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A light touch doesn’t suit the heavy themes in “The Power,” a horror psychodrama that’s specifically concerned with sexual misconduct and then more generally about the abuse of (you guessed it) power at a London hospital. These social issues are obviously broad enough to still be prevalent, but “The Power” is set in 1974, as an opening title card explains:

“Trade unions and the government are at war. The economy is in crisis. Blackouts have been ordered to conserve power, plunging the nation into darkness every night.”

This prefatory text suggests a class-based understanding of what happens to Val ( Rose Williams ), a meek trainee nurse who’s studying “the connection between poverty and health” (her words) when she’s visited and possessed by a ghost at the East London Infirmary.

Val’s topic of study is worthy, as is the filmmakers' focus on the many little ways that Val is pressured (both socially and professionally) to keep quiet about, uh, everything that happens at the hospital. Unfortunately, the Infirmary’s chain of command is often more interesting than the secrets that Val must keep under her nurse’s cap. And while systemic abuse is often overwhelming because of its universality, the inciting details of Val’s problems are too impersonal to be disturbing.

So it’s not surprising that Val, being a meek but well-meaning do-gooder type, takes a moment to discover what’s really going on at the East London Infirmary. First she accidentally embarrasses her supervisor, the school-marmish Matron ( Diveen Henry ), who warns Val that she must follow the Matron’s instructions on how to wear her work uniform (skirt three inches below the knees) and when to talk to the staff doctors (pretty much never, since “they communicate above your level”).

Val doesn’t break these rules willingly: she’s asked impertinent questions (ie: for her professional opinion) by the young and unusually warm Dr. Franklyn ( Charlie Carrick ). Franklyn’s status presents a credible damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t dilemma, the kind that often arises when you get contradictory instructions from two different bosses. So the hospital’s Matron punishes Val by assigning her to the night shift on her first day. That decision inevitably leads Val to discover something that may or may not be haunting the Infirmary.

I say “inevitably” because “The Power” is a possession flick, complete with spastic heaving, disbelieving co-workers, and a frightened pre-teen who tries and fails to warn everybody about the dangers that (mostly) come at night. Most of the items on this formulaic checklist are used well enough, but none of them are surprising or so well-realized that they’re still compelling.

In fact, the weakest parts of “The Power” are the ones where a dark, melancholy ambience is meant to carry the movie, especially when an invisible presence takes control of Val’s body and shakes her like a ragdoll. The most memorable of these scenes is the one where an unseen hand lifts Val’s skirt over her knees, which are presented from behind; a chorus of ghostly, Penderecki-esque moaning can be heard on the soundtrack, but it doesn’t add much to the sequence. I don’t know if that’s the image you want your genre movie to be remembered for, but it does stand out, if only for its sheer brake-tapping gentility.

The rest of “The Power” isn’t as jarring. A lot of the dialogue, which is credited to writer/director Corinna Faith , is dry and insistent. Take for example any scene where Val’s colleagues talk about the above-mentioned pre-teen, Saba ( Shakira Rahman ). Saba, being a young person of color who doesn’t speak fluent English, is treated as an abstract thought problem by Val’s stereotypically prim and/or disengaged peers. Saba is also presumably who Matron refers to when she peevishly tells Val that “The connection [between poverty and health] is that people around here live like animals.” Even Terry ( Nuala McGowan ), one of the other night shift nurses, treats Saba as less than human. Referring to Val’s rapport with Saba, Terry smirks: “Will ya look at that? Snow White has a way with the animals.” These comments are so obviously wrong as to be waved away uncritically: even working-class people can become jaded enough to be cruel. That’s what a little power does, as the title suggests.

Still, Terry’s “Snow White” crack is also basically accurate: Val’s character is simple enough to be reduced to her purity. She’s new, she’s determined, and she means well, so she’s ostensibly sympathetic. That’s enough to keep things going during the movie’s first half, which mostly concerns the hospital as a bureaucratic microcosm of competing personalities. But eventually, Val needs to be more than just a generic symbol of right-minded martyrdom, and she’s never allowed to become more than that. The circumstances of her suffering are too slight to register, making it hard to feel anything for Val beyond a general sympathy. That may be enough for already-invested horror buffs, but everyone else can sit this one out.

Now available on Shudder.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in The New York Times , Vanity Fair , The Village Voice, and elsewhere.

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The Power (2021)

Rose Williams as Val

Emma Rigby as Babs

Charlie Carrick as Dr. Franklin

Gbemisola Ikumelo as Comfort

Paul Antony-Barber as The Chief

Clara Read as Gail

Diveen Henry as Matron

Corinna Faith

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Laura Bellingham
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The Power Reviews

While the film may build to a sort of resolution, we are made aware that the true evils in this tale are the very real systems and institutions that uphold those foundations that have pushed marginalized people down for as long as time can remember.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 22, 2022

The Power seems less interested in scaring us as it does on finding an agreed social commentary

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 4, 2022

The titular "power" can mean several things - and this moody fright of a film accomplishes a lot, though there will be some who complain about what it's trying to uncover.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2021

The Power elegantly knits together atmospheric terrors and institutional ones, providing a reminder that it's not always the things that go bump in the night that are the true threat.

Full Review | Aug 11, 2021

Its jumps and jolts might be a little generic, but the command of lighting is impressive and Faith knows how to maximise every shadow and shape moving in the darkness.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 29, 2021

Indeed, it feels, at times, like you're watching a harrowing episode of Call The Midwife, but writer/director Corinna Faith does pull it round from an aimless middle to a really satisfying conclusion...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 17, 2021

[The Power] transforms a perfectly okay scary movie into an altogether more powerful, hard-earned catharsis.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2021

A well-done, creaky atmospheric horror film.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jun 5, 2021

the location and the production design are top-notch, and the general vibe of the piece is just endlessly eerie.

Full Review | May 21, 2021

Aims to add some gravity to its spookiness with a critique of classism and sexism, but in the end it's just a ghost story with pretensions to contemporary relevance.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 13, 2021

An eerie chiller...great soundtrack, but the thing it really gets right is that it has its own atmosphere.

Full Review | May 10, 2021

An archetypal example of a horror film with a killer premise and very little notion of what to do with that premise.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 6, 2021

Williams is impossibly good as Val...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 5, 2021

Here's hoping films like The Power will shed some enough light on the corruption that it can no longer hide in the shadows.

