FRIDAY THE 13TH's Danielle Panabaker checks into Carpenter's WARD

Principal photography is set to begin in July on John Carpetenter's first movie in eight years, his psychological thriller The Ward, set in a mental institution where a young woman is haunted by a mysterious and deadly ghost. We've known for a while that one of Hollywood's biggest young starlets Amber Heard will lead as Kirsten and now according to The Hollywood Reporter, another "scream queen", Friday the 13th's Danielle Panabaker will co-star. She will play a fellow patient, but a flirty one who faces electroshock therapy. The legendary John Carpenter will direct his first film since 2001's Ghost of Mars, based on a script by rookie scribes Michael and Shawn Rasmussen (with revisions by Jim Agnew and Sean Keller who wrote Carpenter's so far undeveloped L.A. Gothic) at Echo Lake Entertainment and A Bigger Boat. EIGHT long years since Carpenter made a movie... and in truth it's been a long longer since that he actually made something worthwhile. But I like the sound of this one, it's very classic Carpenter and will have that spine-tingling claustrophobia that he can project show well. Fingers crossed on this one, the recent glorious return of Sam Raimi to the genre fills me with hope that Carpenter can do the same.