Distributed by	ARC Entertainment[2] XLrator Media[2]
Release dates	September 13, 2010 (Toronto Film Festival) July 8, 2011 (United States)
Running time	99 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10 million[3]
Box office	$5.3 million[4]

The Ward (titled onscreen as John Carpenter’s The Ward) is a 2010 American supernatural psychological horror film directed by John Carpenter and starring Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Laura-Leigh, Lyndsy Fonseca and Jared Harris.^[5] Set in 1966, the film chronicles a young woman who is institutionalized after setting fire to a house, and who finds herself haunted by the ghost of a former inmate at the psychiatric ward.^[6][7] As of 2023, this is Carpenter’s most recent film as a director.

The film was shot on location at the Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake, Washington.^[8][9]

Plot[edit]

In rural Oregon, at the Coos Bay Psychiatric Hospital in 1966, a young patient named Tammy is killed by an unseen force at night.

Kristen (Amber Heard), a troubled young woman, sets fire to an abandoned farmhouse and is arrested. The local police take her to Coos Bay, where she meets the other patients in the ward: artistic Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca), seductive Sarah (Danielle Panabaker), wild Emily (Mamie Gummer), and child-like Zoey (Laura-Leigh). Kristen is taken to a room previously occupied by their friend, Tammy, and meets therapist, Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris). She reveals that she is unable to recall anything about her past. She is attacked by a horribly deformed figure that had been staring at her earlier, but upon telling the nurse this, she is drugged and put through intense electroshock therapy.

Dr. Stringer uses hypnotherapy to unlock Iris’s hidden memories. After the session, Iris is killed by transorbital lobotomy by the deformed figure. Kristen finds Iris’ sketch of her attacker with the name ‘Alice Hudson’, a former patient at the hospital. That night, Kristen and Emily attempt to find Iris and escape. However, Kristen is thwarted by Alice, and loses consciousness while Emily is caught.

Sarah is killed by Alice. Kristen discovers that all of the girls had killed Alice together because Alice constantly hurt them. Now she is after the girls for revenge. Kristen tries to talk Emily down from attempting suicide but Alice kills her by slitting her throat with a scalpel. Kristen plans to escape again by holding Zoey as a pretend hostage but is drugged and placed in a straitjacket. She escapes it and she and Zoey try to get out. Zoey is killed by Alice off-screen. After a lengthy chase, Kristen seemingly manages to destroy Alice. She finds Alice’s file in Dr. Stringer’s office, which has each of the girls’ names, including Kristen herself.

Dr. Stringer, catching her in his office, reveals that Kristen is actually one of many personalities of the real Alice Hudson, who was kidnapped at age eleven, eight years earlier, and left chained for two months in the basement of the same farmhouse Kristen burned down. In order to survive the trauma, she developed Dissociative Identity Disorder, creating each one of the girls from the ward as a different personality. Over time, Alice’s own personality became so overwhelmed by the others that she became lost. Dr. Stringer attempted experimental techniques to bring Alice’s own personality back, resulting in the manifestation of Ghost Alice, who destroyed the individual personalities one by one. Her treatments were working until ‘Kristen’ appeared, as an attempt of Alice’s mind to protect the other personalities so she wouldn’t need to face her trauma.

At the end of the movie, Alice packs a suitcase with her belonging as she prepares to leave the hospital. When she opens the medicine cabinet above her sink, Kristen lunges out at her.

Cast[edit]

