the power horror movie review

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.

• 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
• Elizabeth Bernholz
• Max de Wardener

Cinematographer

• Laura Bellingham
• Rebecca Lloyd
• Tommy Boulding

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[Review] ‘The Power’ is an Emotionally-Charged Period Ghost Story with Unsettling Atmosphere

Nyctophobia, or an extreme fear of the dark, is a common and universal phobia that afflicts the young and old alike. Horror often exploits that fear, using darkness to conceal all forms of evil lying in wait. The Power , the latest by writer/director Corinna Faith , uses the late 1973 rolling blackouts that plunged London into darkness every night, caused by a miners’ strike, as a backdrop for this hospital set haunter. Faith uses a familiar period ghost story as a foundation to create an emotionally powerful tale full of claustrophobic dread and nyctophobic-induced scares.

Young nurse Val ( Rose Williams ) gets off on the wrong foot with her supervisor on her first day on duty. As a result, she’s assigned the night shift to watch over the remaining patients in a ward of a crumbling hospital. With most of the staff and patients already relocated to a new facility, it leaves Val almost entirely alone in a strange building nearly enveloped by darkness thanks to the city’s rolling blackouts. Struggling with her paralyzing fear of the dark proves extra tricky when it seems a malevolent presence thrives in the shadows of the hospital’s corridors. Is its relentless pursuit of her an indication that there’s something seriously amiss with this place, or is it all in her fragile mind?

From the outset, Faith teases a deep trauma from Val’s past that triggered her aversion to the dark. Val’s history, unfurling slowly throughout the evening, plays a vital role in the events that transpire. The nurse’s impoverished background means she’s instantly looked down upon by most around her at the hospital, especially from a fellow nurse and former schoolmate Babs ( Emma Rigby ). It’s also what connects her to young runaway patient Saba ( Shakira Rahman ), with whom she sees a kindred spirit. Val and Saba’s bond provides the emotional backbone, as the two forge a connection based on being disbelieved by everyone around them. That connection grows deeper as the entity lurking in the dark grows more prevalent and angry, threatening harm to all. The more hysterical that Val becomes, the more she’s written off as mentally unfit for the job.

Faith builds a chilling atmosphere, first by emotionally isolating her protagonist then by letting her get lost in the winding halls of a near-abandoned hospital. The blackout enhances the setting’s disorienting nature, with the nervous nurse growing more frantic as she rushes to find the next sliver of light cast by a selectively placed generator. Those large stretches between the generator’s red glow or candlelit wards create a vacuum for encroaching terror—the more the hours tick by, the less reprieve Val receives. The filmmaker demonstrates a thrilling ability to mount dread and suspense while ratcheting up Val’s psychological stakes. Faith escalates Val’s story at a brisk and steady clip.

Much of the film rests on Williams’ shoulders. She plays Val as the meek but eager to please type, completely undone by fear. The gradual transformative arc from timid to unhinged to asserting her inner strength retains rooting interest throughout, even when some of the scare pieces retread familiar ground. It’s Val- and Saba, to a smaller extent- that sets this film apart from other period set haunted house stories.

As the narrative barrels toward its conclusion, it becomes clear that there’s a brilliant duality to the film’s title. Faith’s latest innovatively draws from historical blackouts on the surface level, forcing her heroine to confront dark secrets and trauma during a power outage. But there’s a subtext that gets drawn to the forefront, with Val finding power from her pain that she didn’t know she possessed. It imbues a familiar haunter with a profound and triumphant catharsis. Faith wraps a timeless tale in period clothing, delivering an unsettling atmosphere and compelling characters. While it does employ some standard tropes,  The Power  succeeds in crafting an emotional powerhouse with a few memorable scares.

The Power releases on Shudder on April 8, 2021.

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Co-Host of the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon and SeriesFest.

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Scream Factory Brings Mike Flanagan’s ‘Hush’ to 4K Blu-ray With New Black & White Cut Included!

Mike Flanagan’s  home invasion horror movie  Hush (2016) made its debut on Digital courtesy of Shout! Studios just last week, the film finally available to watch again after disappearing from streaming for the past couple years. The film has also never received a physical media release, but we’ve learned that’s all changing thanks to Scream Factory later this year.

Hush comes to physical media for the very first time in a 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition release from Scream Factory on November 26, 2024 , the company announced today!

Scream Factory previews, “This highly anticipated Collector’s Edition includes a newly restored 4K version of the film, supervised and approved by Director Mike Flanagan.

“Additionally, a new black-and-white version of the film, nicknamed the “ Shush Cut ,” with a new audio mix will be featured. This mix removes nearly all of the score, providing a different effect that is just as terrifying as the original.”

