‘The Harbinger’ is a horror film focusing on Monique during the pandemic lockdown. After receiving a call from an old friend, Mavis, against her better judgement and the wishes of her family, Monique goes to check on her. She reconnects with Mavis, but is unnerved by the state Mavis is in, experiencing trans-like nightmares that soon draw Monique in as well.
Finding Monique at her father’s house, she is shown to be quarantining with him and her brother, Robert and Lyle. The three are tired of the lockdown, but keep each others spirits up. After receiving a call from Mavis, Monique ventures out of quarantine to see her in the city.
Arriving at her apartment, she sees a mother carry her young child in, with the boy seemingly ill. Monique and Mavis decide to abandon precautions, self-distancing and wearing face coverings, in favour of reconnecting. The two manage to have a great evening, both enjoying each others company.
Before turning in for the night, Mavis tells Monique about disturbing nightmares she has been experiencing where she is chased by a grim presence, seemingly unable to wake up. Reassuring her she’ll stay by her side, Monique starts experiencing similar dreams. In trying to find answers, Monique sketches the presence from Mavis’s description, and tries to look it up online.
Coming across a demonologist, Mavis and Monique learn that the presence appears during times of particular hardship and as a precursor to calamity. Explaining that the harbinger thrives on being passed from one person to another, by planting the seeds of doubt and fear in people’s minds, the demonologist further says that she does not know of a way to defeat it. The girls also learn that the effects of the harbinger are all-consuming, where it disappears any and all traces of the person they haunt.
Disconcerted, the girls turn in for the night. Monique dreams of the little boy who was ill from Mavis’s building, and who had apparently passed away. The boy tells Monique to face the harbinger. Unable to engage with it, Monique and the boy look on to Mavis as she sleeps and is attacked and dragged away by the omen.
Waking up in a now empty and seemingly abandoned apartment, Monique has lost all memory of Mavis and returns home. On returning home, Monique is met with scorn, but let back in the house under quarantine. That night she is haunted by the harbinger. Trying to run, she sees the little boy again, who tells her to face the harbinger. Letting go of her fear and unleashing her anger, Monique beats the harbinger to death. She is then lead away from the scene by the little boy, where both embrace and enjoy the serenity, knowing they are no longer tormented by the being.
Resuming her life under lockdown at home, Monique calls with the demonologist to discuss what had transpired. There Monique uncovers a photo of Mavis, but does not recognize her. In talking, Monique realises that everything she had gone through in trying to escape the being had been a construct by the omen, luring her into a false sense of security. The harbinger then appears and drags Monique away.
Downstairs Lyle and Robert are shown going through a usual morning routine, taking in the groceries and setting up for the day. A policewoman comes in response to an emergency call made earlier. Lyle meets her a the door and in the exchange it is revealed that Monique has been disappeared.
‘The Harbinger’ is a pandemic/lockdown era holdover, visualizing the hardship that the quarantine was for most people. Unlike many of its contemporaries, the film quickly establishes the direction and tone it will take, by introducing the foreboding manifestation as an ever-present shadow that looms large over our players.
Introducing Monique as a kind-hearted aide, she has gone into lockdown to help her father. Unable to refuse Mavis’s literal call for help, she forgoes her own safety and goes to her. Soon learning that things are much worse than they appear, she remains by Mavis. One of the stand-out of the film, the performance delivered by Gabby Beans as Monique, anchors the movie. Beans delivers an hones take on someone who takes on each day as it comes, there to help out those she can whilst reaming steadfast and strong for those around even though she herself is fearful of what new developments and challenges she may need to face.
The film centres on Monique helping Mavis, and eventually having to face the harbinger herself. As the she goes through the dehumanizing and brutal challenges put to her by the harbinger, Monique manages to face her fears and apparently beat the omen. Perhaps disappointingly, the film twists to reveal that Monique had not escaped the harbinger and is erased from ever having existed. Even though the finale isn’t revolutionary and the execution leaves a bit more to be desired. it does work in it’s favour.
The aftermath of seeing Monique to have been erased speaks volumes towards the nature of the environment that we all had to live though. Having experienced the isolation and distancing, ‘The Harbinger’ expounds on the though that the lockdown may have left immutable remnants within us, having changed our way of looking at the future, always fearful of what may come around the corner. The complete erasure of someone both adds to the notion that the pandemic has changed us and perpetuates the idea that this time has dehumanized us, making us less likely to go the extra mile of others and to keep looking out for number one.
With a dark and gloomy tone, not unlike the antagonist of the film, ‘The Harbinger’ creeps quietly ever closer to the viewer, delivering a slew of effective, even though at times predictable, jump-scares and and overall anxious trepidation. Delivering it’s message well and leaving shadowy traces of itself after the film has finished, ‘The Harbinger’ is one of the better products of its time, working very well as a horror movie and conveying the degradation of character that has been brought on to our society as a whole though these trying times.
Score: 2.5/4
Comentarios