The Ward, John Carpenter’s final film, deserves to be reclaimed

The typical trajectory of John Carpenter movies goes something like this: mixed to negative box office, mixed to negative reviews, and a decades-later reassessment as the film in question develops a cult following. It happened with The Thing, which is now considered a horror classic. It happened with They Liveand Prince of Darkness. It’s even happened with the once-panned likes of In the Mouth of Madnessand Ghosts of Mars. But it has not, as yet, happened with Carpenter’s final film, The Ward.