“The Collector’s Edition offers extensive bonus content, including new audio commentaries and interviews with the filmmakers and cast, new feature-length picture-in-picture video commentary with Flanagan and the cast, and much more. The 4-disc set features striking newly rendered artwork and a reversible wrap with a black-and-white version of the new artwork, all housed in a slipcase. A must-have for movie collectors, horror enthusiasts, and film aficionados, Hush is available for pre-order now at ShoutFactory.com and other retailers.”

Shout! Studios and Scream Factory, in collaboration with Flanagan, offer a variety of exciting bundles that contain exclusive add-ons, including items such as an alternate o-card sleeve, poster, and more. These unique bundles are only available at ShoutFactory.com .

Here’s the full Special Features lineup…

Disc One (4K UHD™, ORIGINAL VERSION):

• NEW 2024 4K Restoration supervised and approved by Director Mike Flanagan
• NEW Audio Commentary with Mike Flanagan, Actor & Co-Writer Kate Siegel, and Actors Samantha Sloan, John Gallagher, Jr., and Michael Trucco.

Disc Two (4K UHD™, “SHUSH CUT”):

• NEW 2024 4K Restoration – B&W “SHUSH CUT” supervised and approved by Mike Flanagan
• NEW Audio Commentary with Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel.
• NEW 2024 “Shush Cut” Audio Mix.

Disc Three (Blu-ray™, ORIGINAL VERSION & “SHUSH CUT”):

• NEW 2024 4K Restoration supervised and approved by Mike Flanagan.
• NEW Audio Commentary with Mike Flanagan, Kate Siegel, Samantha Sloyan, John Gallagher, Jr., and Michael Trucco (Original Version).
• NEW 2024 4K Restoration – B&W “Shush Cut” supervised and approved by Mike Flanagan.
• NEW Audio Commentary with Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel (“Shush Cut”).

Disc Four (Blu-ray™, Special Features):

• NEW Feature-Length Picture-In-Picture Video Commentary with Mike Flanagan, Kate Siegel, Samantha Sloyan, John Gallagher, Jr., and Michael Trucco (Original Version).
• NEW Interview with Samantha Sloyan.
• NEW Interview with Kate Siegel.
• NEW Interview with John Gallagher, Jr.
• NEW Interview with Michael Trucco.
• NEW Interview with Mike Flanagan.
• NEW Interview with Producer Trevor Macy.
• NEW Interview with Composers The Newton Brothers.
• NEW Interview with Director of Photography James Kniest.

The digital release of Hush , meanwhile, is now available for purchase ($14.99) and/or rent ($5.99) across all major digital entertainment platforms in the United States and Canada.

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Hush  is a gripping horror thriller that centers on a deaf writer who has retreated into the woods to live a solitary life. She must fight for her life in silence when a masked killer appears at her window. Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the film received critical acclaim following its debut at SXSW in 2016 and its initial launch on a major streaming platform. Stephen King praised the film, saying it was “up there with  Halloween , and even more,  Wait Until Dark . White knuckle time.” Vanity Fair also described it as “a tense, breathless horror film.”

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

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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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Common Sense Media Review

Creepy British horror has scares, gory violence, sex abuse.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Power is a chilling British horror movie that features bloody and gory violence, jump scares, and themes around child sexual abuse. Set in a hospital during the power outages in the U.K. during the 1970s, much of the movie is shot in near darkness, which adds to the eery…

Why Age 15+?

Plenty of jump scares, gory incidents, violence, and deaths. Ghostly figures app

Two characters flirt with each other with one kissing the other on the cheek. Th

Language includes "s--t," "shite," "bloody hell," "piss," "lazy sod," and "shut

Characters smoke on occasion. Two separate close-up shots show a cigarette being

Any Positive Content?