• Amber Heard as Kristen, the main protagonist. A girl with no memories of her life but the strong belief that she is not crazy. She feels the constant need to escape the ward no matter the cost. She is the first in noticing the other girls are disappearing and that a vengeful ghost might be the one behind it.^[10]
• Mamie Gummer as Emily. She is tough and free-spirited but also the one who mostly acts in wild, insane manner, annoys the other patients, and calls everyone crazy, which often starts conflict among girls especially between her and Sarah. Initially, she tries to intimidate and scare Kristen, but eventually, Kristen’s strength makes her admire her. She hides a guilty feeling inside her though it seems unlikely she will open to it.
• Danielle Panabaker as Sarah, a vain, beautiful redhead and the flirtatious one of the group. She flirts with a male nurse but is turned down because she is a mental patient. She often puts down the other girls through her snobbish and snooty disposition.^[11]
• Laura-Leigh as Zoey, a girl who has suffered emotional trauma so severe that she keeps acting and dressing like a little girl. She carries around a stuffed rabbit everywhere she goes. She seems oppressed by the others due to her instant trust in Kristen.
• Lyndsy Fonseca as Iris, artistically talented and prim and proper, she is the first of the girls in befriending Kristen. She is nice and kind to everyone. She also carries a sketchbook where she likes to draw. She seems to be the most aware of their situation in the ward since she explains to Kristen everything about their seclusion.^[12]
• Mika Boorem as Alice, a girl who used to be a patient at the ward but is nowhere to be found anymore. Kristen tries to find out what happened to her during her time at the Ward.
• Jared Harris as Dr. Stringer, the girls’ psychiatrist. He seems hopeful in curing Kristen, though his real intentions seem mysterious the whole time.^[13]
• Sydney Sweeney as Young Alice, a young girl who Kristen sees in flashbacks, both hands chained in a cellar. Nothing is really explained about her in the beginning.^[14]
• Dan Anderson as Roy, the chief orderly at the ward. Serious and unpredictable, tries to maintain order inside the ward. He is the main target of Sarah’s flirting.
• Susanna Burney as Nurse Lundt, the chief nurse at the ward. Tends to consider Kristen a loose end, and constantly tries to act without the authority of Dr. Stringer.
• Sali Sayler as Tammy, a girl who disappears from the ward unexpectedly. Her disappearance upsets the other girls. Her empty room is later occupied by Kristen. She is the mastermind behind Alice’s «death» at the hands of the girls.
• Mark Chamberlin as Mr. Hudson, the sad man (as Emily describes him and his wife). They constantly visit the ward and are often seen watching the girls from a window.
• Jillian Kramer as Monster Alice, the ghost responsible for the disappearances. Using surgical tools as torture means on her victims. Not much is clear about her other than the fact that she is getting rid of the girls one by one.

Production[edit]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2014)

The film marks a return for Carpenter after a ten-year hiatus of not making any films; his last was the 2001 film Ghosts of Mars.^{[15][dead link]} According to Carpenter, «I was burned out…I had fallen out of love with cinematic storytelling».^[15] Despite this, in the meantime he had done two episodes for the anthology TV show Masters of Horror. Carpenter said that the series reminded him of why he fell in love with the craft in the first place.^{[15][dead link]} Carpenter said that the script «came along at the right time for me»,^[16] and he was particularly fascinated by how the film took place within a single location.^[16]

The film was shot on location in Spokane, Washington, and at the Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake, Washington.^[9] The film was shot at a real operating mental hospital, and the crew was caged in to prevent patients from intervening.^[16]

Release[edit]

The first footage revealed from the film was on French channel Canal+.^[17] The film premiered on September 13 at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.^[18] The Ward was released in the UK on January 21, 2011.^[19] After its debut in a handful of film festivals in late 2010, The Ward was released in a few US theatres on July 8, 2011, where it grossed $7,760. The worldwide gross was $5.3 million.^[4] It was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the US on August 16, 2011,^[20] and in the UK on October 17, 2011.^[21]

Reception[edit]

The Ward received generally negative reviews.^[22] Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 33% of 72 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 4.5/10. The site’s consensus states: «Lacking the hallmarks of his best work, The Ward proves to be a disappointingly mundane swan song for director John Carpenter.»^[23] Metacritic rated it 38/100 based on 18 reviews.^[24]

Dennis Harvey of Variety wrote, «As usual Carpenter uses the widescreen frame with aplomb, but pic suffers from too little character detailing (even if a late twist explains that), rote scares, and emphasis on a hectic pace over atmosphere.»^[25] Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter called it «an atmospheric supernatural thriller that has been stripped of the filmmaker’s later excesses».^[26] Tim Grierson of Screen International wrote, «Tight as a drum and plenty of fun, John Carpenter’s first film in nine years is hardly a groundbreaker, but when the execution is this expert, why complain?»^[27] Film Journal International wrote, «Genre veteran John Carpenter’s sleekly professional ghost story is well-acted and directed but sadly derivative. Horror fans have seen it all before.»^[28] The Guardian’s Phelim O’Neill also considered the film to be unoriginal, but nevertheless «a well-made film, with some finely crafted shocks»^[29]

Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times wrote that the film «continues the painful decline of a director who seems more nostalgic for past glories than excited about new ideas».^[9] Robert Abele of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film «feels like a foot-wetting exercise rather than a full-bodied romp in familiar waters».^[30] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly rated it B− and wrote, «While he does bring his trademark craftsmanship to this snake-pit mental-asylum thriller, the picture has too many old-movie bits rattling around in it.»^[31] Adam Nayman of Fangoria wrote, «The problem with The Ward is not so much its lack of style as the fact that the director doesn’t seem to have much interest in the material».^[32] David Harley of Bloody Disgusting rated it 1/5 stars and wrote, «If someone other than Carpenter had been at the helm of The Ward, then no one would be talking about it.»^[33] Serena Whitney of Dread Central rated it 3.5/5 stars and wrote, «John Carpenter’s The Ward is a mediocre thriller that lacks any true original scares and blatantly rips off a twist ending from a far better film.»^[34]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Interviews:

