1974: a young nurse is forced to work the night shift in a crumbling hospital as striking miners switch off the power across Britain. But inside the walls lurks a terrifying presence that threatens to consume her and everyone around her.
Title: The Power | Director: Corinna Faith | Starring: Rose Williams | Release Year: 2021 | Runtime: 92 minutes | Genre: Horror | Language: English | Source: Streaming (Shudder)
Val is the new girl at the hospital. On her first day, she lands on the bad side of the head nurse and winds up working the night shift with a skeleton crew when the hospital has no power.
The Power is a limited location smaller budget movie. It’s a pretty slow burn that relies on atmosphere, character details, and interactions that heighten the tension and peel back the layers of the main character as she tries to figure out what is happening around her.
The characters are finely drawn. You come to form certain opinions about them then have those opinions both challenged and reinforced as more details of their past and who they are revealed.
Much of the movie takes place in dark hallways and dimly lit rooms. This lends an oppressive air to the atmosphere. Darkness is a funny thing. It renders larges spaces (rooms, hallways) into small, intimate, and scary ones. Darkness changes the geography and layout of a place. Even the most well remembered room layout becomes confusing in the dark.
Darkness also forces us into a defensive posture as we become more unsure and start to anticipate something coming. Darkness can also be intimate and create a kind of forced vulnerability.
All of this is the perfect environment for old secrets to make their way to the surface. Secrets long believed to be hidden slowly reveal themselves and it is slowly revealed that Va may just be the right person to receive them.
As I said, The Power is is a slow burn movie. It finishes much stronger than it starts. By the end, Val will have fully self-actualized into a force to be reckoned with, someone who can shoulder the weight of terrible secrets, who will do everything she can to protect those in her care, not resting until they are safe.
mixed positive/recommended
Brian Lindenmuth is the former non-fiction editor of Spinetingler Magazine and the former editor of Snubnose Press. He likes both kinds of books, fiction and non-fiction. He blogs about subtitled TV shows and movies at One Inch Tall Movies
Be First to Comment