Courage to do the right thing and speak the truth. Compassion and empathy are ra

Val is a dedicated and compassionate nurse who wants to help her patients. She a

Violence & Scariness

Plenty of jump scares, gory incidents, violence, and deaths. Ghostly figures appear in mirrors and reflections. A number of references to child sexual abuse. Character has their skirt lifted by both another character and an unseen force. Character is possessed on a number of occasions -- they are thrown and dragged across the room, with bruising seen on their neck. In one scene, they levitate off the floor and in another they begin coughing up a black substance. Their body also contorts into unnatural positions. A repeated flash sequence shows petrol being poured and then someone screaming while on fire. A charred human hand and a burnt toy dog are seen. Character is grabbed by the eyes from behind and is later revealed to have lost their site. Someone found dead at the bottom of the stairs -- unclear whether they were pushed or fell. A pair of scissors is thrust into a character's own leg. They later discover a word has been carved into their stomach. Character is thrown through a glass window resulting in cuts to their body. They then stab a syringe into someone's face. Someone falls from a drainpipe while climbing from a building -- shown injured crawling along the floor. Reference to a rape and murder. In a dream sequence, someone starts to strangle a young child. Character takes someone down to a basement with the intention of sexually abusing them. They order them to take off their robe. When they refuse they punch them in the stomach and later start to strangle them.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two characters flirt with each other with one kissing the other on the cheek. They are then lifted up onto a table and made to dance, causing upset. A character has topless posters pinned on their office wall. They also have a collection of Polaroid photos of all the nurses that work at the hospital, which have been positioned in a "league table" based on attractiveness. They refer to one character as being a "seven" if they smiled more. Reference to doctors and nurses fancying each other. Character seen in just a nightdress. Brief mention of the contraceptive pill and those that take it being considered "easy."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language includes "s--t," "shite," "bloody hell," "piss," "lazy sod," and "shut up." "Jesus" and "God" are used as exclamations. Character referred to as being "soiled goods."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters smoke on occasion. Two separate close-up shots show a cigarette being lit and another being extinguished in an ashtray. Character consumes a number of prescription pills in what appears to be an attempt to take their own life. Sedatives are injected into people against their will.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Courage to do the right thing and speak the truth. Compassion and empathy are rare but shown by some, which helps empower those in vulnerable positions. Standing up to abusers and making your voice heard. Authority figures wilfully ignore, or help cover up, heinous crimes and put pressure on people to make false testimonies. Bullying and lies are spread about innocent parties. Some sexist behavior.

Positive Role Models

Val is a dedicated and compassionate nurse who wants to help her patients. She appears vulnerable with a troubled past. But she finds courage and a determination to protect some and reveal the evil truth about others. However, she is possessed on a number of occasions causing her to be violent both to others and herself. Few other characters show any positive traits, particularly those in positions of authority, who abuse not only their power but also those that they're supposed to look after. Val's fellow nurses either perpetuate lies about her, or begin to fear and shun her. Reference to kids without any family growing up in care homes. Good diversity amongst both the main and supporting cast.

Parents need to know that The Power is a chilling British horror movie that features bloody and gory violence, jump scares, and themes around child sexual abuse. Set in a hospital during the power outages in the U.K. during the 1970s, much of the movie is shot in near darkness, which adds to the eery atmosphere. Characters become possessed and are dragged across rooms. They are also thrown through glass windows resulting in cuts all over their body. While possessed, young nurse Val (Rose Williams) stabs herself in the thigh with a pair of scissors, causing much blood. She also discovers a word cut into her stomach. One of Val's fellow nurses is grabbed from behind by the eyes and is later shown to be blind. In a brief sequence, shown multiple times, a figure is shown to be on fire. Their charred hand is later seen. Other characters are also seen dead, although their actual deaths occur off-screen. Ghostly figures appear suddenly providing plenty of sudden scares. There are a number of references to child sexual abuse and as the story develops, this abuse becomes more integral to the plot. Those who suffer the abuse are not believed or forced to lie, while the abuse itself is covered up by those in authority. Occasional language but nothing stronger than "s--t," although there are some instances of sexist behavior. While the majority of the characters are shown to be corrupt, abusive, and evil, Val shines as she shows courage in helping others as well as herself. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

Set in 1973, during the U.K. blackouts, The Power finds Val (Rose Williams) starting her first night shift as a nurse in a London hospital. With the electricity switched off, due to a dispute between the government and striking miners, and the hospital plunged into near darkness, Val's nerves are already on edge. When a ghostly presence makes itself known, Val is forced to face up to her past.

Is It Any Good?

By setting this British horror movie in a decaying hospital in the midst of the power outages during the 1970s, Corinna Faith's film gets off to a strong and chilling start. From its opening shot -- complete with sinister score -- The Power pulls you into its grasp, and doesn't let go. In what must have been a demanding physical role, the central performance from Williams as Val is strong enough to carry the narrative on her hard done by shoulders. Yet it's the movie's atmosphere -- with its creaky doors to its never-ending corridors to the fact that it's shot in near darkness -- which is the real star.

Faith, who both wrote and directed, also deserves credit for managing to weave in elements of child trauma and sexual abuse in such a way that it helps explain the story rather than for any shock value. It's sensitively handled, and the message that survivors of sexual abuse should -- and must -- be heard is, quite literally, screamed at the audience. Some of the performances from the supporting cast are a tad wooden, which creates an amateurish feel. But this is a horror movie that beneath the jump scares and gory violence has plenty to say.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in The Power . Did the blood and gore seem over the top? Did the violent scenes help tell the story in an effective way? Was it shocking or thrilling? Why? Does exposure to violent media desensitize kids to violence?