• Radish, Christina (June 8, 2011). «Exclusive: Director John Carpenter Talks THE WARD and His Thoughts on Hollywood Remaking His Films». Collider. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
• Radish, Christina (September 11, 2010). «John Carpenter Exclusive Interview THE WARD». Collider. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
• Eggertsen, Chris (June 3, 2011). «Interview with ‘The Ward’ Director John Carpenter». Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
• Nemiroff, Perri (July 6, 2011). «Interview: The Ward’s Lyndsy Fonseca». Cinema Blend. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
• Radish, Christina (June 7, 2011). «Amber Heard Talks THE WARD and NBC’s THE PLAYBOY CLUB». Collider. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
• Zinoman, Jason (June 24, 2011). «A Lord of Fright Reclaims His Dark Domain». The New York Times. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
• Bibbiani, William (July 5, 2011). «Interview: John Carpenter on ‘The Ward’«. CraveOnline. Retrieved April 22, 2015.

External links[edit]

Terrifying people through stories? It’s been a pastime of we humans since antiquity, with a large swathe of folklore centered around things that go bump in the night (particularly supernatural goings-on or anything related to—and exploiting—our innate fear of death.) With such a strong precedent in literature and oral history, it’s no surprise that the first horror movie was quick to get its feet under the table soon after the advent of cinema.

The First Horror Movie: What Was It?

Over the course of a century, film horror has gone through many peaks and troughs, leading us into the somewhat contentious period we find ourselves in today. The history of horror as a film genre begins with—as with many things in cinema history—the works of George Mellies.

Just a few years after the first filmmakers emerged in the mid-1890s, Mellies created “Le Manoir du Diable,” sometimes known in English as “The Haunted Castle” or “ The House of the Devil,” in 1898, and it is widely believed to be the first horror movie. The three-minute film is complete with cauldrons, animated skeletons, ghosts, transforming bats, and, ultimately, an incarnation of the Devil. While not intended to be scary—more wondrous, as was Mellies’ MO—it was the first example of a film (only just rediscovered in 1977) to include the supernatural and set a precedent for what was to come. Where the genre will go over the next hundred years is anyone’s guess, but sometimes it’s good to look back on the long road we’ve traveled to get to this point.

The Literary Years

After the first horror movie, sometime between 1900 and 1920, an influx of supernatural-themed films followed. Many filmmakers—most of whom still trying to find their feet with the new genre—turn to literature classics as source material. The first adaptation of Frankenstein was released by Edison Studios in these early days, as well as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Werewolf (now both lost to the fog of time.) Things were starting to roll at this point as we moved into…

The Golden Age of Horror

Widely considered to be the finest era of the genre, the two decades between the 1920s and 30s saw many classics being produced and can be neatly divided down the middle to create a separation between the silent classics and the talkies.

On the silent side of the line, you’ve got monumental titles such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), the first movies to really make an attempt to unsettle their audience. The latter title is one of Rotten Tomatoes’ best horror movies of all time and cements just about every surviving vampire cliché in the book.

Once the silent era gave way to the technological process, we had a glut of incredible movies that paved the way for generations to come, particularly in the field of monster movies – think the second iteration of Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932) and the first color adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931).

The 30s also marked the first time that the word “horror” was used to describe the genre—previously, it was really just romance melodrama with a dark element—and it also saw the first horror “stars” being born. Bella Lugosi (of Dracula fame) was arguably the first to specialize solely in the genre.

And as well as unnerving its viewers, the genre was starting to worry the general public at this point, with heavy censoring and public outcry becoming common with each release. Freaks (1932) is a good example of a movie that was so shocking at the time it got cut extensively, with the original version now nowhere to be found. Director Tod Browning—who had previously created the aforementioned and wildly successful Dracula—saw his career flounder at the hands of the controversy.

The shock value of Freaks is one of the few that has aged well up until the present day and is still a highly disturbing watch.

The Atomic Years

Freaks were banned for thirty years in the country that really came into its own during this period: Great Britain.

The Hammer horror company, while founded in 1934, only started to turn prolific during the fifties, but when it did, it was near global dominance (thanks to a lucrative distribution deal with Warner and a few other U.S. studios). Once again, it was adaptations like Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Mummy that put the company squarely on the map, followed up by a slew of psychological thrillers and TV shows.

