122 - The Ward

    A girl is committed to a psych ward, although she can't remember why, and she doesn't get any answers.  She's in an area with a handful of other girls.  There seems to be a malevolent ghost haunting, and attacking, the patients.
    This was a pretty recent movie from John Carpenter, which is noteworthy, since he hasn't done much for the last ten years or so.  To be honest, I've seen a decent amount of his work, and most of it is very fun.  Then some of it is really pretty boring.  For some reason, I've never been able to sit through Prince of Darkness.  But I was impressed with his direction on this one.  It was atmospheric, and he managed the suspense nicely.  His direction didn't betray the ending, which is an important point.
    Even when the story reached the point where the audience understands there's been a reveal, I was still misdirected.  I really thought the ending was going to involve it turning out that the doctor is actually running a massive experiment on all of the inmates.
    The ending is bound to bother some people, and at first, I felt like it was a bit of a cop-out.  Then there's a last scare before the credits, which re-writes our interpretation of the ending.
    It's a good movie, and I think if it were released during the 70s or 80s, it would have just as much of a cult following as any of Carpenter's works.