An eerie and gripping supernatural horror that permeates with fear and sorrow, The Harbinger successfully taps into the psychological distress felt during peak-Covid lockdowns in its telling of a horror story that cuts deep with masterful precision.

No one wants to return to the draconian rule that was the Covid lockdowns of 2020-2021, yet that is where we find Monique (Gabby Beans), a recent college graduate who is under strict quarantine with her father Ronald (Raymond Anthony Thomas) and brother Lyle (Myles Walker). Their carefully constructed bubble is popped when Monique’s college friend Mavis (Emily Davis) calls, asking for help. Monique complies to the protest of her family, only to find Mavis in physical and psychological distress due to absorbing nightmares brought on by a demonic presence that now has its sights on Monique.

Director and writer Andy Mitton pulls off a double-whammy with The Harbinger: on one hand he gets under our skin with uncomfortable intimacy, while on the other creating scenarios and scenes from which we cannot look away.

Much like the nightmares plagues that haunt these characters, there is a sorrow throughout The Harbinger that is hard to shake, that feeling of sadness, and inevitable doom that is conjured in all matter of nightmare that pulls you down into the pit of a subconscious beast, is projected with palpable, bone shuddering eeriness.

Mitton’s deft handle on the films’ numerous dreamscapes in which the real and the surreal converge to make for manna from horror heaven, are masterful in their staging, the fine editing by Mitton, and the cinematography by Ludovica Isidori (Santuary) who especially captures those moments of pitch-black nothingness as if presenting a nihilistic-drenched abyss.

Performances from Beans and Davis are strong, portraying the fear and paranoia of not only a real world that has collapsed under the weight of an insidious epidemic, but also a demonic presence that feasts on the dread and sorrow found in the dark recesses of us all.

Mitton successfully taps into the psychological and even spiritual ramifications of the Covid-nightmare through a horror parable about the demons that plague us from within. Gripping and terrifying, The Harbinger is a film of its time, yet its themes and the execution of those themes will haunt for some time.