The Harbinger is available in theaters and VOD after enchanting critics and movie lovers at film festivals. The story conjures a new kind of demon that feeds on fears of isolation and forgetfulness, which makes it ideal that The Harbinger is set in the middle of the COVID pandemic, when we all remained locked inside our homes, uncertain about the future. While writer and director Andy Mitton makes an effort to explain how his original demon acts and what are the movie’s messages, The Harbinger can nevertheless feel convoluted on the first watch. That’s because, by manipulating dreams, the titular demon leads protagonist Monique (Gabby Beans) and the audience to question their reality. After all, we never know when the things we see are only another dream created by the demon to weaken its victim’s mind. Fortunately, we are here to comb through the movie’s many twists and tell you what happens at that mind-bending ending.
What Is the Harbinger?
The Harbinger follows two friends, Mavis (Emily Davis) and Monique, as they try to understand why they are being haunted by a creepy figure inspired by the images of plague doctors. When the movie begins, the creature has been forcing Mavis to sleep for longer hours while tormenting the woman with awful nightmares from which she cannot wake. Desperate for help, Mavis calls Monique, who breaks COVID confinement to help her friend. But, unfortunately, after Monique locks herself in with Mavis, she also starts to experience the same kind of nightmares.
After a few days, Mavis and Monique get in touch with a demonologist who explains the creature is the Harbinger, a demon that slowly breaks its victims' minds. The Harbinger takes pleasure in people’s suffering, forcing them to face horrible images until they start to think it's best they were never born. Finally, the Harbinger grants the victim’s wishes by removing them from reality. The Harbinger kills its host and erases them from history and other people’s memories. The process is imperfect, and there are always traces left behind. However, no one can prove someone who doesn’t exist has existed for some time.
On the first level, the Harbinger acts as a manifestation of intrusive thoughts, the dark wishes that sometimes cross our minds, whispering that death could be better than life. No wonder he shows up when everyone is locked inside their homes to escape a virus that prevents them from reaching out to family members and friends. This invisible threat made us feel isolated and depressed during the lockdown, and the Harbinger reflects that. Secondly, the Harbinger works like a virus, jumping from person to person after the seed of fear has been planted in their minds.
Monique’s Many Nightmares
While Monique is still trying to understand how and why the Harbinger has been targeting them, Mavis sadly loses her battle against the demon. That means Mavis vanishes from the world, forcing Monique to wake up in an empty apartment without knowing where she is. Monique’s family calls her desperate, and the woman can’t explain what she’s doing in the city. So, she goes back home with no idea Mavis ever existed. To justify Monique’s confusion, the Harbinger also altered reality so that the woman has always been under the effects of heavy medication, which would explain how she could go to the city without remembering. Nevertheless, Monique is still aware the Harbinger has haunted her and that the demon will make her disappear soon enough. Monique has a significant advantage in relation to Mavis, as the young boy who lived in an apartment above her friend’s has been visiting her in her dreams.
While Mavis and Monique are dealing with the Harbinger, a boy named Edward (Cody Braverman) is dying from COVID in the above apartment. After the virus takes Edward's life, the boy begins to appear in Monique’s dreams. As the boy explains to her, he was also seeing the Harbinger. However, since he died from COVID before the demon could take him, the boy escaped the dire fate of disappearing from the world. In one nightmare that takes place in a morgue, Edward gifts Monique a saw, asking if she understands what needs to be done.
The movie hints that suicide could be the only way to evade the Harbinger’s curse, but that’s a red herring. What Edward is trying to tell Monique is that she should kill the demon inside her nightmare. And so she does when the Harbinger takes her away from reality, grabbing the saw she got in the dream copy of her family’s home. Monique saws the Harbinger head off in a brutal and cathartic attack, avenging Mavis, even though she doesn’t remember her friend.
When Monique wakes up, she finds out she has been sleeping for three days. The good news is her whole family tested negative for COVID. Monique feared she had brought the virus inside her home, but a doctor visited the family and tested everybody due to her prolonged sleep, clearing them from any quarantine rule. As the days go by, Monique feels life going back to normal. However, she can’t help to wonder about the blank spaces in her memory, which are certainly connected to the person who infected her with the Harbinger. Monique also discovers an old photo in her backpack, in which she and Mavis are seen together. She doesn’t recognize Mavis but knows the woman was probably a part of her life before the Harbinger took her away.
One afternoon, Monique calls the demonologist to explain her situation, but the woman on the other side of the line is not confident of her victory. The Harbinger takes whatever shape he wants inside a nightmare, and every person you cross in this dreamy version of the world is actually the demon in disguise. Once Monique realizes the demonologist is right, the Harbinger rips through her door and drags her away. Monique was dreaming all along, and the demon was just toying with her.
In the real world, Monique’s father returns from the hospital after beating COVID. Her brother is hopeful about the future, but the old man fears the harsh reality of the lockdown will forever haunt their lives. Before the movie ends, Monique’s father finds a drawing the girl made, and in his eyes, we can see the man is trying to remember a loved person that got brutally erased from his mind. It’s a grim ending that teases the demon is still on the loose, punching holes in reality and erasing people from existence.
The Harbinger is currently available in theaters and VOD.