The Harbinger

We all know that Covid 19 ravaged the planet for two years (and still is) killing millions leaving a massive social, health and economic legacy that will likely be with us forever. Adaption to the situation became essential for everyone, no escape.

The arts, badly affected, weren’t slow to respond going online or improvising to start with then as restrictions started to lift, adapting to them. Then later on the creative industries began to use it as a background or directly referencing it. Host being the most obvious example in the horror genre.

The Harbinger is set in New York in the middle of lockdown. Monique (Gabby Beans), her father Lyle (Myles Walker) and brother Raymond (Anthony Thomas) strictly complying with the rules. Masks on when venturing out for supplies then distance and washing in the house.

A frightened call from Monique’s old friend Mavis (Emily Davis), who isolated in her flat, and having terrible nightmares, compels her to leave the house and travel to the almost deserted Queens (Ground Zero) district of New York.

Reaching Mavis’s apartment her story is of bad dreams and a hooded figure with a plague mask. The Harbinger tormenting her. With Monique now in the apartment she is within the scope of the demon who now begins to toy with, her shredding the barrier between reality and dreams.

The Harbinger from the multi-talented Andy Mitton (director/writer/editor and composer) is part demon horror and a meditation on the dread, isolation and paranoia that Covid inflicted on the world. When Monique returns home, she’s imposed with a fourteen-day quarantine; the family can’t be too careful, regardless of her assurances.

It’s a beautifully balanced performance from Beans as she tries to do her best for both family and friend while getting to grips with an entity that is shifting her between dreams and the real world, constantly pushing her to the edge and towards Mavis’s collapsing state of mind.

All the performance are good and on a technical level the film is wonderfully creepy assisted by some terrific lighting and sound design. That said the design of the demon with the medieval plague beaked masked is a little on the nose and used so often now as to be passing into cliché.

There’s little violence or overt scares as The Harbinger works more on a psychological level, that once truly considered, the demon’s ultimate purpose is far more terrible any jump scare or axe attack.

The Harbinger was presented at London FrightFest in August 2023 and will be available on digital platforms from 23 January 2023.