"Ward 13" is a 13-minute animated short film from 2003 and it is already almost 15 years old. The writer and director of this Australian production is Peter Cornwell and this is certainly, more than a decade later, today still among his most known works. He collected lots of awards for this one. And I can see why it was so liked. It is a bit of everything: horror film, martial arts, comedy, racing and of course animation. It is the story of a man who is taken to hospital, but it becomes obvious pretty quickly that these surgeons have no interest in getting him health again. Quite the opposite actually, so Ben gives it his best to get out of the hospital of horror. Will he succeed? And if so, where will his path lead. Watch for yourself. I think this was a fairly entertaining little movie. Really wild and creative, I give it a thumbs-up.

Be prepared for a wild quarter hour of animated mayhem! This will wear you out as we follow a patient who has just been brought to one strange and evil hospital.This bizarre animated short features dogs with two heads, boxes of "slime," and a bunch of other things that all resemble someone having their worst nightmare. This is indeed, "the hospital from hell," where Dr. Frankensteins are running amok creating hostile monsters.If you want more ideas how sick this humor is, just sample the pharmacy that our poor patient finds himself in after he escapes from his first bad encounter with some mad man. In the PX, are, "Pain Enhancement Pills, Essence Of Panda, Jelly Babesw (with 5 percent crack), Ebola virus, human growth hormones (make in China), Niagra laxatives (go with the flow) and rhinoceros dose strength pills. After he takes one of the latter, he sees on the back of vial: "danger - excessive dosage may cause brain to explode")." He stuffs the pills in his pants and takes more as the story evolves.At every turn is either a demented doctor or patient waiting to do our guy in, but he fights back like Rambo. This has to be seen to be believed! In addition to the high-energy story, high production values, good claymation and artwork at times make this animation short stunning.

A man falls onto a road, and next thing we know he's in the hospital with bandages over his head... only the hospital is more like a mixture of hell and Lovecraftian horror imagery.This short is featured on the Animation Show 2005, and it is the strongest animation of them all. It is an absolutely stunning display of almost seamless stop-motion animation that is at times hilarious and disturbing. What is of particular interest to the craft of the feature is the way the expressions of the patient are done only with slight changes to his eyes, while expressions of other things range from full-faced to slightly hidden. The animator, Peter Cornwall, seems to have real control over his animation and storytelling.This film speaks towards the fear of being hospitalized... there you are, in a weakened state, with strangers and strange things around, with fear of surgery, drugs, and blood, and sometimes you don't know if you'll ever get to leave. It illustrates this issue with a man who runs, hides, fights, and blows his way through obstacle after obstacle to check himself out, and all the situations and things he comes across... a wheelchair chase, a Lovecraftian monster, sadistic surgeons, pills of head-explody... everything that says fun! A very entertaining time that will leave your mouth agape at the end, struggling to decide what exactly to feel about it... see it if you can.--PolarisDiB

This film excels in so many areas.It has won awards or jury mentions for almost every facet of movie making including the script writing, film editing, "for amazing timing and extreme imagination in animation,""action sequences (which) are in no way inferior to those of live action thrillers", fast paced editing, and numerous audience awards. Audiences connect really well with WARD 13, and a full theatre, in hysterics during the screening, was quite an experience. I have seen this film several times, and it continues to amaze, with the fine attention to detail, and the hilarious wheel chair chase at the finish, said to "out-Ben Hur, Ben Hur". The only surprise was that it was not nominated for an Oscar.