Subscribe to my channel : .Horror Movie | A ghost takes revenge at London's Hospital. The Power Explained recapped Full Recap - YouTube
Today I am going to explain an interesting British horror film called "The Power". To understand this film, first we need to know the background of British society in the year 1974. As this film is set in that year. In that year an agitation was going on between coal miners and the British Empire which was reduced to a union called the united kingdom. The situation was so severe that the government started power cuts after sundown. The entire London city was under a pitch-black darkness, people were forced to use candles and lamps at night. It was that era where women used to work mainly in nursing and teaching fields. The opportunities for women in other fields were not much. The society was male dominant. This film’s story is about one such nurse, Valerie, who has shortened her name to Val.
The film starts with a nurse named Val who was suffering from a trauma. She had a condition called Nyctophobia, meaning the fear of darkness. She was afraid of the darkness, a childhood trauma caused her condition. In darkness she used to breathe heavily, her BP used to rise, and she used to sweat a lot. That’s why she always worked in the day light.
We see Val joining the east London hospital one morning. The blackouts in the city were supposed to start starting from today. Hospital staff were preparing for that. Val meets with a matron nurse and joins the hospital. Matron was a strict lady. She dictates all the rules like, following all the orders from doctors, no chit-chat, no makeup, no short skirts etc. Here we also come to know that Val is an orphan, she had no family. She grew up in our lady of grace children home and was a devoted Catholic.
Matron places Val in a gynecology ward. Some time later Val found a Bangladeshi immigrant, Saba, in the nurse’s washroom. She brought her to the second floor where she was the patient of Dr Franklyn. Saba was suffering from liver-related issues. Saba too had no family as she came from a refuge camp. After the 1971 Bangladesh genocide, many refugees arrived in England for refuge. They were stuffed in a make-shift camp.
Dr Franklyn was fed up with Saba as she was not taking her medicine on time, she was roaming around. Val talks nicely with her, she gives her medicine. Later she does some medical chit-chat with doctor Franklyn which impresses him. Doctor Franklyn now requests the matron to place Val on his ward. Matron agreed, but she was not impressed, she stared at Val and said, I have been working here for many years, I know the in and out of this hospital, following the superior’s order blindly will only make you safe and comfortable. Otherwise, the consequence may be fatal. Matron punishes Val for her disobedience by placing her at a night shift. Val knew her condition, but she said nothing as this could place her job at risk.
The blackouts were happening in the evening, hospital staff was sending patients, kids to another hospital where power was there. In this hospital only the ICU ward was getting the power. Later, the kids from the children ward were shifted too. We see Saba moving as well. Val was cleaning the walls of this ward as this was her punishment as well. I guess at that time there was no concept of ward boys, hence nurses might be doing the cleaning job as well. I am not sure, but Val was doing this job here. We see a poster outside this ward which was for the reportage of any sexual harassment at this hospital.
Val was cleaning one vent which had a thick black mold. It had a foul order. Right then the door of the store room opened on its own, and Val heard a cracking sound. When she entered the room for checking, some unknown force expelled her. Val was scared here and a little bit confused too.
In the evening Val was getting ready for the blackouts. Suddenly, the blackout happened before due time. Only three other nurses were working night shifts in this hospital. Val was supposed to be on the forth floor, but she ended up at the second floor’s maternity ward. Two other nurses, Comfort and Terry, were there. Here Terry was reading Stephen King’s famous horror book Carrie. To me, this nurse seemed like a daring one. Reading a horror book in a dark, empty hospital at night!
Anyway, Comfort takes Val to the third floor. There a senior nurse, Barb, was working. Barb was surprised seeing Val here as she knew her from childhood. She too grew up in that orphanage where Val grew up. Barb knew Val’s history. Barb was totally different from Val, she was bold, mean, ambitious and wanted to settle in life by marrying a rich guy. She chose nursing as working ladies used to get good marriage proposals. It was sad but true.
For ICU patients there was a generator at the hospital which was providing the electricity. When Val and Barb were talking, this generator broke down. The total darkness spreads everywhere. Barb grabs Val’s lamp to get emergence battery backups. Val was alone in this darkness, and she was scared like hell due to her condition. She goes out to grab a candle, just then she hears someone’s voice, someone was calling her name in darkness. Someone grabs her from behind, which makes her fall onto the ground. Just then the power comes back where we see Barb with security in-charge Neville. Neville introduces himself to Val where Val understood his loose character with his way of talking. Now we see Neville harassing Barb sexually, Barb was co-operating here. But by the looks of her, it seemed she was in anguish. Later Barb explains to Val that it's all common here, to move up on the ladder one has to obey all the orders without thinking anything. She warns Val about these things and asks her to be strong from day one.
After some time, Barb sends Val to the first floor to collect a few files. Due to her condition, Val was moving very slowly, Naville was locking the doors to prevent criminals from looting the hospital. Val visits Naville’s chamber where lots of adult posters were hanging. Naville had a collection of nurse photos which he called a treasure collection. Basically, for favors the hospital’s doctors were indulging in sexual harassment of nurses. Neville was helping them. Val gets scared seeing all this, she runs from Neville’s chamber.
On her way back, some unknown force again attacked Val. It's Stats to lift her skirt. Val was visibly in panic mode, she ran from there in darkness and ended up in the basement. There she saw a dog doll from which lots of noise was coming. As soon as she touches it, something grabs her from behind, it forcefully drags her out. In a few quick scenes we see that Neville was burning in his chamber, someone was notching Barb’s eyes. Later we see Val at the maternity ward where she was in shock, her hair was off, her clothes were dirty. Val had no memory of what happened to her or who did that to her. Terry gives Val a new set of clothes as she was looking horrific. Just then these three heard some noise in this ward as well, upon checking it was Saba. She was supposed to move to the other hospital, but for some strange reason she ended up here. She angrily explained everything to Terry and Comfort, but they understood nothing as Saba was speaking in the Bangla language. The national language of Bangladesh. Here Val gives a cookie to Saba and calms her down again. She checks Saba’s sketch book where she made some creepy drawings. Which makes Val believe that she might be scared of something.