Full Review | Apr 23, 2021

Despite a shaky dismount, The Power is still an effective atmospheric experience. Faith builds a world that's fascinating to spend time in, with a creepy story and characters that establish and power the movie's central conflict.

Full Review | Apr 16, 2021

The Power would have been a stellar horror-thriller even if it were more traditional. As it is, its concoction of supernatural horror and mundane horror creates an experience that is often thrilling but mostly unsettles one to the core.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 15, 2021

Writer/director Corinna Faith manages to be very scary on a number of fronts.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 14, 2021

All in all, the film is pretty hard to fault. The performances are excellent all-round, with Rose Williams showing off incredible range in the central role.

Full Review | Apr 13, 2021

The Power is a blistering and classically haunting tale of ghosts and the monsters that make them.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 13, 2021

The movie's period spookiness and its #MeToo outrage have virtually nothing to do each with other, diminishing the efficacy of both and making it feel like a tract.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Apr 13, 2021

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‘The Power’ Review: A Blackout Thriller with a Performance That Would Make Linda Blair Proud

Kate erbland, editorial director.

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In 1973, beset by a labor crisis that led striking miners to upend the coal industry (and thus most of the country’s power supply), Britain decided to conserve what power they were still able to generate with a wild idea: planned electricity cuts. Between New Year’s Eve 1973 and early March 1974, the country periodically shut off most of its power in the dead of night, leaving its cold and scared citizens desperate for morning. First-time feature filmmaker Corinna Faith sets “The Power” inside this strange, scary bit of history and uses an already ingenious idea, only to cleverly nudge it into even more impressive, spine-tingling territory.

Young nurse Val (Rose Williams) hates the power cuts, popping out of bed each morning to turn on every light in her tiny flat, and we soon learn that her fears go far beyond the usual darkness. When we meet Val, it’s early January, cold and terribly bleak, but it’s also her first day at work at the East London Royal Infirmary, and she can’t wait to start. Precise and pin-neat, she’s an orphan who grew up in a dingy Catholic girls’ home in the same neighborhood as the infirmary, and she fervently believes that she might be able to help her patients, especially the kids.

But lofty ideas don’t really have a place at the hospital. Within minutes of arriving in the bizarre, maze-shaped building that relies on color-coded floors for navigation (and even that doesn’t always help in the labyrinthine space), Val is already taken down a few pegs by the severe Matron (Diveen Henry). The doctors don’t see her, and the men who do take notice (all the doctors are men, of course) are eager to get a hand up her skirt. As Val struggles to fit in, cinematographer Laura Bellingham’s camera peers down dark corridors and into black rooms, framing Val in an austere environment that hardly seems conducive to good care. This would be a fine place to set a horror film even without the lingering terror of all the lights turning off.

When Val is forced into staying at the hospital overnight for a brutal double shift — alongside a skeleton crew, a handful of patients, and noisy generators that power only small pockets of the place — she tries to steel herself for what’s to come. If only there wasn’t that weird burning smell following her, or the ashes that seem to seep out of every air shaft, or the whispers that try to draw her into confined spaces any chance they get.

Faith doesn’t traffic in cheap tricks, with only a single jump scare to be found in the film’s tense first half. Instead, she chooses to neatly layer on the possibilities: Maybe it’s just uptight Val projecting her childhood issues on the institution, or perhaps she’s dogged by a shaky reputation (as snidely referenced by old acquaintance Babs, a wonderfully mean Emma Rigby). Or perhaps something really is lingering inside all those dark corridors and black rooms, something coming for Val.

As “The Power” ratchets up the chills, it hints at both a deeper mythology and more wide-ranging concerns at play, but most of all, it’s just scary. Faith makes the most out of dark rooms and creepy whispers, and all that tension is aided immeasurably by a transformative performance by Williams, as her Val slowly unravels over the course of the night. (The actress has a body-contorting possession scene that would make even Linda Blair’s toes curl.) Williams’ work allows Faith to take some big leaps, anchoring the film through unexpected twists and turns, eye-popping gore, and a series of revelations that steep the film in its occasionally convoluted mythology.

“The Power” is built on subtle elements, but the director’s more ambitious jumps are just as electrifying. Williams, who may be best known as the star of Masterpiece Theatre’s “Sandition,” is revelatory here, and she holds everything together through its shocking final minutes. She, and the film’s earned ending, leave an emotional charge that stings right through the chills, a peek into the darkness that can never be unseen, a light that can never be turned back on.

“The Power” starts streaming on Shudder on Thursday, April 8.

The Power movie review: A frightening film that skilfully blends supernatural and real-world horrors

The power movie review: rose williams is absolutely first-rate as a young woman breaking apart under immense strain and yet finding her inner strength to battle an all-too-human evil in the end..

The Power cast: Rose Williams, Emma Rigby, Diveen Henry, Charlie Carrick The Power director: Corinna Faith The Power rating: 4 stars

There has been a recent, welcome trend of late among filmmakers to use horror as a genre to comment on social ills. Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning 2017 film Get Out with its trenchant criticism of casual racism is one of the popular examples. The Power, available on BookMyShow Stream in India, which targets sexual misconduct in hierarchical institutions, is less subtle than some other movies, but is just as effective.

Written and directed by Corinna Faith in her feature debut, the film is set in 1974’s London, specifically in the Three-Day Week period. Lasting from January to March, it saw the Conservative government mandating blackouts across the country as part of measures to deal with the economic crisis. The crisis itself was a result of striking miners that affected the production of coal, and thus the electricity.

Our heroine is Val (Rose Williams), a nurse who is forced to work both day and night shifts by the harsh Matron (Diveen Henry) due to the audacity of talking to a doctor as an equal. If that wasn’t enough, she feels the leery eyes of the doctors, one of whom casually tries to slip a hand up her skirt. The Power gets scary much before the blackout sets in.

Most of the patients are being shifted to another hospital and the remaining few are cared by only four nurses, including Val. What little equipment is available is powered by feeble generators.

But Val is determined to make the best of it in a nearly dark, empty hospital. Despite the circumstances, she is optimistic and genuinely wishes to care for patients unlike other, more jaded nurses who have been at the hospital longer.