And, of course, you can’t mention British horror without paying respects to Alfred Hitchcock, singlehandedly responsible for establishing the slasher genre, which we’ll see a lot of as we travel further forward in time.

Another hallmark of the 40s-50s era of horror came as a product of the times. With war ravaging Europe and fears of nuclear fallout running rampant, it’s of little surprise that horror began to feature antagonists that were less supernatural in nature—radioactive mutation became a common theme (The Incredible Shrinking Man, Godzilla), as did the fear of invasion with The War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide, both big hits in 1953.

The latter marked the earliest rumblings of the “disaster” movie genre, but it would be a couple more decades before that would get into full swing.

The Gimmicky Years

3D glasses? Electric buzzers installed into theatre seats? Paid stooges in the audience screaming and pretending to faint? Everything and anything was tried during the 50s and 60s in an attempt to further scare cinema audiences. This penchant for interactivity spilled over into other genres during the period but quickly died down in part due to the massive amount of expense involved. For horror, in particular, this gave way to the opposite end of the spectrum: incredibly low-budget productions.

From the late 60s onwards, so insatiable was the American appetite for gore that slasher films produced for well under $1 million took hold and were churned out by volume. That’s not to say that there weren’t some masterpieces produced during this time, though; George A. Romero emerged triumphant and kickstarted zombie movies in this period, having produced Night of the Living Dead in 1968 with just over $100k. It went on to gross $30 million, and the living dead rose in its wake.

All Hell Breaks Loose 

Occult was the flavor of the day between the 70s and 80s, particularly when it came to houses and kids being possessed by the Devil. The reason for this cultural obsession with religious evil during this period could fill an entire article on its own, but bringing it back into the cinema realm, we can boil the trend down to two horror milestones: The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976). Supernatural horror was now very much back in vogue, and harking back to its cinematic origins, literature once again became the source material. This time, however, it wasn’t a Victorian author whose work had fallen out of copyright but a gentleman named Stephen King.

Carrie (1976) stormed the gates, and The Shining (1980) finished the siege (with 1982’s supernatural frightfest Poltergeist following soon afterward). With these hallmarks in the history of horror now firmly established, the foundations were laid for…

The First Horror Movie Slashers

If there’s one trope that typifies the 80s, it’s the slasher format – a relentless antagonist hunting down and killing a bunch of kids in ever-increasing inventive ways, one by one. Arguably kicked off by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 1974, the output became prolific over the next decade. For every ten generic slashers, however, there was one flick that would end up becoming a cult classic even if critical success was mixed at the time—Halloween, Friday the 13^th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street are the most prominent examples, which became so successful that they spawned their own long-running franchises (the first time in the history of the genre that multiple sequels became commonplace.)

Plenty of imitators and rip-offs followed, too, particularly in the Holiday-themed department. Some were a lot better than others as the genre descended to its most kitschy. Similar to the first horror movie, these films were not intended to scare but to entertain.

The Doldrums

Suffering from exhaustion in the wake of a thousand formulaic slasher movies and their sequels, the genre lost steam as it moved into the 90s. The advent of computer-generated special effects brought with it a number of lackluster CGI monster titles that did little to revive the genre, such as Anaconda (1997) and Deep Rising (1998). But it was a comedy that ended up saving the day. Peter Jackson’s early foray into filmmaking saw him taking the splatter subgenre to ridiculous extremes with Braindead (1992), and Wes Craven’s slasher parody Scream (1996) was met globally with overwhelming success.

The genre as a whole limped on without much fanfare into the 2000s save for a few box office successes. The zombie subgenre, however, sprang back into un-life during this decade, arguably spurred on by the unprecedented success of Max Brook’s novel World War Z (later becoming a film in its own right.) The video game adaptation of Resident Evil (2002) was among the first of the new wave, followed swiftly by 28 Days Later a few months later, Dawn of the Dead (2004), Land of the Dead (2005), I Am Legend (2007) and Zombieland (2009.)

The Present Day 

The state of the horror industry is hotly contested. With the genre seemingly relying on churning out remakes, reboots, and endless sequels, many argue that it’s languishing in the doldrums once again with little originality to offer a modern audience. The resurgence of ‘torture porn’ is also derided as a subgenre, having come back into the fore in the wake of the 2000s Saw and Hostel franchises with no signs of slowing down.

On the other hand, glimmers of hope shine through with examples of extreme originality and artistry. Cabin in the Woods (2012) has been heralded as this decade’s Scream, and the recent releases of The Babadook and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (both 2014) breathed new life into the genre. Jordan Peele, writer, producer, and actor, rose as the new king of horror with original films, including Get Out (2017), Us (2019), and Nope (2022), which top Rotten Tomatoes’ best horror movie list. While scary, the films are also smart and provide sociopolitical commentary, as Peele explained in an interview with Time Magazine. NYFA Alum Tracy Oliver is a co-writer of the 2022 film The Blackening, a movie that makes fun of horror clichés but also calls out racial stereotypes. Both films, similar to the first horror film and a variety of others in the history of horror, don’t have the main goal of scaring the audience.