Suddenly, that unknown force possess Val, it was agonizing her. She fell in front of Terry and Comfort, Terry was spooked. After a few minutes, Val became normal, but she had no memory of what just happened to her. Terry thinks of this as a demonic possession, she starts to flee this hospital through a window. There was a pipe beside that window through which she was planning to tickle down. Meaning this nurse was not daring after all. I guess she was smart, by reading many horror books she understood possession. Comfort tries to stop her but fails. Somebody was needed to look after the babies in this ward, so she decided to continue her job. She has never believed in possession anyway. She now asked Val to go to her ward. As Val starts to leave, she sees an image of a little girl in the glass. This whole time this little girl’s ghost was possessing her. Her name was Gail. The hospital staff used to call her the dirty Gail. Dirty Gail makes Val stab herself, Val’s hand involuntarily stabs her with a scissor. Val starts to bleed heavily. Comfort rushes in disbelief and stops her bleeding. She does her bandage. Val was knocked out. Later Val had a dream where dirty Gail was chasing her and Saba. Val wakes up in shock. Saba was beside her this whole time, she gave her Gail’s photo and said in broken English: she is forcing me to do things.
Now Gail directly says to Comfort, you never listened to me, I tried many times, but you never listened to me. Comfort was horrified as she was witnessing the possession for the first time. She tries to insert another round of sedative into Val’s body, but Gail who was possessing Val stops her. She attacks Comfort and inserts that injection back on her. Comfort stops it at the midway. In a hurry she grabbed Saba’s hand and ran toward that window. Saba refuses to trickle down as it was deep for her. Comfort goes ahead any way, but by this time the sedative has started its work. While on the pipe, Comfort loses her balance, she falls down.
In the maternity ward Gail was now haunting Barb as she knew everything but still did nothing. Barb here accepts her mistake, she promises to tell everything to everyone, but Gail was in no mood to listen to anything. She attacks her and kills her.
After some time Val came out of the possession, she had no memory of what happened. She asks Saba to go away from her. She starts to move out from this hospital. On her way out, she sees Barb’s dead body and then Naville’s burned body. Here she gets a few visions where Naville was doing sexual assault on Gail. Later he killed her and placed her body with her dog doll into the furnace. Barb saw it, but she didn’t say anything to anyone. Sexual harassment was common at this hospital, and everyone knew it, everyone did it.
Next morning Val wakes up at one bed where Saba arrives there with an interpreter. This guy was a trainee doctor who was from the Indian state of West Bengal, he could speak Hindi, Bangla and English. Bangla was also the state language of west Bengal. Saba says Gail is not bad, she is like us, she hid me till morning. Saba was telling some nasty stuff about the doctors here which this Indian guy angrily stopped her. He scolds her in Hindi and drags her from there without translating anything. Next hospital’s CEO, department head, Dr Franklyn, and matron check on Val. They knew about Val’s ghost theory through Comfort. Val says Gail took revenge on Neville as he killed her, and Barb knew it as well, so she too paid the price. The department head dismisses this accusation and quotes one incident from Val’s childhood.
After some time we see Val getting possessed again, this time Gail draws the picture of Dr Franklyn. Val was shocked, she rushed from her bed to find Saba. She found her with Dr Franklyn who was taking her to the other hospital. Dr Franklyn was annoyed to see Val there, and he started to walk to her room with her. Val signals Saba to run from here. On their way, Val asks Dr Franklyn if he also goes to the basement. Dr Franklyn takes this as a signal, and he drags Val to the basement. He had an alternate key to the basement as many doctors here had that. Neville was the middle man.
During Val’s childhood, her headmaster sexually assaulted her at Our Ladies children's home. Val told this to everyone, but nobody believed her. The nurses, teachers and police silenced her voice. They even accused Val of lying for attention. Now Val here sticks to her theory. She says Gail was real. Hospital CEO categorically denies having any child by the name Gail, which makes the matron uncomfortable. As she knew about Gail.
After arriving at the basement, Val starts calling Gail. Dr Franklyn laughs at it and says, here The Power lies with us, we can do anything we want. We can do whatever we please. He was talking about men at large, men were controlling everything at that hospital and the society at large. He was not afraid of anything. He starts to forcefully assault Val. Just then Saba arrives there, which makes him angry. Gail was possessing her, now she possesses Val and starts to attack Dr Franklyn. She emits powerful lights from Val’s body, which ultimately kills him. How a child's ghost can do this, I don’t know, but she did it. This is a ghost movie, so anything is possible. L O L.
Later, Val, Saba and Gail leave this hospital where the matron helps them. She appreciates Val’s courage of speaking the truth, which she lacked. Hospital’s CEO gets a call from Gail where she warns him of more killings if he does not change the culture. She makes him responsible.
This is a powerful film on a sensitive topic like woman harassment. The seventies were the time when the woman rights movement was picking its pace. Till then, the patriarchy saw women as a property. The power was with them. Due to the heroic efforts of some woman, there is some sort of gender equality in the 21st century. But it is not complete. In the film Gail was not haunting Saba, rather she was saving her. Saba and Val were victims, hence Gail was able to possess them as she was too. Saba tried to explain this fact to Val, but the Indian guy stopped her.
Talking about one big mistake, Stephan King’s horror book Carrie was released on April 5, 1974. This film took place in January 1974, way before the book got released. Even though the book was about woman power, but this type of homage is logically wrong. I guess its not a big deal.