Did you find the movie scary? If so, in what way? What's the appeal of scary movies ?

What role did sexual abuse play in the movie? What message do you think the filmmaker is trying to tell us?

How does Val demonstrate courage , compassion , and empathy ? Why are these such important character strengths to have? Can you give any examples of when you've shown these traits in real life?

Did you know anything about the power outages in the U.K. during the 1970s? How did it add to the creepiness of the film? Can you think of any other horror movies where real-life events have been incorporated into the story?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : April 8, 2021
• Cast : Rose Williams , Emma Rigby , Gbemisola Ikumelo
• Director : Corinna Faith
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors, Black actors
• Studio : Shudder
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
• Character Strengths : Compassion , Courage , Empathy
• Run time : 92 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : June 3, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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The Power (Review)

Fear the darkness within.

by Blacktooth Sep 17, 2021, 6:29 pm 0 Comments

Director – Corinna Faith (Nature, The Beast) Starring – Mark Smith (Burke and Hare, Wild Child), Marley Chesham, and Rose Williams (Reign, Curfew) Release Date – 2021 Rating – 4/5

Shudder just keeps giving horror fans exactly what they want. After joining Shudder’s streaming service earlier in the year I’ve found myself getting excited for their releases through RLJE Films. Some are duds but a good majority of them have been absolutely phenomenal.

Sometime back Shudder released The Power on their streaming platform and many genre fans were praising it on social media. I never did get around to checking it out but when RLJE sent over the DVD for me to review I couldn’t wait to check it out. It’s not often that I look forward to spinning a film that most people enjoy but the trailer and artwork really caught my interest. I want to thank RLJE for sending this one over!

**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a young nurse who wants to dedicate her time at the local hospital in hopes of finding some sort of family that she never had growing up as an orphan. However, what she soon discovers is that the hospital is harboring a dark secret that can be traced back to the administration. Soon she is fighting for her life while a dark presence reveals itself to her while it seeks revenge. **Spoiler Alert**

I was really digging the artwork and trailer for The Power but I didn’t expect this film to have the choking atmosphere and classic horror tension like it did. This film is marvelous on many different levels and I can’t wait for my next visit. Stop reading this review right now and head to Shudder where you can check it out.

The acting in this is great. Rose Williams makes the film and she goes all in for her performance. She has several intense scenes where she fully dedicates herself to the performance. I was extremely impressed by how far she was willing go which adds another chilling aspect to an already terrifying film. The supporting cast only adds to this stellar performance.

The story for this one is something we haven’t necessarily seen before but the incredible atmosphere and tension, mixed with the amazing cast, comes together to create something that is not only an import film but an import modern genre film that must be seen. The film has perfect pacing, smooth dialogue, and the tension comes to a boil damn near perfectly. I really enjoyed how this one was written and the twist was not expected.

Finally, the film has some pretty fun practical effects with some blood. It’s not the most gruesome scenes I had scene but they were still enjoyable. Also, the film has some pretty impressive visual effects as well. Overall, The Power is a must see for horror fans regardless of your favorite sub-genre. It was a lot of fun and I know most of you will enjoy it as well. Check it out.

(Staff Writer) Lover of all things horror and metal. Also likes boobs and booze.

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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’ review: haunted hospital horror requires patience

Newcomer Rose Williams wards off spirits in a ward of spirits

W e all know the feeling: it’s the first day in your dream job and – darn it! – you go and get yourself possessed. Imagine the nicknames in the staff room!

That’s the nightmare scenario greeting idealistic young nurse Valerie, fresh out of training and clocking on for her first shift in an East London hospital, in The Power , the latest movie from streaming service Shudder . We’re in the dark days of the miners’ strike, a period in which evening blackouts were instituted to save power, and the 1974 of The Power may as well be 1947. The hospital is one of those huge Victorian things that looks like it couldn’t ever be warm, the nurses still wear long linen caps and the staff are demotivated, sexist, racist, uncaring and – in the case of Emma Rigby’s Babs – downright cruel. This, we quickly understand, is not the NHS we know and love today.