The Future of Horror Films

With perhaps more subgenres than any other branch of fictional filmmaking, it’s difficult to see how anyone can expand or advance on anything that has come before in cinematic horror. However, there’s no doubt somebody will, and that motivated and imaginative film school students become the Alfred Hitchcocks of tomorrow.

A horror film may make your hair stand on end, but, in an unusually perfect example of etymological symmetry, the idea of hair standing on end is literally the origin of the word horror.

Once you pass all those rules, you’re granted access to the McKamey Manor which the website says it «is an audience participation event in which (YOU) will live your own Horror Movie.»
Each tour is different and is based on the attendee’s personal fears and could last up to 10 hours. The waiver process alone is three to four hours, according to the website.
— Natalie Dreier, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 23 Oct. 2019

Origin of Horror

Horror came into English through the French spoken in Britain in the 13th and 14th centuries, and ultimately comes from Latin. Like valor, color, honor, and humor, it’s spelled the same way in English as it is in Latin (these words were re-Latinized in modern American English from a variety of French and Middle English spellings). Horror derives from the verb horrēre, which had several meanings:

to stand up, to bristle

to have a rough, unkempt appearance

to shudder, to shiver (with cold)

to tremble (with fear)

The “bristle” sense became the basis for the original meaning of the Latin noun horror: “the action or quality (in hair) of rising or standing stiffly, bristling” (according to the Oxford Latin Dictionary). Bristling from cold or fear—shuddering or shivering—led to the development of the meaning “a quality or condition inspiring horror” or “a thing which brings terror.” The symptom became the cause.

The “shuddering” or “shivering” senses of horror were in use into the 20th century. In the 1934 Webster’s Second Unabridged, a medical sense of horror was defined as:

A shaking, shivering, or shuddering, as in the cold fit which precedes a fever; in old medical writings, a chill of less severity than a rigor, and more marked than an algor.

And the 1961 edition, Webster’s Third Unabridged, added a specific sense for the plural form horrors as a synonym of delirium tremens: “a violent delirium with tremors.”

The physical appearance of hair standing on end led to the other intermediate meaning between “bristling” and “bringing terror”: “roughness of appearance.” This became an early meaning of horror in English, a meaning shared with another descendant of horrēre, horrid, which originally meant “rough” or “bristling,” meanings that are now archaic. It was used with this meaning in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, from 1621:

And therefore Seneca adviseth his friend Lucilius, “in his attire and gesture, outward actions, especially to avoid all such things as are more notable in themselves: as a rugged attire, hirsute head, horrid beard, contempt of money, coarse lodging, and whatsoever leads to fame that opposite way.”

Words Derived From Horror

Both horrendous and horrific, like horrid, came into English in the 16th and 17th centuries, by which time horror had come to principally mean “a very strong feeling of fear, dread, or shock” and mostly drifted away from any hairy, bristly, or shivering notions. Perhaps to fill this lexical gap, another related word was borrowed from Latin at this time: hirsūtus, meaning “hairy” and “bristly,” and became hirsute in English. The fact that horrēre meant “to bristle” and hirsūtus meant “covered with bristles” is most likely not a coincidence, since they probably come from the same Indo-European root, a verb meaning “to be stiff, to bristle,” though no written record goes back that far.

All of which is to say that, the next time you tremble with fear, there’s an etymological reason that you’re in a hairy situation.

Why are humans drawn to the horror genre? From books to film, we can’t seem to get enough of what scares us most. In this article, we will look at the definition of horror and why we enjoy the genre so much. We will also look at a brief history of American cinema and how horror has evolved over the years. While this article will provide a general definition of horror, the genre is open to interpretation. After all, what is horror to you, is Child’s Play to me.

Watch: What Makes a Great Jump Scare?

A History of Horror Movies 1896-2018

The Horror Genre and Cultural Fears

Frankenstein Disclaimer

What is Horror? Dracula (1931)

History of the Horror Genre  •  Monster Movies

What is Horror? War of the Worlds (1953)

Watch Night of the Living Dead in its entirety

What is Horror? Halloween (1976)

What is Horror? Scream (1996)

Horror Sub-genres  •  Found Footage

Horror Sub-genres  •  Zombies

How Ari Aster Uses the Background  •  Subscribe on YouTube