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However, despite the seeming isolation, she realises there is an entity in the hospital that is certainly not human. The presence manifests itself through particles of ash suspended in the air, whispers that call out to her and a terrified little girl.

Horror ensues. Corinna Faith strikes a right balance between two kinds of scares the story is dealing with. For instance, Val gets possessed by a ghost and kills a person. A fellow nurse refuses to believe her and instead says nothing happened — which is an obvious yet smart parallel to the scepticism and gaslighting that the victims of sexual crimes are usually treated with.

The Power is frightening in more ways than one.

The cinematographer Laura Bellingham uses dimly-lit corridors and lack of lighting to unnerving effect. The visuals go a long way towards building the tension pervading in the movie. Hospitals at night must be scary anyway, even with the electricity but here, the sense of dread is heightened manifold.

Rose Williams is absolutely first-rate as a young woman breaking apart under immense strain and yet finding her inner strength to battle an all-too-human evil in the end. The young actor slips into a clearly challenging role with the ease of a veteran. She is especially impressive in a possession scene that riffs on movies like The Exorcist.

The Power ends on an empowering note that, like most of the movie, is far from subtle. Quite the opposite, in fact. It has a jackhammer effect to the mind, and that works just as well.

The Power would have been a stellar horror-thriller even if it were more traditional and did not have a deeper layer to the story. As it is, its concoction of supernatural horror and mundane, quotidian horror creates an experience that is often enjoyable in a vicariously thrilling way but mostly unsettles one to the core, largely due to the real-world echoes.

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'The Power' is a claustrophobic horror movie with a devastating message

There are many striking images in The Power , but the one that stands out most clearly is a painting.

A little cartoon girl, staring wide-eyed from the wall of a paediatrics ward, her finger pressed tightly to her lips. It's just one of many unnerving details in the sprawling 1970s London hospital complex where Val (Rose Williams) starts her new job as a nurse — but as she soon discovers when her long first day stretches into the nightshift, it barely scratches the surface of the building's rotten core.

Set in 1974 at a time when a war between trade unions and the UK government is leading to planned blackouts each night, The Power is a claustrophobic film in which draconian regulations abound and figures of authority rule with an iron fist. In Val's very first meeting with a stony-faced hospital matron, she's told in no uncertain terms to do as she's told if she wants to fit in and that she shouldn't even speak to the doctors because "they communicate above your level."

Writer/director Corinna Faith's dialogue expertly sets up the film's oppressive tone, establishing an atmosphere of silence and obedience which is used to devastating effect as the movie progresses.

Another thing that's established early on is a grim vein of misogyny. One of the first lines of dialogue is a "morning, darling" growled to Val by a faceless man as she walks to the hospital for her first shift, and the level of threat she experiences from men only grows worse from there. Through day-to-day interactions, Faith makes it clear that the nurses in the hospital are frequently objectified and mistreated, with the film — despite its '70s setting — feeling more relevant than ever today.

And within all of this, lurking amongst real-world threats, lies the horror — the faceless presence that lurks in the hospital. Faith pushes us to confront this with shaky, lamplit journeys down black corridors, and lingering shots of dark cupboards, constantly building tension that ramps up as Val's now-dreaded nightshift begins. The nightly blackouts that form the film's backdrop mean that the majority of patients are relocated at the end of the day, with only a couple of hospital wards remaining operational. The rest of the building is plunged into oppressive darkness. It's the perfect setup for building a creeping sense of dread, in other words, and Faith does this with a deft hand. There are plenty of jump scares, too, but these never feel gratuitous — like all the best scary films, The Power 's horror is used to draw out the movie's main themes, rather than wielding them for mere shock value.

All in all, the film is pretty hard to fault. The performances are excellent all-round, with Rose Williams showing off incredible range in the central role. Perhaps the only thing I wanted to see more of was the other characters, all brilliantly developed, with their few scenes of dialogue so well-constructed that I could happily have watched more of them.

But then again, maybe the minimalism works best. After all, The Power isn't a film about free-flowing conversation — it's a film about silence, and being silenced.

The Power is available on Shudder from April 8.

Review: London goes dark, supernatural thriller ‘The Power’ goes dim

A nurse leans over a bed in the movie "The Power."

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Horror meets history in writer-director Corinna Faith’s “The Power,” a supernatural thriller set during the 1974 London blackouts. Rose Williams plays Val, a novice nurse who has encounters with the paranormal while working the night shift at a darkened hospital. But while Williams and Faith do a fine job of capturing the frustrating powerlessness of a low-wage-earning woman in a sexist and classist society, “The Power” never generates much in the way of shocks or excitement.

The film works best in its opening half-hour, as Val struggles to fit in at her new job. She annoys her boss by having an intelligent conversation with one of the doctors. She irritates her co-workers, who find her nerdy and clumsy — and who have heard rumors that years before she lied about a sexual assault. Plus she’s afraid of the dark, which makes working in the hospital’s inky shadows unnerving.

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If “The Power” weren’t angling to be a horror film, it might be a decent drama. It’s set at a fascinating time in U.K. history, when the government and the labor movement were often at odds, causing disruptions to daily life; and Val is a unique character, quietly pushing back against atrophied institutions as well as her own past traumas and fears.

But as soon as the genre elements start creeping into the picture, “The Power” quickly dims. Rather than craftily building suspense and establishing a meaningful supernatural mythology, Faith throws a bunch of visual clichés onto the screen. As Val wanders through the wards she comes across old photographs with mysterious out-of-focus figures in the background, and notebooks filled with maniacal scribbles. She sees faces in the darkness and people whose bodies contort grotesquely.

All of these images are meant to point to the larger secret Val needs to uncover, but none of them are scary enough on their own to make the mystery compelling. Instead, the most intriguing part of “The Power” is Val herself, and her persistent inability to get anyone to take her or her warnings seriously.

In the end, this movie is more inclined toward the sober exploration of class- and gender-based discrimination than toward making the audience jump out of their seats. The message here is strong. The delivery is flat.

'The Power'

Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes Playing: Starts April 8, streaming on Shudder

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In 1970s London, a trainee nurse spends her first night at a hospital during power outages, where she is haunted by a supernatural presence. In 1970s London, a trainee nurse spends her first night at a hospital during power outages, where she is haunted by a supernatural presence. In 1970s London, a trainee nurse spends her first night at a hospital during power outages, where she is haunted by a supernatural presence.

