THE POWER (2021)

Studio:      Shudder
Director:    Corinna Faith
Writer:      Corinna Faith
Producer:  Rob Watson, Matthew James Wilkinson
Stars:     Rose Williams, Charlie Carrick, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Theo Barklem-Biggs, Nuala McGowan, Emma Rigby, Diveen Henry, Paul Antony-Barber, Shakira Rahman, Clara Read

Review Score:

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Summary:

During London’s 1974 blackouts, a timid nurse faces supernatural horrors linked to a haunted hospital’s terrible secret.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In January 1974, Valerie accepts a position as a trainee nurse at East London Royal Infirmary. Val befriends Dr. Franklyn and his young patient Saba, but angers the supervising matron by doing so. In response, the matron forces Val to work a night shift during a blackout, even though Val is afraid of the dark.

Val befriends fellow nurses Terry and Margaret, but resumes a rivalry with Babs, who used to bully Val when they were both orphans at Our Lady of Grace. Babs continually condescends to Val and brings up a childhood incident where Val supposedly made false abuse allegations against their headmaster. Val also has uncomfortable encounters with Neville, a misogynist custodian who belittlingly sexualizes the nursing staff.

Throughout the night, Val detects the smell of burning, notices ash in strange places, and feels a paranormal presence. When she approaches a burned stuffed animal in front of the basement furnace, the presence pulls Val away and pins her against a wall. Val has visions of using her thumbs to blind Babs and of setting Neville on fire.

Terry and Margaret help Val recover from being disoriented. Val coughs up creosote. Val tells the two nurses what happened, but Margaret convinces Val to think she only imagined a ghost.

Val comforts Saba. Val wonders if the same presence is haunting Saba when she finds a sketchbook of nothing but black scribbles.

Val suddenly convulses as she becomes possessed. Saba pulls Val out of her trance. After seeing bruises on Val’s neck, Terry abruptly leaves while Margaret continues to gaslight Val. Val stabs her own leg with scissors after becoming possessed again. While unconscious, Val has a nightmare of trying to protect Saba from a ghost only to then strangle Saba herself.

When Val recovers, Saba shows her a Polaroid of a previous child patient known as ‘Dirty Gail,’ whom Val recognizes as the ghost that attacked and possessed her. Margaret insists Gail cannot be a ghost because she merely ran away.

Babs shows she is blinded. Accusing Val of being responsible, Margaret locks Val in a closet. Gail’s ghost throws Val through a window as Val becomes possessed again. Val warns Saba to stay away from her because she cannot control Gail.

On her way to the basement, Val finds Babs’s dead body as well as Neville’s charred corpse. While resisting haunting visions, Val sees the word “listen” carved into her flesh. Val confronts Gail’s ghost. Flashbacks show that Gail was raped and murdered and the hospital staff covered up the scandal.

Val recovers in the morning. Saba reveals Gail’s ghost helped Saba hide to survive the night. A psychiatric doctor questions Val about the two deaths. Val speculates that Gail’s ghost killed them because Neville possibly abused Gail and Babs knew about it. The doctor implies Val has a history of lying. The hospital administrator claims they never had a patient named Gail, which confuses the matron. Val reveals she was pressured into recanting the abuse allegations against her orphanage’s headmaster and realizes Gail possessed her because of their similar backgrounds.

Val asks Dr. Franklyn to take care of Saba. Val becomes suspicious when Franklyn mentions he will attend to Saba personally. Val discovers Franklyn is Saba’s abuser after erasing scribbles from Saba’s sketchbook and finding a drawing of the doctor.

Val sneaks out of her room and brings Franklyn to the basement for a confrontation. Franklyn punches Val when she disobeys him during a failed seduction. Val cuts the power in an effort to summon Gail, but nothing happens.

Franklyn starts strangling Val. Saba interrupts. After again begging for Gail’s help, Val levitates while entering another state of possession. Val and Saba both scream at Franklyn. Combining with Gail’s energy, a powerful white light develops that kills the doctor.

