“The Power” 2021 Review – Multiple Meanings for "Power"

The Power, a Shudder exclusive, was written and directed by Corinna Faith who, to this point, has mostly short drama films to her name. After watching The Power, I imagine we’ll see more of her works come to the screen. It’s not that the movie blew the roof off the top, but it was a strong enough piece of work to warrant a bit of interest.

The backdrop of The Power is a troubled time in East London 1973 where there’s a battle between the trade unions and the government. The coal industry miners are on strike and the economy is struggling. This forces the city to conserve energy and resources at night by entirely shutting down the power at a specific time every night and lasts until the morning. There’s your first and most obvious meaning of the movie title. The other themes of The Power are much deeper and purposeful, as I point out down the page.

The majority of the story takes place in a massive overwhelming Hospital, which provides some extremely dark hallways, rooms, and settings when the power is completely turned off. Great ambience for a haunting/possession type movie, wouldn’t you say?

Valerie (Rose Williams), a young nurse seeking a new job, interviews with the uptight and strict Matron (Diveen Henry) of the nurses said Hospital. She is hired at the end of the interview and given specific instructions to follow the Matron’s rules. More so, Val is distinctly told not to engage in conversations with the doctors. In The Power, and the time period, I’m assuming, the doctors were all men.

Through this regard, we see another one of The Power’s major themes: Men’s position of power within the Hospital, and generally overall. The doctors have ultimate power over the nurses as well as the in-patient children. Furthermore, the movie focuses on the powerless nature of victims of sexual malice. Once again, the topic is power, and who has control of it. Such structure lends to the reason why there’s a restless ghost haunting the Hospital, seeking someone that will listen to its story and, to go further than that, seeking someone to tell her story.

Enter Valerie, our main character.

Val is a meek and timid person, yet determined and hopeful in her work. She’s also very neat in appearance and has a do-good disposition. However, when forced into a consultation with one of the doctors, Dr. Franklyn (Charlie Carrick), Val immediately gets into hot water with the Matron. As punishment, she is required to stay on for the night shift, during which the power is to be completely cut off. Due to an experience as a younger girl, Val has a fear of dark closets and spaces, adding anxiety to an already thrilling setup.

Most of the patients in the hospital are moved to a greater Hospital at night due to the power cutoffs, leaving the intimidating building empty except for the patients that cannot be moved. Val is introduced to other colorful characters that are also to work through the blackout. One of which is reading Stephen King’s book, “Carrie”. Which, I thought was a fun little tribute. Val also meets Saba (Shakira Rahman), a pre-teen foreigner to England, and is a patient at the hospital. Saba ends up being a key character in the story.

The night of Val’s “punishment” is where everything goes awry, and the hauntings begin.

As The Power progresses we see the clean trim presence of Val digress as the secrets and hauntings of the Hospital become more aggressive and terrifying. Her own secrets are revealed along the way, too, providing depth and back story to her character. But her secrets, when known to authority, add several challenging aspects when Val tries to explain the supernatural phenomena she is experiencing. She is an unreliable resource to the Headmaster and police when describing all that happened to her and the other characters.

I liked how dark and creepy the atmosphere was in The Power. The lighting (or absence of lighting) and color scheme helped add to the suspense of the subject matter. There were creepy parts, and The Power didn’t always rely on jump scare tactics to get under the audience’s skin. I liked how they didn’t always show up front some of the events that happen. Quick flashes of disturbing images are used, but then they show Val waking up in a different room and with a changed demeanor from the scene before. The reveal of what truly happened isn’t until later as Val herself remembers the horrific events of the night. This method helped The Power have a different flair than just a typical haunting movie.

However, that stunt didn’t hide all of the generic ghost/possession rhetoric of basic horror movies. Some may feel that there’s nothing different about The Power to make it stand out above the rest. Others may not be patient to sit through to the reveal and climax. The Power was a little slow at times, as it took quite a while to get to where the haunting entity starts interfering Val’s night. This was done to create a slow burn movie in the end. But, it might not work for some.

Overall, I liked The Power. As we at Bloody Reel say often in our podcast episodes, it was “pretty decent”. I got some good scares and jumps from it and would recommend it for those interested. Rose Williams did a great job as the lead character and had a good supporting group of actors.

However, I won’t be surprised if some people shrug their shoulders and move on to their next endeavor. As you can see from the ratings below from IMDB and others, The Power is getting mixed reviews.

I wonder what you think…

The Power

Released: 4/8/2021

Rating: NR

Genre: Horror

Running Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

Director: Corinna Faith (Full-Length Directorial Debut)

Writer: Corinna Faith (Ashes)

Stars:

Rose Williams as Val (Curfew, Medici, Sandition)

Diveen Henry as the Matron (All or Nothing, numerous television roles including Black Mirror)

Gbemisola Ikumelo as Comfort (Famalam series and Roadkill series)