The Ward

At the start of the movie, a girl named Kristen sets fire to an abandoned farmhouse. Two local policemen saw this and brought her to a psychiatric hospital. Kristen met other patients in the ward: Iris, Emily, Sarah, and Zoey. Iris is artistically talented and always brings her sketchbook with her. Emily is tough and free- spirited but she acts insanely and would sometimes annoy the other patients. Sarah is the flirtatious one in the group. She flirts with male nurses assigned in the ward. Last is Zoey who is suffering from emotional trauma and is regressed. She dressed and acts like a little girl. She always carries a rabbit stuff toy with her. Kristen is assigned to a room that once belong to Tammy. On her first night in her room, she wakes to find someone—or something –has stolen her blanket in the night.

At first, she thinks it was one of the orderlies or the other girls, but when she starts seeing glimpses of a horribly disfigured girl over the next few days and then she is attacked by that same girl in the shower, she becomes convinced that the ward is haunted by the ghost of a past patient (Megwood.com). during a session with Dr. Stringer, iris mentions Tammy but is then immediately halted by the doctor. After the session, Iris is attacked by the disfigured girl in the basement and then murdered. On the other hand, Kristen noticed that Iris is nowhere to be found. She finds Iris’ sketchbook and looks through all of the drawings to find a picture of a girl named Alice Hudson and another picture of the ghostly figure that had attacked her previously. Kristen confronts Dr. Stringer and tried to convince him that the ghost of Alice Hudson is haunting the girls.

The doctor denies the existence of a ghost and cryptically tells her that she needs to find the answers out for herself. Kristen also confronts the girls and then found out that Alice was once a patient of the hospital but she got out. That night, despite Sarah and Zoey’s warning that it is nearly impossible to escape, Kristen, together with Emily, still attempted to find Iris and would then escape. However, their escape is discovered and the alarm is triggered. Kristen made it to the front entrance of the hospital but Alice’s ghost appears in front of her, causing her to fall over in fright. She was rendered unconscious and reawakens in her room. On her way to her appointment with Dr. Stringer, Sarah flirted with a nurse, but is rejected. She goes to the other girls and asks Kristen of her plan and after bickering with Emily, she walked out. Sarah found out that she was followed by someone. She tries to run and escape, but to no avail, she was caught by Alice’s ghost and got electrocuted.

Kristen noticed that Sarah went missing. She suspects that Zoey and Emily know something about why the ghost is killing them one by one. At first, Emily hesitated but after several provocations, Zoey finally blurted out that all of them killed Alice, led by Tammy. Zoey is again haunted by her conscience and told Kristen the whole story. They killed Alice because she is so cruel and the girls can’t stand her attitude any longer. That is why they agreed with each other and decided to kill her. They think she is after them to take revenge. Emily broke down thinking that she is doomed and attempted to commit suicide. Kristen tries to stop her but Alice’s ghost appeared and somewhat helped her kill herself by slashing her throat. Kristen freaked out and planned a final attempt to escape by holding Zoey as a pretend hostage. But, their escape was thwarted by a male nurse and they drugged Kristen and put her in a straightjacket. Nonetheless, she managed to escape and took Zoey with her.

In her attempt to save Zoey, she puts her in a service lift. Unluckily, Zoey was caught by the ghost and got killed. Kristen came face to face with the ghost and defeated it. She then finds Zoey and came up in a room which is Dr. Stringer’s office. She found Alice Hudson’s file, which details her treatment and all of the girls’ names, including Kristen’s. Dr. Stringer enters and then reveals the truth: Kristen is the real Alice Hudson. Throughout the film, various flashbacks are shown of a young girl in chains, about to be sexually abused by an unknown man. The girl in the flashbacks is Alice herself, who was kidnapped from her home eight years ago. Alice was left chained up for two months in the basement of the same farmhouse “Kristen” had burned down; in order to survive the past torture, she created different personalities.

Alice is suffering from multiple personality disorder, creating Tammy, Zoey, Sarah, Iris and Emily. Over time, Alice’s own personality became so overwhelmed by that of the others that she became lost. Through experimental techniques, Dr. Stringer had the ghost “Alice” killing the other personalities one by one until only her original personality remained. He explains that her treatments were working until “Kristen” appeared, yet another invention of Alice’s mind to protect itself from reliving the trauma at the farmhouse. After this revelation, Alice’s ghost appears and throws herself and “Kristen” out of the window, reawakening Alice. Alice’s parents, whom she had seen earlier in Dr. Stringer’s office, come to take her home because she is finally fully treated. After gathering her belongings, Alice takes one last look around her room. Upon opening her cabinet, “Kristen” suddenly comes out and attacks her, and the camera cuts to black.

The mental disorder present in the film is multiple personality disorder. It is a psychological disorder, typically associated with childhood trauma, in which somebody appears to have two or more distinct personalities that are present that are present at different times and dominate behavior. Each personality (including her own) took a piece of her nightmare and repressed them by locking them away from her, for her own protection. However as they became more dominant, they completely overwhelmed Alice’s own personality making her stressed, confused and suffocated (that’s how Alice’s own personality died). It is accurately represented because the personalities formed by Alice are different unconscious personalities that have split up for her to be protected