#You’re All Sleeping On The Power

“A place people die in should never be allowed to get that dark.” – Terry (Nuala McGowan)

We’re all afraid of the dark at some level, aren’t we? It all goes back to a universal fear: the fear of the unknown. The dark is unquantifiable, and it’s impossible to know what lurks in its corners and crevices. Corinna Faith leaned into the concept and takes it to dizzying heights within a classic ghost story structure in 2021 horror yarn “The Power,” streaming on Shudder now.

The synopsis, per Shudder:

London, 1974. As Britain prepares for electrical blackouts to sweep across the country, trainee nurse Val arrives for her first day at the crumbling East London Royal Infirmary. With most of the patients and staff evacuated to another hospital, Val is forced to work the night shift in the empty building. Within these walls lies a deadly secret, forcing Val to face her own traumatic past in order to confront the malevolent force that’s intent on destroying everything around her.

“The Power” situates its heroine within a classic ghost story framework: isolated in a ward where past patients have died. From the beginning, she is in a liminal space — a dimmed and diminished hospital ward — pressured to toe the line and prioritize discipline over any sort of principles. 

It’s a running message throughout the film, illustrated most when Val tells a child to keep to herself and stay quiet amid terrifying conditions, and “you’ll be fine.” It quickly indicates who the villains are and whose voices have been snuffed out, necessitating the story’s alliances. Terry, whose above quote illustrates the tension at play (all scares are situated around darkness and negative space), also warns, “You’ll find speaking your mind is not popular here, Val.”

All are telling lines of dialogue in “The Power,” which, without spoiling too much of the plot, orients itself with the women and girls whose voices haven’t carried much beyond the voices of the male authority figures who preyed upon them in their time. “The Power” doesn’t just shine a light on injustice, it interrogates the very systems that allow injustices to operate and thrive, from the top down.