Corinna Faith
Marley Chesham
Rose Williams
103 User reviews
71 Critic reviews
60 Metascore
2 nominations

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Trivia In a newspaper, an article states that Heath asks for support against miners. This refers to the Prime Minister of UK Edward Heath. One of the measures Heath announced on December 13th, 1973 was the '3-Day-Week', which was in operation from 31 December 1973 to 7 March 1974. This was meant to reduce commercial electricity consumption by moving from a 5-day to 3-day working week and encouraging non-essential businesses to close for 4 days per week. Electricity production was limited due to strike action preventing coal deliveries to power stations and so limiting drain helped prevent total blackouts, although most households and areas across the whole UK did still experience multiple power outages during this period.
Goofs The movie is set in 1973. A nurse reads Stephen King's book Carrie, which was first published on April 5, 1974.
Connections Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Best Horror Movies of 2021 (So Far) (2021)
Soundtracks Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep Performed by Middle of the Road Written by Harold Stott and Giuseppe Cassia Published by Warner Chappell Music Italiana Srl (SIAE) Courtesy of Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Italy) S.p.A. Licensed by Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited

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Runtime 1 hour 32 minutes

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The Power Review

08 Apr 2021

The 1970s was a decade known for political turmoil and civil unrest that climaxed with the Winter of Discontent, so no better setting for a ghost story to rage against the inequalities of the time that are still very much palpable today.

Writer-director Corinna Faith takes her cues from The Woman In Black and The Others by invoking a feminine spirit in one isolated location – a hospital in a poor area of East London with many a darkened corridor to get lost down. There’s an authenticity to the medical backdrop: West Indian, Irish and working-class women, played by Diveen Henry, Nuala McGowan, Gbemisola Ikumelo and Emma Rigby, respectively, making up the nursing staff while doctors are, of course, white upper-class men. This period texture is enhanced through the production design and costumes that heighten the otherworldly atmosphere that Williams’ protagonist gets pulled into as she seeks answers for why the ghostly presence of a young female patient is wreaking havoc on the children’s ward and targeting her in particular.

The horror merely simmers as opposed to the feminist messaging that truly scorches.

The more Val learns about the hospital’s history and her less than cordial colleagues, the more she is tormented by the spectral nasty that is causing her mental state to deteriorate. Williams realises this descension very well as she wields her limbs wildly and stares through sunken eyes to deliver an increasingly disturbing physical performance.

The film certainly has all the ingredients for an unnerving ghost story and makes some elegant choices with the visual and special effects to form the ominous threat. However, sharper editing and more effective camerawork might have allowed the scares to boil over and produce some truly fear-inducing results. Instead, the horror merely simmers as opposed to the feminist messaging that truly scorches. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and all that.

Tried and true horror settings often have rather boring origins. In the case of mid-century, English hospitals — it's not as if their construction needed to be on the cutting edge; these are buildings meant to store and treat sick patients, so spaciousness is key. There needs to be room for beds, equipment, hazardous waste, and administration to run it all. You're supposed to walk out of a hospital feeling better, but many often don't. There are natural tragedies that happen within their walls, but they aren't unexpected. What really invites a sinister presence to these places are the fresh misdeeds of its inhabitants — ones blinded by a cocktail of human frailty, ironically violating oaths in pursuit of twisted personal desire. When these crimes give way to conspiracy, it's easier to mythologize an evil that has taken residence in something like a hospital. It takes a brave soul to unearth what has been swept under the rug, ready to be resurfaced — for the very point of the existence of sin is to infect all that is untouched by it.

Formal Control: For all that transpires in The Power, the camerawork is clear and concise. It's maybe not as flashy as it could be, but there are many horror films with a similar budget that seem to skimp on technique. This film has a steady hand behind the camera, which goes a long way in keeping the audience invested in its slow-burn scares. For as long as it flirts with the supernatural, The Power keeps its climactic elements close to the vest, opting for a gradual descent into terror, as its lead slowly starts to unravel her workplace's horrid past secrets. The entire atmosphere of The Power is successfully maintained from start to finish. Its scares are built on and integrated into a historical setting. It's not as if the film's only intention is mindless horror. There is an impressive amount of restraint here. It's so easy to imagine the kind of scares that could come out of a darkened hospital; while something is most certainly afoot, if you're expecting blood and guts, you may be disappointed. The Power often feels like a small allegory, a spotlight on the sins of the past. Societal attitudes can change, oppressed groups can gain equity as the human experiment continues, but it can't come at the expense of forgetting how they were treated not so long ago. Even ten years can make a world of a difference. Public opinion often swings wildly like a tetherball. The Power as a piece of art is an example of how far things have come; a female director can partake in genre fun while exploring potent, real-world social topics and history. Marvelous!

Where's The Fun? The Power may contain some real scares, but it is particularly lacking in thrills. Its darkness is also its most limiting aspect. Rose Williams in the lead role has more than enough to work with, and I find her character to be reasonably heroic in relation to her story, but everything around her sometimes is lacking in life. The steady cinematography is also afraid to engage in any wild trickery, so this does feel like a very traditional kind of horror, one where it just has to emanate through the screen instead of reaching out and seizing your eyeballs. That's not a criticism, but the experience as a whole isn't terribly interesting. I respect the decision not to sensationalize the raw material it mines for its scares, but I don't come out of it feeling like it changed the playing field. It's a mindful entry into the genre, but maybe not a lasting one.

The Power's artistic power comes through what first appears to be a tearful subtext, but as it eventually takes to its genre, the unseen becomes the seen. For audiences that prefer understated horror, this film straddles the line. It still retains its dirty, lurid aspects, but it makes a rather tasteful grab for something more. It is competently executed, proof of a cast and crew that they can deliver an old-fashioned English horror. I'm hoping their next has a more fully-formed sense of style.

Related: Interview with The Power filmmaker Corinna Faith

Watch The Power via Amazon or Apple TV

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – The Power (2021)

April 6, 2021 by Tom Beasley

The Power , 2021.

Directed by Corinna Faith. Starring Rose Williams, Shakira Rahman, Emma Rigby, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Theo Barklem-Biggs, Diveen Henry and Charlie Carrick.