When Valerie butts heads with the joyless Matron (Diveen Henry), she’s made to stay on for the blackout shift caring for the patients who couldn’t be transferred away. And, lo! A horror movie situation is born. Valerie, played with childlike vulnerability by likeable Rose Williams, is soon being tugged at, perved on, attacked and possessed as she rattles around the hospital from hell getting more and more scared. And scares come easily in a pitch-black abandoned hospital filled with creepy weirdos, so it’s disappointing how often The Power feels the need to resort to cliché, like eyes scratched out on portraits, kids scribbling black clouds in jotters and what is, at heart, a typical ghost-with-a-message plot. Not necessary when those inky black corridors create their own monsters in the shadows.

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 – and one that has something to say about real world horrors, too. Watch it with the lights off and a bottle of TCP for sniffing.

• Director: Corinna Faith
• Starring: Rose Williams, Emma Rigby, Shakira Rahman
• Release date: April 8 ( Shudder )
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The Power (2021) it's a very good social horror (Spoilers)

Just watched this and really appreciated the cinematography, the atmosphere and, mostly, how approaches the central theme of the film: Sexual abuse. The movie explores how hierarchy of powers can make people silent about the abuse, even the victims themselves. It kinda lost it's power (no pun intended) in the last act, but nothing that can compromise the entire movie. Highly recommend!

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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.

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It is a hair-raising journey into the world of two lovers as both their families are ripped apart for the sake of revenge and power, and an entertaining look at how they rise out of that pit... Read all It is a hair-raising journey into the world of two lovers as both their families are ripped apart for the sake of revenge and power, and an entertaining look at how they rise out of that pit of blood lust and despair, together. It is a hair-raising journey into the world of two lovers as both their families are ripped apart for the sake of revenge and power, and an entertaining look at how they rise out of that pit of blood lust and despair, together.

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‘April’ Review: Abortion Drama Is a Singular Horror Show

Venice Film Festival: Director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s distinct film follows an OB-GYN who performs illegal abortions in Georgia

Don’t let the name fool you: “April” is a wintery affair. By far the most uncompromising vision to play at this year’s Venice Film Festival, director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s slow cinema horror show might also be the most audacious. That audacity translates less by way of length or provocation – Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” and Harmony Korine’s “Baby Invasion” have those laurel locked up – than by way of self-assurance, from the filmmaker’s steadfast belief in her own creative gambit to her audience’s willingness to immerse themselves within.

This is, in so many words, a swing for auteur enshrinement so crystalline in intent that it namedrops Mikhail Kalatozov’s “The Cranes Are Flying” and visually cites Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” from the very jump.

Kulumbegashvili can reasonably wager on her film’s long-term prospects once it meets the right crowd (“April” boasts the producing support of Luca Guadagnino, who showered Kulumbegashvili’s prior effort, “Beginning,” with just about every eligible prize when he headed the San Sebastian jury in 2020), but the diverging festival response between Kalatozov’s 1957 Palme d’Or winner and Glazer’s 2013 subject to boos and jeers reflects the shakier outlook for such formal extremes upon immediate arrival.

Of course, the film is all too conversant in those particular risks, capping an opening prologue that finds a humanoid monster slinking into a pitch black abyss with a depiction of live childbirth for an infant that (narratively, at least) doesn’t last minutes in this world. Shot from above and leaving nothing to the imagination, the extended sequence has a jolting effect, at first shocking with a clinical view of the single act that unites us all (don’t worry those born of Cesarean, Kulumbegashvili later circles back to cover that as well) before lingering long enough for us to wonder why an act so common should remain so obscure.

Viewed in a certain way, “April” can be described as a character study centering on Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), the OB-GYN-turned-scapegoat upon that tragic turn. Only we don’t actually see Nina’s face fully lit in close-up until the one-hour point, nor do we hear her name spoken aloud before the penultimate scene. Instead, Kulumbegashvili overlays perspectives, collapsing her camera, her lead, and her audience atop one another. If not fully assuming the first-person, the film often frames interactions in near POVs that hew the character’s general eye-line and position in space at a given time.

Even when it breaks or plays with that framing and blocking device, “April” subsumes the main character’s Hippocratic view into all aesthetic choices. As a doctor, Nina is, rather by definition, a clinical pragmatist; she treats the symptoms and tries to resolve the problems in front of her. That one of those issues is the complete lack of (legal) family planning in this devout and rural patriarchy doesn’t really faze our physician. Somebody’s going to do it, she figures; might as well be the one with medical training. As with that early birthing sequence, the film translates this same clinical reasoning in visual terms, confronting elements often left off-screen and casting them in cold light.

Time and again, Nina confounds the patriarchal order by refusing it recognition, but she pays the price for her insolence, from a transactional sexual encounter turned violent once she asks for reciprocation, to the career put in danger once rumors of her extracurricular medical services begin to swirl. That career is all she has, as the price for living beyond the reigning order is a life of solitude and abnegation. The director’s almost-but-not-quite POV compositions accentuate that solitude, framing characters in conversation or sexual congress as completely isolated forms.

