Changing times is definitely going to affect someone like Carpenter, who in his prime had what might be considered a "dated" style now. But - not to be a bummer - most artists in every field/medium wane with age. As the verve of youthful inspiration naturally diminishes, filmmakers/musicians/etc tend to become more workman-like. If they were always workman-like or simply had a broad/accessible style (like Spielberg) it is less pronounced, but for stylistic filmmakers there is usually a shelf life on their A-game that has nothing to do with public tastes. For the lucky few, like Scorsese or Altman or Hitchcock, inspiration keeps coming. But that is rare, and it says nothing about how talented a person was (just look at Billy Wilder). My biggest issue with THE WARD was that it didn't feel anything like a Carpenter film. Carpenter had a style that I would call "calculatedly rough," which implied a filmmaker completely in ownership of the cinematic art who was simply choosing to get loose or weird or unorthodox because that was where his ideas/interests were leading him. THE WARD was totally workman-like; Carpenter functioning as a robot programmed with filmmaking technique and completely lacking the spark of unique ideas. This could be Carpenter trying to appeal to modern audiences at the expense of his own tastes, but he definitely has a whogivesashit personality, so that seems unlikely to me.
I'm not saying Carpenter has "lost it," in the sense that he doesn't have a good movie in him anymore. But he's not a Malick. He wasn't going to burst back on the scene with a film exploding with fiery creativity. I don't think cinema is eating away at him during these off-years. I think Carpenter needs to take the Woody Allen approach. He just needs to work. Most of his output won't be that good, but keeping his muscles toned will allow him to poop out a surprise gem every handful of years when legit inspiration randomly hits.
Sadly this film sucks so much I fear he may become discouraged by the general reaction. I hope he doesn't read message boards.