A newbie nurse at a London hospital finds herself spending a terrifying evening on the intensive care ward amid a government-imposed blackout.

In the winter of 1973/74, Britain was hit by blackouts as striking miners meant the country’s coal reserves were running low. The Tory prime minister Edward Heath opted to ration electricity usage, with many essential services plunged into inky darkness for periods of time. It’s against the backdrop of that unrest and economic turmoil that writer-director Corinna Faith’s sophomore feature The Power takes place.

Rose Williams plays newbie nurse Val, who has just taken a job at a London hospital. Her tyrannical matron (Diveen Henry) warns her that she’s very much on probation, declaring ominously that “a nurse must give herself entirely – sacrifice”. Unfamiliar with the labyrinthine halls of the hospital, Val is assigned the “Dark Shift” and is allocated to the intensive care unit with less-than-bothered colleague Babs (Emma Rigby). It doesn’t take long for the emergency generator to fail, amplifying the darkness and allowing plenty of things to go bump in the night.

There’s an efficient, atmospheric feel to The Power , which unfolds entirely within the walls of the hospital. Its jumps and jolts might be a little generic, but the command of lighting is impressive and Faith knows how to maximise every shadow and shape moving in the darkness. The atmosphere is assisted by Elizabeth Bernholz and Max de Wardener’s score which, although initially overwrought, becomes a real asset when the movie grows in intensity around it.

Williams does a stellar job in the lead role, conveying the character’s troubled past and increasingly unsettled mental state with expressive eyes piercing through the flickering gas lamps which light the action. One scene in which her character appears to become possessed is a genuinely disquieting display of intense physicality. Few members of the supporting cast get much chance to make an impression, though Theo Barklem-Biggs is effectively creepy as a lecherous hospital employee and youngster Shakira Rahman is charming as runaway child Saba, with whom Val forms an emotional bond.

The movie suffers in a lot of ways from its proximity to the similarly themed Saint Maud . Like that film, this marries elements of religion and medicine through the lens of a female protagonist. But sadly, The Power lacks the overall sharpness of Rose Glass’s film and there’s nothing here to match Morfydd Clark’s live-wire central performance. Positioned against last year’s horror hit, The Power sometimes looks a little pedestrian.

Although Faith’s script deals with some serious and powerful themes bubbling beneath its surface, these are left under-explored and particularly suffer in the face of a third act twist which feels as if it has been borrowed from a considerably sillier movie. Ultimately, The Power feels like it never fully commits to any element of its premise and, as a result, emerges as a fitfully effective exercise in hospital horror. Rather fittingly for a movie set during a blackout, it gets lost in the dark.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Tom Beasley is a freelance film journalist and wrestling fan. Follow him on Twitter via @TomJBeasley for movie opinions, wrestling stuff and puns.

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The Power is The Boys But for Girls — With One Big Problem

Toni Collette stars in a series with interesting worldbuilding but all the nuance of a sledgehammer.

The Power , Prime Video’s female-focused superhero show, is adapted from Naomi Alderman’s book of the same name, a book that was heavily influenced by the author’s mentor, Margaret Atwood . That’s clear from the start — the slightly-skewed, “what if” premise feels like it is trying to be The Handmaid’s Tale for the next generation. But much like the Hulu adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale , The Power makes for an interesting thought experiment, before it quickly becomes not only obvious, but preachy.

The Power follows a group of women as they develop a strange, unexplained, but transferable power to generate electricity thanks to a new organ found in the collarbone. It quickly gets a name — EOD — and a stigma.

While firmly an ensemble series, Toni Collette shines as Margot Cleary-Lopez, a mayor and mother of Jos (Auli’i Cravalho), a teen girl who exhibits the power and can’t seem to control it. Across the world, girls are developing this power. At first, it’s seen as a hoax, but after a rogue discharge causes a tragedy, Margot admits the power is real and becomes the face of EOD advocacy, even when that puts her at odds with the governor (Josh Charles) and her own husband (John Leguizamo.)

Jos tries to control her EOD powers.

Margot and Jos’ story is told in parallel with a number of other stories from around the globe. In London, Roxy (Ria Zmitrowicz) tries to win the respect of her father, who may be involved in shady business. In Nigeria, Tunde (Toheeb Jimoh) documents different cases of EOD that quickly turns into protest coverage. Back in the states, Allie (Halle Bush) starts to hear voices and runs from her abusive home to find shelter with a group of rebel nuns.

When Margot tells the world about EOD, she prefaces it with a long monologue about what happens when women aren’t told what’s going on with their bodies, comparing ignoring EOD with back-alley abortions, forced birth, rape culture, and maternal health. The series’ main conceit is spelled out: The world is changing, and it’s because women finally have a way to fight back.

At first blush, it sounds outdated, like rhetoric ripped from the 2017 Women’s March. But the show, for its credit, does take time to examine the intersectional aspects of the issue. Allie makes friends with a transgender nun, establishing that “woman” is not simply defined by body part, be that a uterus or a weird electronic new organ. Tunde, the sole male main character, examines how his privilege affects his sudden fame in documenting the power.

Sister Maria (Daniela Vega) does give the gender politics of the series some nuance.

But at its heart, The Power can’t help but go down the path of hackneyed gender politics. Jos gives a speech about how she can walk home alone at night now, but then Roxy accosts a club bouncer with a “give us a smile.” When women are forced into power, it’s easy to slip into stereotypical moments.

The Power garners comparisons to its more gory, less teen-focused Prime Video sibling The Boys , but the shows do have some key differences. Both give a lot of screentime to the concept of legislating around superpowers and both have a heavy dose of political satire, but The Power goes one step further and plays this completely straight. When the governor warns Margot to keep her cool around EOD by saying “Remember Covid?” it’s a harsh reminder that this isn’t an alternate present, it’s a ghostly apparition of a hypothetical future where good and evil are clear and revenge fantasies are default.

Really, the show is more like an eight-hour-long episode of Black Mirror , proudly pointing out sexism with a narrative full of double standards. It’s great for teen girls who may need a show to be Baby’s First Feminist Narrative, but much like the main problem with The Handmaid’s Tale , your average adult woman doesn’t need a hypothetical to see how messed up the world is: she could just look out the window.