Shirking exposition until absolutely necessary, “April” follows Nina over a nominally condensed period of just a few days, all destabilized by long takes that curdle and warp the felt passage of time. We see her with a hospital superior whose overly familiar questions might hint at workplace harassment until we learn of their shared past and undimmed flames. We see travel across vast plains whose great expanse belies a cloistered world where everyone is up each other’s business, and we see her at work, both on the clock and off. As it builds a rather deliberate pace, the film implicates and includes us in Nina’s sense of trudging responsibility until we finally see her face in full as her eyes beam at the sight of a healthy newborn, and better understand the passion that guides her.

Lest we slip too close to realism, Kulumbegashvili often returns to that opening homunculus – a stooped figure with a spine protruding from mounds of melted flesh that might be a version of Nina finally removed from all the human impulses still anchoring her, or maybe something completely different (a wink to that goop deformed thug from “Robocop?” Who knows — this is an open text). To that end, the odd sight adds a final, unresolvable question to a film that continually makes formal leaps assuming that the audience drawn in will work alongside to catch up. That takes a certain mad audacity, and a level of belief both in self and in the audience that flatters – and bewilders.

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'The Life of Chuck' Review: Mike Flanagan Makes Stephen King’s Story Soar | TIFF 2024

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Review by Jason Gorber

Many of the most beloved films of all time stem from the narratives birthed by the literary works of Stephen King . There are obvious contenders that are more explicitly horror films such as Carrie , Misery , or Dead Zone , or those that take his narratives and reshape them in certain ways like with Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining . Yet it’s the slightly oddball, less overtly part of King’s overtly-genre themed canon that seems to translate with even greater success to the big screen. Stand By Me , Rob Reiner ’s stunning adaptation of King’s novella “The Body,” continues to resonate decades later. Frank Darabont ’s The Shawshank Redemption regularly appears on best-of lists to this day. And now, with Mike Flanagan ’s stellar The Life of Chuck , we have another adaptation that immediately contends for being crowned the best King-originated film ever made.

Flanagan is, of course, no stranger to mining the works of this author, with 2017’s Gerald's Game , a psychological horror film, and 2019's Doctor Sleep finding a unique way of tying Kubrick’s version with the novel’s original precepts, creating a wild hybrid that was deserving of more praise than it received upon release. Flanagan is continuing to mine the scribe’s works as he’s set to captain an “ oil tanker-sized ” production based on the epic Dark Tower series, one of King’s most wild and epic creations that’s a merging of fantasy and Western motifs . At The Life of Chuck ’s premiere, Flanagan discussed first reading King’s “If It Bleeds” collection of novellas soon after its April 2020 release, just as the COVID pandemic was resulting in global lockdown. For a storyline that uses prescience about future traumas as one of its central tenets, and questions our choices at the start of worldwide catastrophes, this was quite obviously the perfect story at the perfect time to reflect upon the need to take chances, to embrace the art in all things, and to hold dear those memories that make us who we are right up until the end.

What Is 'The Life of Chuck' About?

The Life of Chuck contains magnitudes, as Walt Whitman ’s “Song of Myself” most famously articulated. King has crafted a philosophically rich, emotionally deep, intensely joyful narrative that in this adaptation feels like the culmination of Flanagan’s craft. Toying with our fears is a fundamental skill set for King and Flanagan alike , but it’s the deft touch in this project, where intertwined stories are knit together in ways both subtle and overt that, from its opening to closing frame, encourages us to find moments of joy in the face of existential dread.

Mirroring the novella’s structure, Chuck is told in reverse chronological order . Act Three (the first we see), subtitled "Thanks, Chuck;" introduces a teacher Marty Anderson ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ) where, mid-class, the student’s phones announce that all of California has slipped out into the sea. As global communication breaks down and a sense of aimlessness leads many to simply reject life in favor of suicide, we see as Marty clings to hope despite the world literally crumbling around him.

Reconnecting with his ex-girlfriend ( Karen Gillan ), they are haunted by an image on a billboard of a smiling, bespectacled man in an almost oppressively generic businessman suit, with “39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck" emblazoned below. The image begins to appear everywhere as things become all the more chaotic – from park benches, to glowing luminously from the windows of an oppressively normal suburban local. The mysterious figure appears both portentous and dull at the same time, this seemingly paradoxical divide is a touchstone to many of the film’s narrative shifts.

