Title: John Carpenter’s The Ward Directed by: John Carpenter Starring: Amber Heard, Lyndsy Fonseca and Jared Harris Running time: 88 minutes, Rated R, available on standard DVD After burning down a farmhouse in 1966, Kristen is brought to the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital in Oregon. She meets with several same-age institutionalized girls who are being treated by Dr Gerald Stringer. While taking a shower, she is attacked by a girl whom she reveals is named Alice, a former patient who had mysteriously disappeared. Soon the other girls begin to disappear or wind up murdered by a misused therapy device. Kristin is on a mission to escape the mental ward or…

Title: The Ward Director: John Carpenter Starring: Amber Heard, Danielle Panabaker (‘Friday the 13th [2009],’ ‘The Crazies [2010]‘), Jared Harris (TV’s ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Fringe’) Trying to find a way back to where you came from is a recurring theme in the new Echo Lake Entertainment horror-thriller ‘The Ward.’ The film, which is horror legend John Carpenter’s first directorial effort in a decade, follows a troubled young woman who’s trying to remember what happened to her that lead to her being checked into a psychiatric hospital. ‘The Ward’ also disappointingly fails to live up to the director’s famous use of distinctive scare tactics, relatable characters and an interesting storyline. ‘The Ward’…

Are you a big fan of Halloween and The Thing? How about John Carpenter, for that matter? In honor of the release of his latest, The Ward, Carpenter will hold a Q&A session live on Twitter tomorrow, July 8th, via @ARC_Entertain. The event will go down from 2:00 to 3:30pm PST and will feature tweet replies as well as some video messages. Carpenter’s The Ward focuses on Kristen (Amber Heard), a young woman thrown into a mental institution. There she meets the other residents, Emily, Sarah, Zoey and Iris (Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Laura-Leigh and Lyndsy Fonseca), some of whom have hopes to get out while, deep down, others know…

Danielle Panabaker is easily becoming one of my favorite actresses to interview, not just because she’s a nice and insightful person to talk to, but also because she tends to work on the kind of films I’m drawn to – horror films. And not just any horrors film, rather, pieces that offer a fun kind of scare. Back in 2009 she starred in the remake of Friday the 13th and then, last year, in one of my favorite films of 2010, The Crazies, and now she’s in John Carpenter’s The Ward. Panabaker plays Sarah, one of four patients Kristen (Amber Heard) meets when she’s unwillingly admitted to the North Bend…

Stay out of the water because come November 23rd, the man-eating piranha of Lake Victoria are back, this time, terrorizing a water park. Shockya recently had the opportunity to speak with Danielle Panabaker about her upcoming film, The Ward, but before wrapping up, she took the time to touch on the Piranha 3D sequel, Piranha 3DD. “We actually wrapped a couple weeks ago. It was a really quick shoot,” Panabaker explained. “I want to say, I was probably only there a month or so, maybe five weeks.” Of course a short shoot for an actress in a horror film doesn’t exactly bode well for the character’s lifespan, but Panabaker politely…

Happy Sunday Shockya readers and happy Mother’s Day to all of the loving mothers out there. We’re back with a brand new installment of your weekly Movie News Cheat Sheet and we’ve got some big items to report. Not only is Paul W.S. Anderson putting together a historic disaster film, but the cast of Piranha 3DD is getting bigger and bigger and prettier and prettier. We’ve also got a handful of brand new trailers to show you, one of which proves Zoe Salanda still kicks butt even off Pandora and another that suggests Conan might just be more of the same. Meanwhile Thor is tearing up the box office and…

As a followup to the new movie trailer, Echo Lake Productions and North by Northwest Entertainment just released the official movie poster for the upcoming horror film “John Carpenter’s The Ward” by director John Carpenter (Escape from L.A., Vampires, They Live) and starring Amber Heard (The Rum Diary, Drive Angry 3D, Pineapple Express, Zombie Land), Lyndsy Fonseca (Nikita, Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall, Hot Tub Time Machine), Danielle Panabaker (The Crazies, Friday the 13th), Jared Harris (Sherlock Holmes 2, Mad Men), Mika Boorem (Ghost Whisperer, House M.D.) and Mamie Gummer (Twelve Thirty, The Good Wife). Synopsis: A thriller centered on an institutionalized young woman who becomes terrorized by a…

Echo Lake Productions and North by Northwest Entertainment just released the first official movie trailer for the upcoming horror film “John Carpenter’s The Ward” by director John Carpenter (Escape from L.A., Vampires, They Live) and starring Amber Heard (The Rum Diary, Drive Angry 3D, Pineapple Express, Zombie Land), Lyndsy Fonseca (Nikita, Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall, Hot Tub Time Machine), Danielle Panabaker (The Crazies, Friday the 13th), Jared Harris (Sherlock Holmes 2, Mad Men), Mika Boorem (Ghost Whisperer, House M.D.) and Mamie Gummer (Twelve Thirty, The Good Wife). Synopsis: A thriller centered on an institutionalized young woman who becomes terrorized by a ghost. Stay tuned to Shockya.com for the…

Getting the opportunity to talk to a director who created a film you absolutely love is a frustrating double-edged sword. You’re thrilled to have the opportunity to chat, but there isn’t nearly enough time to squeeze in every question. This is the fortunate/unfortunate case with Breck Eisner. He’s the man behind the remake of George A. Romero’s The Crazies. After a slew of poorly made and blood drenched reboots, it’s fantastic to experience something so refreshingly original that still manages to pay homage to the source material. Even if you’ve watched Romero’s 1973 original, Eisner’s film is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. When an experimental biological weapon called Trixie…

Title: The Crazies Directed By: Breck Eisner Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker If any horror movie deserves a reboot, it’s George A. Romero’s The Crazies. The premise is still intriguing, but the execution is dated leaving room for improvement. Nowadays, this type of improvement comes in the form of ultra bloody horror reboots that desperately try to one up each other by having the most brutal kill scenes. Rather than rely on sheer gore, The Crazies mixes charming characters, suspense and disturbing behavior to provide a well-crafted and downright horrifying experience. Everything seems normal in the quaint town of Ogden Marsh. Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant)…