While it is satisfying to see how the power dynamics shift in a now-matriarchal society, it’s more interestingly explored in other shows like the currently-airing Yellowjackets . The Power is the television equivalent of a pussy hat: well-intentioned, but a bit on-the-nose and outdated.

The Power premieres March 31, 2023 on Prime Video.

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The power (1984) - blu-ray review.

{jatabs type="content" position="top" height="auto" skipAnim="true" mouseType="click" animType="animFade"}

[tab title="Movie Review"]

The Scooby Doo level drama begins simple enough. Three curious teens are in a graveyard doing something stupid involving a spirit board. You know how it's going to go. Later on that same sleepy night, one of them sits at his desk. There is a rare sculpture on it; it looks exotic. He begins to nod off and suddenly, a series of objects – pens, paperclips, baseball bat – attach themselves to the base of the statue. Suddenly, the goldfish are fried in their tank. And the whole world starts to suck in through the teen’s room. And, in that way, The Power is unleashed upon all of mankind and it can never be destroyed.

And this is why you should never ever FUCK with anything Aztec. YOU WILL DIE. The Intrigue is certainly strong with this one. And truly that’s its main source of … power. Made by the same creative crew responsible for The Dorm that Dripped Blood , The Power – while basic in its rollout – manages to tell an earnest tale with a lot of great squishy-headed effects.

Picture it. A lone jeep cuts through the high desert. A fat man emerges from the kicked up sand. He waits alone. Time passes. Dusk falls. Suddenly, a boy is standing on the other side of the road. He turns when the man spots him and, as if expected, the boy begins to walk away. The man follows.

The man, upon the death of a professor, is searching for the last known whereabouts of the trinket that could potentially be responsible for the death at the college campus. But he is impatient and doesn’t like to be told no. The God-possessed object will be his. Even if he has to kill for it. Do you see now how the God’s angry influence can spread?

And all of this is to get to the bottom of the mystery that surrounds an object that one college student suggests is merely a Mexican saltshaker. Destacaytl is an angry God; a regulator of the dark forces at work in the human experience and this is a movie all about his power. And he won’t let anyone stand in his way.

The Power , written and directed by Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow, is a horror film that overcomes its budgetary limitations due to its robust use of creaky atmosphere as three Los Angeles teenagers – actors Lisa Erickson, Ben Gilbert, and Chad Christian – cross paths with the power of this pissed-off Aztec god. And one of them, after the teens make momentarily contact with the other side, suddenly has a series of supernatural run-ins happening to him; all because of the statue on his desk.

They can’t bury it. They can’t ignore it. And talking to a local reporter named Sandy McKennah (Suzy Stokey), who passes on the story for her friend Jerry (Warren Lincoln) to pick it up, gets them nowhere. Things are sticking to it. Bizarre things. And that’s only the beginning. Now that Jerry has his hands over the power and the pulse of the statue, things in LA County are about ready to EXPLODE.

Anyone who comes in contact with The Power emanating from this object are at risk. And the scares elicited from the contact with the statue include vibrating objects, loud noises, and a weird scratching noise that is sure to freak some viewers out. There’s also this light and when Sandy is attacked in her bed by a mattress full of arms and grabbing hands, all bets are off for who exactly has the cojones to survive this tale of human sacrifice.

Time to ditch the candles. The Power , thanks to Code Red, has been fully restored. Pray there aren’t any more storms…

[tab title="Details"]

MPAA Rating: R. Runtime: 98 mins Director : Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow Writer: Stephen Carpenter Cast: Suzy Stokey, Warren Lincoln, Lisa Erickson Genre : Horror Tagline: Pray for them. They have unleashed ... THE POWER Memorable Movie Quote: "I feel a presence here." Theatrical Distributor: Artists Releasing Corporation Official Site: Release Date: January 20, 1984 DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: August 22, 2017 Synopsis : An Aztecan idol is stolen from a professor and ends up in the experimental hands of three high-school students who use it to get in touch with the spirit world. Things start to go wrong when a cemetery worker dies during one of these spirit sessions, and everything goes wrong after the Aztecan god possesses the body of a young man who steals the idol for his own purposes as the horrors of Destacatl is unleashed.

[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

Blu-ray Details:

Home Video Distributor: Code Red (Diabolik) Available on Blu-ray - August 22, 2017 Screen Formats: 1.85:1 Subtitles : None Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Discs: Blu-ray Disc; single disc Region Encoding: Locked to Region A

Code Red presents The Power in all its demonic glory thanks to a brand new 16x9 widescreen master. Black levels are strong and details in the sets stand out. There’s a nice texture throughout the presentation and the colors are bold enough, never standing out. They don’t disappoint either. Framed in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the movie looks as fresh and as furious as day one of its life. There’s a slight texture to the print, which is appreciated. Bits of dirt and debris pop throughout the presentation. A strong DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track carries the adequate sound track.

Supplements:

Commentary :

Special Features:

We only get a few and a couple of those are ported over from Scorpion Rising’s DVD release of the movie. Here, we have an interview with composer Chris Young about his score, an original trailer, and an episode of Katarina’s Nightmare Theater with hostess Katarina Leigh Waters.

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The Power: Release Date, Trailer, Songs, Cast

Release Date 14 January 2021
Language Hindi
Genre Action, Crime, Drama
Duration 2h 33min
Cast Vidyut Jammwal, Shruti Haasan, Zakir Hussain, Sachin Khedekar, Sonal Chauhan, Jisshu Sengupta, Mahesh Manjrekar, Medha Manjrekar, Prateik Babbar, Mrunmayee Deshpande, Sudhanshu Pandey, Yuvika Chaudhary, Salil Ankola, Sameer Dharmadhikari, Chetan Hansraj, Aham Sharma, Vidyadhar Joshi, Savita Malpekar, Ganesh Yadav
Director Mahesh Manjrekar
Writer Mahesh Manjrekar, Siddharth Salvi
Cinematography Rakesh Rawat
Music Salim–Sulaiman
Producer Vijay Galani, Pratik Galani, Dhaval Jayantilal Gada, Aksshay Gada
Production Pen India Limited, Galani Entertainments
Certificate 13+

About The Power Movie (2021)

The Power Movie Cast, Release Date, Trailer, Songs and Ratings

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The power movie songs.

