Everyone loves a good dream sequence, right? I mean, cinema is the perfect medium for surreal, enchanting, trance-like scenes dancing across the screen. But not these ones. The Harbinger, in taking the very real horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic and mental illness and blending them with the supernatural, depicts a nightmarish world where you can't tell if you are awake or asleep, and are at risk of being forgotten.
The Harbinger, written and directed by Andy Mitton, follows Monique/Mo (Gabby Beans) as she attempts to help her old roommate Mavis (Emily Davis) as she is struggling in lockdown with ‘bad dreams'. Of course, this isn't just bad dreams, Mavis is staying asleep for days unable to wake up while being haunted by a plague doctor figure, The Harbinger. Soon, perhaps too soon for maintaining suspense, Mo is plagued by the same figure.
There is an obvious A Nightmare on Elm Street inspiration in The Harbinger, which is interesting to see explored seriously in a contemporary setting. But The Harbinger blends The Host, The Babadook and A Nightmare on Elm Street into something modern and fun. Granted, the pandemic setting offers grittiness and freshness to the idea that the movie would otherwise be lacking, but is it the perfect setting to explore this concept? I mean, didn't we all sleep a little strangely in lockdown?
The most interesting aspect of The Harbinger is that, like Freddy Kreuger, he is an idea that you need to take power from, but spreading the idea makes other people vulnerable to the Harbinger's attacks, raising the niggling question in the back of your mind that this could happen to you next, a pandemic Roko's Basilisk. You can't un-have an idea, as a demonologist explains in the movie, but you can prevent its spread.
More suspense could have been built easily by extending the beginning and keeping the creature in the shadows, and the ending was perhaps a little too much of a homage to A Nightmare on Elm Street as they had an opportunity to do something much more innovative with this concept. Although the simple design of the Harbinger was chilling, an extra twist could have been added to a classic plague doctor figure, and seeing him in the full light, especially so soon into the film, removed the suspense that is sustained in, for example, The Babadook. The eeriest moments were when Mo and Mavis are being stalked from the shadows, which is taken away too quickly.
Of course, all this illustrates that, to the filmmakers, the root of the demon and the fear is simply the idea of the monster, but for the sake of a compelling movie this idea could have been kept slightly more ambiguous. It is all quite clearly spelt out, and the saving grace in this respect is the hyperreal dream sequences mentioned above. Viewing this film, you won't be entirely sure what is a dream and what is reality just as the characters aren't, and this builds a sense of dread which is better sustained than that of the monster.
This seems to be the point, but from a viewer's perspective this could have been accentuated with the suspense of the harbinger figure, or the other figures which crop up such as a little boy who tragically died from COVID. This character did a lot in adding to the dread and keeping up the blend of the horrors of COVID-19 with superstitious, medieval imagery from The Black Plague. The music, lighting, and settings were bleak and cold throughout, the charismatic characters being the only thing bringing you out of this drowning setting of 2020 for a breath, which makes the stakes higher if they are to be forgotten entirely.
Ultimately, The Harbinger is an interesting watch and I think horror fans would enjoy seeing a Freddy Kreuger figure transformed into a monster for the 2020s, and a 2020 setting is horror enough for some of us. Despite compelling performances, dialogue, and visuals, suspense is ultimately lost and by the ending, I felt it was far too close to being an A Nightmare on Elm Street remake to be refreshing, and there was a lot of opportunity when exploring mental health and the fear of being forgotten and trapped during a pandemic through such an interesting concept which was ultimately missed.
FrightFest Presents and Signature Entertainment releases The Harbinger on Digital Platforms 23rd January.
