The Harbinger

I am not really sure how to rate this movie. I tried to watch it last week but I fell asleep even though I wasn't tired. I thought that the movie was boring up onto that point and that that was the reason. Anyway yesterday I tried watching it again and I fell asleep once again so I watched the rest of the movie this morning and I have to say that I was really bored most of the time.

There's a good movie hidden in there and the basic concept is really interesting but the movie is struggling with pacing issues and a plot that is mostly boring with few standout scenes. It's a metaphor about Covid and what it did to people but honestly I think that this whole thematic is not that relevant anymore and kind of sucked dry.

If a movie with a story like this and some faster pacing would have been released two or three years ago I think it would have worked better. By watching the ratings I see that there are some people who enjoyed this movie, so I am not trying to convince you not to watch it but for me personally it's just didn't work. [3,5/10]

The movie does an artful job of playing on common C0V1D fears, then goes a little deeper with some fairly creepy nightmare sequences. What could be scarier than a global pandemic, you say? How about a demonic "plague doctor" who thrives on the illness, fear, and isolation of regular folks, and has the power to cancel people like they never existed, carelessly rewriting history on a whim? A "harbinger" of worse things to come? Yikes! Good thing there's no one like that in government, industry, or the media these days. The acting was a little better than expected for a horror movie, and the blending of supernatural elements with fears ripped from the headlines was moderately interesting.

Monique breaks her family's strict Covid rules to visit her struggling friend Mavis. Mavis explains that she's been having vivid and terrifying nightmares, an empathetic Monique tries to help her friend, and it soon becomes a shared experience.

Better than I had expected, it's a well produced film with a pretty good storyline. Maybe Covid was generally a little less nightmarish in general, but it still served as an effective backdrop. Good use of surreal visuals and traditional, historical horror, The Plague Doctor in particular looks great.

It was well paced, I liked the characters, the family setup worked well, I also liked the way the scares were delivered, a few jump scares, but they weren't overdone. Well written, I liked how all of the loose ends tied together.

I thought the acting was very good, I thought Gabby Beans in particular was very good as Monique, her acting helped to elevate the film.

Enjoyable.

7/10.

One plot is the horror part, which is fairly interesting. The Harbinger is an interesting enemy, and the parts dealing with this were pretty well done. It wasn't particularly scary though, which might be because of the second plot in this movie. It's essentially rubbing in the Covid-19 pandemic scare tactics that we were all subjected to back in 2020. That heavily rubbed in your face sub-plot just ruined it for me. Most of us know better than to believe the propaganda, so now it just seems absurd how horrified these people were of this virus. I finally just fast forwarded to see the ending, because I just couldn't put up with it anymore. I figure that the main characters are mentally the same type of people that wear masks diligently to this day, and even when they are alone in their vehicles. Absolutely hilarious.

A real shame too... This movie honestly had really grabbed me right up until this certain point towards the end. It was a great story, very well acted, nicely paced, great suspense... and then it's like all the air went right out of it.

This to me is one of probably the most extreme cases where I guess the director/movie makers simply just did not know how to end it. I mean, EVERYTHING was super tight and effective, but then it just took this very odd turn, a very abrupt one, where you could tell the mood was completely different and to me anyway all that excellent tension and suspense that had been well crafted and built up to that point completely disappeared.

I don't know how else to describe it. Seriously... one of the most extreme cases of a movie totally taking a direction I feel completely losing everything it had up to that point. You see movies all the time that really aren't done that well and then if they get kind of stupid you're not really that surprised or disappointed.

But, the quality of the first 3/4 of the film was so well done, that really took me by surprise. I'm no professional movie maker (and I don't play one on television) but, I'm damn sure I could have come up with MANY better ways to end this story. IDK... Maybe they just ran out of time, that is the way it feels.

Again, a real shame since it had such an excellent start.

Can't really fully recommend this one, unless you can be prepared only to enjoy about the first 3/4 of it. Maybe next time the creator of the story will be able to have the time/resources/ideas in order to finish his well crafted story considerably better than this one...

FWIW, I gave it a very generous '6' just due to the excellent quality and premise that was there for most of it.