#	TITLE	ARTIST	DURATION	WATCH
1.	Oh Saaiyaan	Arijit Singh, Raj Pandit	3:20

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Defying age and expectations, 94-year-old June Squibb is Hollywood’s latest action star

LOS ANGELES — On a bright June afternoon in the San Fernando Valley, the summer’s unlikeliest action hero sits down at a small dining table in the tidy ground-floor apartment that she shares with two cats. Offering her guest a plate of cookies, June Squibb explains that she previously lived for two decades in a different apartment on the second floor, but three years ago her son Harry insisted she move down to this unit so she wouldn’t have to navigate stairs every day. “He was right — moving down here was the best thing I could have done,” she says.

This may not seem like the typical setting for an interview with an action star. But then again, Squibb is 94 years old and nothing about her career has been typical. After decades on the stage in New York, she made the leap to film and TV when she was already in her 60s and quickly found herself working for directors like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne. When she was 84, Squibb earned a supporting actress Oscar nod for her turn in Payne’s 2013 film “Nebraska,” and now, at an age when many actors have long since retired or died, she is finally stepping into the spotlight with her first starring role.

In the comedy “Thelma” (in theaters Friday), Squibb plays a strong-willed grandmother who is duped out of $10,000 by a phone scammer and embarks on a quest to get back what is hers, taking to the streets on a scooter hijacked from an elderly friend, played by “Shaft” star Richard Roundtree . (The actor died of pancreatic cancer shortly after making the movie.) Written and directed by Josh Margolin, who based the story on his own now-104-year-old grandmother, the film earned raves at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for its fresh twist on familiar action tropes and its sensitive handling of both the indignities and pleasures of later life.

Building off that buzz, Magnolia Pictures is releasing “Thelma” on more than a thousand screens, the widest opening in the indie distributor’s 23-year history. The film hits theaters just a week after Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” in which Squibb delivers a standout turn as the new emotion Nostalgia — “a funny little lady with rose-colored glasses,” in her words — making this truly the Summer of Squibb. For the Illinois-born actor, after a lifetime of playing supporting roles, it’s a new experience simply to be the face on the poster and No. 1 on the call sheet.

“They keep saying that: ‘You were No. 1!’” Squibb says. “It’s so funny to hear that because, my God, all these years I just have never dealt with anything like that.”

When she first read Margolin’s script, Squibb connected immediately with Thelma’s determination to confront those who wronged her. Her second husband, acting teacher Charles Kakatsakis, who died in 1999 after 40 years of marriage, always told her she could have made a good cop. “I think he’s right,” says Squibb, who loves police procedural shows and has several bookshelves filled with Scandinavian crime novels. “I have a great sense of justice, of what’s right and wrong. Since I was a kid, that’s always been a part of my ethos.”

When looking for an actor in their mid 90s to play a role like Thelma, there aren’t a huge number of contenders. But for Margolin, there was only one choice. “June is such a perfect mixture of strong but vulnerable, funny but understated,” says Margolin, who connected with Squibb through mutual friend Beanie Feldstein. “She has that spirit where she just doesn’t quit, and that’s such an essential piece of that character and of my real grandma. I was just dead-set on it being her.”

“Thelma” playfully sprinkles “Mission: Impossible”-style action set pieces into the story, appropriately scaled to a nonagenarian’s abilities. Like Tom Cruise, Squibb gamely performed many of her own stunts, including driving a scooter at inadvisable speeds and rolling across a bed with a gun in her hand — no small feat when you’ve had two knee replacements. “I loved the scooters,” Squibb says with a smile. “I have to admit, I did not do the wheelie. But I really did most of my stunts.”

In some ways, the physicality of the performance was nothing new to Squibb, who honed her talents as a dancer and singer from an early age. Born and raised in Vandalia, Ill., Squibb — whose father sold insurance and whose mother was a secretary — could not have been much further removed from Hollywood growing up.

“I had an aunt who tap-danced and whistled through her teeth — that’s the closest I came,” she says. “But I just knew what I was: I was an actress. It never occurred to me that there would be any other way.”

While still in her teens, Squibb began performing in theaters in St. Louis and Cleveland before moving to New York, where she made her Broadway debut in “Gypsy” alongside Ethel Merman in 1959. “My first 20 years were all in musical theater,” she said. “I did everything: Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, regional. I just wanted to work.”

Squibb was in her early 60s when she made her film debut in Allen’s 1990 romantic comedy “Alice.” The director had a reputation for firing people he wasn’t happy with, and at one point Squibb feared she could be one of them. “I yelled at him once — I was trying to get a cue from an actor who was impossible and he was blaming me,” she says. “I went home and said, ‘Well, I’m either going to be fired or he’s going to love me.’ When I went back, he had put me in a lot more scenes.”

From that point on, Squibb continued to find steady work in Hollywood, from films like Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence” and Payne’s “About Schmidt” to countless TV appearances. In 2013, she delivered a scene-stealing turn in Payne’s “Nebraska” as co-star Bruce Dern’s flinty, no-nonsense wife, which earned her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations along with an Oscar nod for supporting actress .

A decade later, she still vividly remembers sitting in her apartment with her son, Harry Kakatsakis, who is himself a director and writer, watching the Oscar nominations being announced. “They said my name and he said, ‘Mom, you did it — you did it,’ ” she says. “And we’re both just sitting there crying. You can look back on it and think, ‘Well, what is it?’ But even now, I’m very proud that next to my name it says ‘Oscar nominee.’ “

In the years since then, Squibb has found herself getting recognized in public more often. “We go to Gelson’s and there’s almost always somebody in there that stops by and says something to me,” says Squibb, who has an assistant (also at her son’s insistence) but otherwise still lives independently. “Sometimes they think I’m a teacher they had many years ago or something like that. It’s fun.”

Squibb initially thought “Thelma” might be her swan song, but the offers keep coming in. As a testament to her range, she recently played a vampiric leprechaun in the latest season of “American Horror Story” and will next star in Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, “Eleanor the Great,” as an elderly woman who forms an unlikely bond with a 19-year-old girl after she moves to New York.

Despite Hollywood’s obsession with youth, Squibb is encouraged by the variety of roles she’s being offered, which go well beyond the stereotypical grandmotherly type. “Eleanor is very different from Thelma, and God knows they’re both different from the leprechaun,” she says. “I think things are changing. We have these wonderful women doing leading roles at 40, 50, even 60. That never would have happened even 20 years ago when I first came out here.”