'The Life of Chuck' Dances Through Time

In the Second Act, “Buskers,” the narrator (performed with a perfect drawl by Nick Offerman ) shares the story of an accountant ( Tom Hiddleston ) who gets swept up thanks to the beats of a street drummer played by Taylor Gordon , crafting an infectious, percussive performance that’s one for the ages . While not a huge narrative surprise when some joyous action finally takes hold (think Mads Mikkelsen in the Oscar-winning Another Round , or Christopher Walken rocking out to Fatboy Slim), the audience at the premiere was so taken by the performance that there was a mid-film ovation, clapping along with the on-screen crowd.

As the first-yet-final chapter unfolds (dubbed, fittingly, “I contain multitudes”), we’re introduced to a number of other people who help tell the story of a full life , from Mark Hamill and Mia Sara as grandparents, Samantha Sloyan as an instructor, to Jacob Tremblay , David Dastmalchian , Harvey Guillén , and, of course, Flannagan’s partner both on and offscreen since Occulus , Kate Siegel .

While much of the film’s charms lay in these various narrative machinations, there’s far more at play here than merely relying on a series of shifts. Rather than employing simple twists, the storytelling equivalent of a jump scare for cheap effect, in King’s storyline, and Flanagan’s adaptation, there’s a well-designed interplay that provides both thematic richness and moments of more sublime character moments. Credit to King’s original where it’s due, but in the end it’s the translation to the big screen, with all its physicality and warmth and rhythmic capabilities, that truly makes the source material soar. While on the written page Chuck’s story may work well enough , it’s when employing the unique capabilities of cinema, with elements from montage to performance to the magical act of merging sound with a moving image being the tools that are truly needed to maximize this story. It's where things truly become profound.

Flanagan Does It All With 'The Life of Chuck'

With Flanagan writing the adaptation, directing and co-producing, as well as editing the film, his fingerprints are all over the project, and so it’s at his feet that so much of the success of this film lies. His interdisciplinary role in the telling results in a remarkable consistency, leading viewers with an underlying tonal, performative and aesthetic coherence to help navigate something that feels at first a series of scattershot moments, but in the end encapsulates something gloriously personal .

As a famous Carl Sagan metaphor that serves as one of the film’s principal guiding tracks illustrates, in the grand scheme of cosmic time, our lives occupy a slice that is miniscule to the edge of meaninglessness, a blip-of-a-blip where our existence itself is, by almost any measure, trivial to the point of erasure. And yet, as the film so beautifully articulates, within that galactic, yawning void, there’s still love to be shared, art to be made, and lives to be lived to their fullest . The human capacity to have knowledge that it all inevitably ends is in conflict with our equally human capacity to revel in the ride we have along the way. Even as everything falls into the sea, and that which we hold dear is stripped away like dimming stars, at our best we can in these most dire, most truly horrific of situations, find ways of holding onto joy to the very end.

Flanagan’s latest is simply a stunner. His finest film is a deeply heartfelt, glorious thing. Dancing between the ruminative and the revelatory, it never succumbs to being maudlin or cloying. The Life of Chuck is a modern fable told with the deftness of a fairy tale , with the sheer exuberance of a musical while exuding the same sense of wonder one gets staring up at the heavens. A Life well-lived, indeed.

The Life of Chuck

Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck is a stunner and one of the all-time great Stephen King adaptations.

• Writing, directing, editing, and more, Flanagan encapsulates something gloriously personal
• The film employs the tools of cinema to full effect, making King's writing leap off the page.
• In merging this story and the magic of cinema, Flanagan crafts something truly profound.

The Life of Chuck had its World Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

• Movie Reviews

• Mike Flanagan

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‘The Deliverance’ Review: The Power of Camp Compels Him

Lee Daniels directs Andra Day and Glenn Close in an exorcism tale that includes melodrama along with the scares.

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By Amy Nicholson

The director Lee Daniels frees his actors to exorcise their demons with audacious performances that rank among the most memorable of their careers. (If you’ve yet to see the mischief Nicole Kidman gets up to in “The Paperboy,” you’re in for a hoot.) With “The Deliverance,” a riotously wacky horror flick, Daniels adds actual demons, too, sending his latest troubled heroine, Andra Day, straight over the edge. Day, a Grammy-winning musician, earned a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination for her performance in Daniels’s “ The United States vs. Billie Holiday .” Not only can she sing and act — here, she’s an outrageous scream queen.

Day plays Ebony, a single mother plagued by bills, alcohol addiction and her own violent temper. Her three glum children — Andre (Anthony B. Jenkins), Nate (Caleb McLaughlin) and Shante (Demi Singleton) — have endured years of abuse even before something wicked in their new home urges the tykes to hurt themselves and each other. Adding to the pressure, Ebony’s born-again, floozy mother, Alberta (Glenn Close), has moved in to recover from cancer (and criticize her daughter’s cooking), while a social worker named Cynthia (Mo’Nique) drops by to monitor the kids’ bruises, and, when pushed out the door, hurls as many nasty quips as she gets. When the spooky business starts, Ebony barely notices. She simply slams the basement door and keeps on trucking.

