My love affair with John Carpenter is almost as long as my infatuation with the movies. Catching Escape from New York (1981) late one night on TV, I was instantly smitten with the oddball characters and brazen nihilism of the ending. For the next 15 years, I devoured his films like candy, finding both substance and superfluous delights in his furiously independent brand of science fiction, horror and fantasy. I’ve admired Carpenter himself for sticking his finger in the eye of Hollywood, the industrial machine that never really loved him despite his successes.

Then things started to go wrong, somewhere in the mid-1990’s. In spite of (or perhaps because of) the ample budgets, his work started spiraling into an embarrassing decline. Vampires (1998) was barely tolerable as B-movie camp; Ghosts of Mars (2001) was just intolerable. Yet I still want to believe that he has an ace or two up his sleeve, biding his time until he can unleash something utterly cool and subversive on an unsuspecting audience.

Sadly, The Ward isn’t it.

The only things to be gleaned from this film are: (1) Carpenter’s “cheap scares” only make old people jump or scream, (2) it is possible for a surprise twist to be neither a surprise or a twist, and (3) Amber Heard is a ridiculously photogenic young woman with great hair. Death by orbitoclast or electrocution would make anyone cringe, but were it not for out-of-place seniors in the seats beside me yelping at the simplest of horror movie trickery, I’m not sure I would have felt any vestiges of fear. The screenplay by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen is okay as a sophomore effort, yet it progresses so predictably that one immediately suspects that there is a punchline coming, and when it finally comes, you’re left waiting for another punchline that never arrives. So I found myself staring at Heard’s hair, wondering how the stylist got it to look so twisty, almost like dreadlocks…

…which sounds incredibly glib and disrespectful — my apologies, Mr. Carpenter — however, disappointment will bring that out in people. Creepy goings on at a psych ward is a horror movie cliche rooted in archaic, ignorant ideas about mental illness. Shutter Island explored the same territory this year more effectively, generating fear and dread without the need for a snarling monster or loud musical jolts. The actors aren’t bad and the direction is professional; yet Carpenter could do this in his sleep. I truly hope that he finds his creative fire once again. Without it, a love affair can only last for so long.