Starring Rose Williams

Directed by Corinna Faith

Acorn Media International, available now

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.

Writer-director Corinna Faith’s (Neflix’s The Innocents) ghost story is a throwback to the likes of the 1961 The Innocents and The Woman in Black, building up the tension and scares, thanks to some fantastic location filming, terrifying sound design and a bravura lead performance by Rose Williams as Val.

Premiering on Shudder, this British shocker recognises that not only are hospitals terrifying places at night – think of how many people die within their walls – they’re even scarier when abandoned, with little lighting. Using the real-life scenario of the planned power cuts that plunged Britain into darkness in an attempt to conserve energy, The Power follows naïf Val on her first day at work as a nurse in an East London hospital in January 1974 (in reality, Blythe House in West London).

At night, most of the patients are moved to the central hospital, leaving only the intensive care and nursery behind, powered by emergency generators. Because this is the 70s, there’s a ‘don’t speak unless you’re spoken to’ culture with matron and the doctors. Val is carrying baggage from an incident in her past that suggests she’s an unreliable witness, so when things start going wrong, her pleas are ignored.

Lights go out, aggressive voices are heard and people start to be bruised. There’s malignant forces in the hospital, but why are they choosing to channel Val, and is she strong enough to survive the night? As with all ghost stories there’s a good explanation for the phenomena, and we are presented with the age-old question: ‘Just who is the real monster here?’

The Blu-ray release includes a behind the scenes photo gallery and an interesting commentary with Faith and Williams.

Verdict: Scary, authentic and unafraid to keep us in the dark (literally and figuratively) for most of the time, this is an intelligent British ghost story that delivers on all levels. 9/10

Nick Joy

Read our interview with Corinna Faith here