Over the phone, Val warns the hospital administrator to “think of us when it’s dark.” The matron helps Val and Saba escape. Val is seen fleeing while holding hands with both Saba and Gail. The administrator gets attacked in the darkness.

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Review:

Val has a history of timidity. As an orphan at Our Lady of Grace, Val developed an intense fear of the dark along with a reputation for falsehoods that made her a top target for bullying. As the newest nurse at East London Royal Infirmary, Val continues to be a meek magnet for condescension, turning her face to the floor and taking insulting indignities with apologetic humility.

Her frightened frailty makes Val a terrible choice for a lonely late shift during a nighttime blackout. Yet that’s the fate Val earns by being on the wrong side of a stern matron determined to remind Val of her lowly station in the hospital’s hierarchy. This leaves Val to fend for herself against a sleazy custodian’s unwanted advances, an old rival’s renewed interest in belittling her, and a paranormal presence apparently haunting the hallways.

“The Power” is the kind of movie that can be described with a number of “the kind of movie that” observations. The British-born film is set in London circa 1974, so it features the kind of period piece drama you can visualize dressed in a stiffly starched turtleneck and herringbone jacket if it were capable of wearing clothes. Psychological chills steep deep in drawn out suspense, making “The Power” the kind of supernatural thriller that’s top heavy on plentiful shots of Val cautiously creeping by candlelight, by lantern light, or in dark shadows.

“The Power” is the kind of atmosphere-intensive haunter whose restrained frights are more effective when you only watch one brooding mood movie infrequently, not 100 similar films each year. To be perfectly upfront, I wasn’t personally excited about “The Power.” Previews accurately presented it as a test of patience for how many minutes one can remain entranced by overhead angles of spiral staircases, hands hesitantly extending toward an object, and other hallmarks of slow burn style.

Releasing on Shudder only one week apart, “The Power” blended indistinguishably with “The Banishing,” another “inspired by true events” UK indie populated by prim people and poltergeists who gradually build a mystery by being annoyingly coy about why they’re vengeful. I wasn’t going to watch both likeminded dread dramas, and wasn’t sure I even wanted to watch one, as I’ve consumed enough content set in haunted hospitals to last ten lifetimes, and have increasing difficulty telling them apart in my disinterested memory.

Digital water cooler chatter changed my mind about giving “The Power” a chance to prove it could be above average atmospheric horror. Notable people in genre entertainment praised writer/director Corinna Faith’s deft hand at crafting a traditional ghost story brimming with breathtakingly suggestive fear. On top of technical proficiency, admirers applauded the film’s themes of empowerment, specifically that of a marginalized woman finding the strength to finally rebel against systemic sexual abuse and patriarchal oppression.

As mentioned in other relevant reviews, my position as a privileged white male doesn’t give me the sharpest scalpel for dissecting “The Power’s” takedowns of misogyny, sexism, and exploiting gender bias to assert authority. Voices with antennas more pointedly tuned to those topics can offer higher value insight on those parallels. Objectively, I’ll simply say “The Power” strikes a strong balance to where its commentary becomes an essential ingredient in the story without endangering the moral through superficial preaching. Even though it’s set five decades ago, “The Power” is tragically timely, not shallowly trendy to piggyback off #MeToo virtue.

I can better speak to Corinna Faith’s skill at orchestrating cinematic scares, which is abundant. A fair deal of familiarity exists in each sudden jolt, nightmarish vision, and extended sequence of cobwebbed corridor tiptoeing. Yet Faith’s extensive ability to mold specific sights and sounds into a world that chokingly consumes Val extends outward to envelop the audience as well.

All told, “The Power” is the kind of quiet thriller that can be considered an acquired taste. Acquiring that taste comes down to one’s tolerance for trudging through the rote ramp-up required to arrive at the macabre moments and message on the other side of the hump. “The Power’s” best bits, at least as far as horror goes, are backloaded to the last half, which employs a nimbler energy that could have benefitted the stodgier first act.

Review Score: 60

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