The script by David Coggeshall and Elijah Bynum is a riff on the 2011 case of Latoya Ammons, whose claims that evil spirits had overtaken her family were corroborated by a Department of Child Services case manager, a medic, a police captain and a priest. But “The Deliverance” is driven by Ebony’s struggle to convince anyone to believe her — the pitiless authorities refuse to look past her own flaws. To the audience, however, she deepens into a riveting character study, particularly in one close-up where Ebony agonizes over whether maintaining her truth is worth the terrible personal consequences.

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Screen Rant

Lee daniels’ new netflix horror movie continues a disappointing 11-year trend after the butler.

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What happened to the real ebony, latoya ammons, after the deliverance, does killian scott really sing as orpheus in kaos.

Lee Daniels' Netflix-trending horror movie The Deliverance continues a "rotten" streak with critics that's prevailed since the director's 2013 historical drama, The Butler . Netflix's The Deliverance succeeds several Daniels-directed films that have either sank or swam with critics. Daniels' directorial debut, Shadowboxer , was his first critical flop - but he was able to follow it up with the sensational book-to-movie adaptation, Precious , which was a big success with critics, who scored it with a Certified Fresh approval rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes . Despite Daniels' rough directorial introduction, Precious helped raise anticipation for his 2013 movie, The Butler .

Daniels was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Directing for Precious .

For the most part, The Butler met the expectations of critics, as demonstrated by a positive 78% RT Tomatometer score. Even more, the film became Daniels' highest-grossing movie to date, earning $177.3 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo ). However, the rapport Daniels built with critics as a result of Precious and The Butler's outstanding performances would come to take a stark turn. Since The Butler , Daniels has yet to direct a movie that's made an impact with critics , even though the films have either drawn impressive crowds or rated high with general audiences.

As one of the oldest of the most popular entertainment mediums, the film industry has built an impressive catalog of legendary directors.

The Deliverance Continues Lee Daniels' "Rotten" Score Trend After The Butler

The deliverance was given a 32% approval rating by critics.

The Deliverance has performed well ever since its August 30 release on Netflix. For the week of August 26 to September 1, The Deliverance ranked third on Netflix's Global Top 10 chart with 14.5 million views and 27.3 million hours viewed. Currently, it sits in the No. 1 spot on Netflix 's Top 10 U.S. movies. Despite all this, critics have come to a condemnatory consensus about Daniels' supernatural horror, bestowing it with a frightful 32% RT score and continuing a “rotten” streak that began with The United States vs. Billie Holiday .

Whereas The Deliverance has proven its ability to draw crowds, The United States vs. Billie Holiday played its hand at impressing general audiences. The 2021 biographical drama about singer Billie Holiday earned itself a 79% audience approval score. Nevertheless, it didn't hold up as well with critics . Combined, the disappointing critical scores of The Deliverance and The United States vs. Billy Holiday - which possesses a low 55% critical approval rating - formed a trend that can only be broken by a future Daniels-directed project. At the moment, Daniels does not have any upcoming projects queued under his direction.

Why The Deliverance's Reviews Are So Negative

Critics slam the deliverance as unoriginal.

Underneath The Deliverance's mostly negative reviews , critics could find some bright spots. The Deliverance aims to document the haunting of the Jackson family, and amid its supernatural occurrences, critics gave props to the film's layered family story and cast performances. From The Deliverance's cast of characters came standout performances from Andra Day as Ebony Jackson and Glen Close as her mother, Alberta Jackson. Unfortunately, the film's clichéd genre tropes and predictable plot line overpower the potential The Deliverance had in its cast and family drama , making it hard to gauge it as anything but another unoriginal horror movie.

The audience reception of The Deliverance shared the same sentiments altogether but gave it just a little more credit. With 250+ ratings, general audiences granted Daniels' film a 49% score, citing The Deliverance's nostalgic feel and exploration of themes of faith and family trauma as additional strengths. All that said, none of The Deliverance 's strengths could save the film from the "rotten" territory that Lee Daniels has found himself in once again.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes , Box Office Mojo , Netflix

The Deliverance

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A woman returns to her childhood home to confront dark secrets from her past. As supernatural forces emerge and family tensions rise, she must uncover the truth behind her haunting visions and protect her loved ones from an ancient evil threatening their lives.