Squibb attributes her own ability to keep working to good genes and an active lifestyle. “Both my parents died at 91, which in their generation was very old,” she says. “And, you know, I danced for years in New York. I started swimming for an hour a day when I moved out here, and I still do Pilates once a week. So I think that has a lot to do with it. Physically, I just never stopped.”

And at this point, as long as she remains healthy and able, she has no intention of stopping. “I am completely going against the rules,” she says. “It never occurs to me that I’m doing something different than most people. There are no rules. Now I’m just like, ‘Well, I wonder what I’ll do next?’ “

So what about “Thelma 2”? After all, every action star needs a franchise.

“Everyone is kidding about that, saying, ‘If June does it, I’ll do it,’ ” Squibb says. She laughs. “I’m like, ‘Oh, s—.’”

Untapped home equity offers financial flexibility

The cost of borrowing has risen sharply in recent years, so when it comes to tackling a big expense, it’s important to know about the options.

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'Inside Out 2': Navigating a storm of emotions to ultimately find 'Joy'

Pixar's 'inside out 2' was all about riley's story, and it also introduced new emotions like anxiety, envy, ennui, and embarrassment. kelsey mann's film highlighted the complexities of adolescence and the enduring power of happiness..

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Inside Out 2, Joy, Anxiety, Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke

'Inside Out 2' is all about Riley's teenage years with new emotions like anxiety and envy
The film shows how these emotions create chaos and self-doubt in Riley's life
Despite the turmoil, joy remains a guiding force in Riley's journey

In the vibrant world of animated films, few have resonated as profoundly as Pixar’s 'Inside Out.' The original film, with its innovative exploration of emotions, personified within the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley, captured the complexities of growing up. Now, 'Inside Out 2' returns to this rich emotional tapestry, delving even deeper into the multifaceted experiences of adolescence and reminding us that despite the turmoil of emotions we endure, it is happiness that ultimately propels us forward.

'Inside Out 2' picks up Riley’s story as she navigates the stormy seas of her teenage years. The film introduces new characters representing a broader spectrum of emotions, such as anxiety, envy, ennui (a feeling of weariness), and embarrassment. These new additions highlight the increasingly complex emotional landscape that teenagers face.

Anxiety manifests in Riley's worry about fitting in and meeting expectations. Envy emerges as she compares herself to her seemingly more successful or popular peers. Ennui captures the lethargy and disinterest that sometimes accompany the overwhelming pressures of growing up. Embarrassment becomes a frequent visitor as Riley grapples with her self-image and social faux pas.

Ashton Kutcher Says Soon ‘You’ll Be Able to Render a Whole Movie’ Using AI: ‘The Bar Is Going to Have to Go Way Up’ in Hollywood

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Ethan Shanfeld

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Ashton Kutcher looks at OpenAI’s generative video tool, Sora, as the future of filmmaking.

“I have a beta version of it and it’s pretty amazing,” Kutcher said of the platform in a recent conversation with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the Berggruen Salon in Los Angeles.

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‘the shining’: thr’s 1980 review.

On June 13, 1980, Warner Bros. bowed Stanley Kubrick's psychological horror film in theaters nationwide.

By Arthur Knight

Arthur Knight

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On June 13, 1980, Warner Bros. bowed Stanley Kubrick’s psychological horror film The Shining in theaters nationwide. The film, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall, went on to gross $47 million and endure perpetually as one of the titles routinely mentioned as among the scariest movies of all time . The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:

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‘Power Book IV: Force’ To End After 3 Seasons

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Just a day later, the bombshell news was revealed that Power Book II: Ghost would conclude with Season 4, airing currently via linear and the Starz app. And now, it’s the end of Force .

Deadline understands showrunner and executive producer Gary Lennon has written a proper conclusion for the series and has already moved on to a new project: developing another installment within the “Power” franchise.

“It is bittersweet to write the fulfilling ending of this chapter in Tommy’s journey, a character myself and fans have grown to love over the past decade,” said Lennon in a statement. “Season 3 will question everything we thought we knew of Tommy’s world and I promise you it will not disappoint! Although this may be the end of the road for Force , there is much more expansive, compelling storytelling for the characters within the Power Universe.”

In March, Lennon signed a new deal with Lionsgate Television which noted he would work with them and Starz to expand and create new extensions of the popular franchise.

Although we don’t know how Ghost will end, the bare minimum is that Tariq (Michael Rainey Jr.) could combine forces with his Uncle Tommy. After all, Tommy and Tasha (Naturi Naughton) recently mended fences though who knows how long that will last.

Sikora addressed the show’s end via Instagram and that the end of Force isn’t the end of Tommy.

“But don’t worry, Tommy’s journey is far from over with. We’re just starting to get warmed up with it, he said.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Joseph Sikora (@josephsikora4)

Rainey told me in late May while discussing Tariq’s future, that he would be open to playing the character longer but he also might be done and ready to move on, as actors say so as not to blow the plot of the finale.

“I wouldn’t be against it if it was a thing. Why wouldn’t I? I would love to give the fans what they want,” he said. “But also, I’m ready to move on to the next chapter of my career. I’m super excited to attack that. I would love to give the fans what they want, but that’s not part of the plan as of now. I’m ready to show you what else Michael can do.”

The original Power series ended with Ghost’s murder at the hands of his son Tariq, so it’s plausible to guess that ending Ghost with the death of Tariq would make the most sense. Maybe so but there’s no way Power would go without having a series in the present day, right? Tariq and Tommy make the most sense but it’s too early to see how everything will play out.

Who else? The Tejadas are self-destructing with matriarch Monet (Mary J. Blige) nursing a gunshot wound and with a son, Dru (Lovell Adams-Gray) hell-bent on seeing her six feet under in revenge for their father Lorenzo’s (Berto Colon) murder. Monet might not be much longer for this world. Cane (Woody McClain) is the strongest contender for survival, but again, at this point, anything can happen.

On the Force front, some characters could join a new series like David “Diamond” Sampson (Isaac Keys) but it’s also too early to speculate as the final season has yet to air.

As a reminder, there’s been prior talk about the Power franchise expanding to London, amongst other places, so a combo (OG and new cast) in the present makes the most sense. As they say, stay tuned.

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