Ward 13 - An animated thrill ride by Peter Cornwell


	The Doctor and crew prepare to operate on Ben, who has other ideas

What price would you put on your health?
Ben is about to find out... WARD 13's newest admission faces medical attention of an unwanted kind — and no apples will keep these doctors away.

After a car accident, Ben wakes up in hospital. Not knowing where he is or what is going on, he starts exploring the corridors...only to find that the staff don't have his health in mind! The hapless patient must pull himself together and do everything he can to escape. It's an action/horror/comedy — ending with the wheelchair chase from hell!

Running time: approximately 14.5 minutes.

WHAT THEY SAY

"... high on my list is Ward 13 from Australia 's Peter Cornwell about a man trapped in a creepy-ass medical facility. This one features some great action sequences."

~ Ain’t it Cool News reviewing The Animation Show 25th February 2005

"A pure vision from Filmmaker Cornwell, who wrote, produced, directed and animated this wonderfully eclectic crowd-pleaser."

~ Fantasiafest

"For sheer hilarity and ingeniousness, nothing I've seen lately has matched this Aussie entry... Full of beautifully dark humour, Ward 13 has… several phenomenal chase sequences, a wicked sword fight and an electric wheelchair pursuit scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark proportions. Writer-director Peter Cornwell's short made me laugh so hard I thought I was set to be admitted to Ward 13 myself."

~ Montreal Mirror, "Film This Week"

"The highlight of this package of 12 recent animated shorts from around the world is Australia's Ward 13, a claymation-style comedy-adventure about a patient trying to escape from an evil hospital. Maniacal surgeons wield dirty butcher knives and a bottle is labeled 'pain enhancement pills'. The furious wheelchair race could have been choreographed by Steven Spielberg."

~ Review of The Animation Show by Kyle Smith, New York Post March 2005

"The Australian Ward 13, a claymation piece about an accident victim in a bizarre hospital, is full of humorous nods to the action-thriller genre — including a high-speed wheelchair chase — while evoking genuine tension and suspense."

~ "'Animation Show': Getting in Toon" By Curt Fields
Washington Post May 2005

"A remarkable achievement in animation, the wheelchair duel sequence makes the chariot race in Ben Hur look like a walk in the park! Hilariously great, superbly done and just plain fun to watch!"

~ Danny Lennon, PRENDS ÇA COURT!

"One of the highlights of our animation offerings this year. Cornwell's movie is as thrilling as any big-time Hollywood hit you're likely to see this summer. It's fifteen minutes of pure pandemonium cast as an action movie, in which a bandaged patient in the mysterious Ward 13 battles to escape the clutches of some tenacious mad scientists out to use his body for their horrible experiments. The action scenes here are incredibly well lit and edited, especially since all the action consists of stop-motion animation. This massive production is a jewel, a treat from Down Under."

~ Dean Treadway, Program Director for Dahlonega International Film Festival

"Our protagonist... awakens in hospital with his entire head, save his eyes, swaddled in bandages, and it’s a measure of the talent of the director that in this wordless film the main character can emote solely through mime and the tiny acreage of face visible through his unbandaged eye-holes. The sound design is by Mit Out Sound under the direction of frequent David Fincher collaborator Ren Klyce. The darkly funny short’s… only weakness is literally its greatest strength — the fact that it’s a drop-dead great action sequence in search of a larger movie."

~ Taylor Jenssen, Film Review Animation Magazine 22nd Jan 2004

"[Our award was given to Ward 13...] For the precision of the screenplay, the beauty of its art direction, its criticism of the power of doctors and the refreshing cynicism of its treatment of genre cinema."

~ Comment from the Fipresci International Critics Prize, 2003

This page last updated 6 April, 2009

18 February, 2009