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In 1966, a young woman is committed to a psychiatric ward after burning down a house.  She tries to escape a few times and fails.  She and the other inmates are stalked and killed by a scary ghost woman ... or are they?  The End.

I'm going to be up front and admit that I didn't finish this.  The movie was so bad I was barely making it in the first place.  Then they hit us over the head with the "twist", which is much, much worse than anything even M. Night Shyamalan ever shat upon an audience.  I quit watching.  I had to.  There was only a few minutes left on the clock, though, so I doubt anything could have happened to redeem the film.

John Carpenter, how could you?  Did you really need booze money that badly?

I swear I almost cried when I saw John Carpenter's name in the credits.  This movie is far, far beneath his talents, even if you judge by the worst of his older movies, like Ghosts of Mars.  Anyone could have directed this crap.  The Ward could have been made just as well as a class project by a film student.  This is one of the most lazily directed pieces of crap I've ever seen.  The extraordinary lack of effort of Carpenter's part shows in every frame of the film, from the cheap sets and locations, to the indifferent attitude toward the 1960s setting, to the casting, to the scares.  It's very depressing -- infinitely more so when you consider that this is from the director of movies like The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China, which no one could claim are indifferently made or lacking in energy!

I can only assume that Carpenter, pushing 70 and realizing that his best years were long behind him, took this for a quick paycheck because he recently renovated his house, or something, and simply couldn't bring himself to give a damn about the project.

Frankly, Mr. Carpenter you should just retire if this is the best you can bring yourself to do anymore.  Don't ruin thirty years of well-earned good reputation by doing more stuff like this.  Please.

I honestly didn't mind this one too much. I watched in Netflix a good while ago and thought it wasn't a bad way to kill an hour and a half. It is nowhere near as good as classic Carpenter flicks, but I still enjoyed it.

I also went into it expecting nothing, after reading the dismal reviews it received upon release.

I thought about this one but changed my mind.  Sounds like I did well.

Same here, kind of depressing seeing these legendary horror directors attached to these lackbuster later era works. I think Carpenter is pretty much done for (haven't seen his Masters of Horror or they good?) as he hasn't put out anything special since "In The Mouth of Madness". Too bad as at his peak he was just incredible.

He directed 2 episodes for the Masters of Horror TV series which indecently show 2 different versions of Carpenter as a filmmaker. Cigarette Burns is very well written and directed with a moving story, great characters and genuine atmosphere. Its a shame in a way that this was wasted on a 1 hour running time episode because this needed to be fleshed out into a full-feature film. The other one was called Pro-Life which was as poorly made with a ridiculous story, awful dialog and no sense of direction. Just a really bad flat episode.

The Ward was average and seemed a few years too late, as that kind of plot twist was popular around 2005/2006.
Enjoyed the "Girl, Interrupted" setting but overall its lacking that typical Carpenter feel.

I surprised how much this movie has been lambasted. I couldn't disagree more with claws. I think it has the feel of a lot of his early work. But the movie is slow paced like a 70s film and I shouldn't be surprised that in 2012 today's movie fans aren't gonna like it.