After a leaked sneak peak at the UK trailer for John Carpenter's The Ward, the entire official trailer has hit. Between this trailer and the one for Sucker Punch, I've already learned an important lesson for 2011: The best place to meet beautiful women is not the park, the mall or a bar, but actually at a mental institution. I had no idea that asylums reserved exclusively for pretty, scantly-clad women existed until now. Thanks Hollywood! This news of course begs the question: Which of these all-female mental institutions is the best?
I'm not sure how many other institutions like these, so let's just way the pro's and con's of the two presented in these trailers for now.
The Patients
The Ward's institution includes Amber Heard and a number of other young, attractive actresses I'm not familiar with. Sucker Punch's nuthouse contains Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and more.
Advantage: If we are going for the male perspective, I guess the win goes to Sucker Punch, since Amber Heard prefers women? This category could totally could change based on your own gender and sexual orientation. Still, Abbie Cornish should be treasured by pretty much everyone. Sucker Punch wins, but barely.
The Environment
Sucker Punch mostly takes place in an alternate reality where all of the patients kill robots, men and dragons with machine guns. Except it looks like that the alternate reality merges with actual reality, which makes me feel somewhat unsafe since I am a man. The Ward doesn't look too safe either, since ghosts show up in the shower and at some point start weilding sharp instruments. Hmm.
Advantage: Sucker Punch gets the edge again since at least girls get to weild guns and do backflips. It doesn't look like anyone wins in The Ward.
Quality of Film (based on trailer)
Again, the buzz for Carpenter's film hasn't been great, and indeed the first half of this trailer is much better than the second half. As the trailer progresses, the visuals get more muddled and the jump-scares get more plentiful. Bad sign. On the other hand, even his not-great films are more fun than most directors' best work. Sure, there's a lot to criticize about Ghosts of Mars, but where else are you going to see Ice Cube and Natasha Henstridge team up to fight space zombies that speak gibberish? Also, I thought Sucker Punch looked mostly unwatchable.
Advantage: The Ward