Harbinger, 2026.
Directed by James Crow.
Starring Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott, Gary Webster, Anna Arthur, Peter Woodward, Nick Nevern.
SYNOPSIS:
Julia, sole survivor of late serial killer Decker, is lured back to the house she shared with him for a ghost hunting TV show where the crew discover the ‘Harbinger’, a fairground fortune telling machine that reveals their fates one by one.
Shogun Films have been nothing if not prolific over the past few years, releasing several low budget horror and crime thriller movies to varying degrees of success, and Harbinger is the latest in an expanding line of horror titles that doesn’t look to the bigger US genre giants for its inspiration like last year’s Helloween did, but instead takes its cue from the classic British Hammer and Amicus movies of the 1960s and ‘70s. But does it work?
To a degree, yes. The movie starts out in what looks like an isolated country house (but it’s next to a motorway, so not totally isolated) with victim Julia (Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott) trying to hide from demented knife-wielding madman Decker (Peter Woodward). Decker and Julia were lovers but when she found out his history of the ritualistic killings of six other women he turned on her to be his seventh soul to collect for Satan. However, Decker is shot and killed by police before he gets to Julia, but as he dies he transfers his soul into his Harbinger fortune telling machine.
Fast forward five years and Julia is approached by TV producer Mike (Gary Webster) who is looking to make a ghost hunting-type TV show. Julia is reluctant to return to the house but Mike offers her a huge sum of cash to do it so she relents, but when she, Mike and the TV crew turn up they find that Decker’s old Harbinger machine has something of a life of its own.
With the exception of Tom Hanks’ 1988 comedy Big, there aren’t really that many obvious examples of a fortune telling machine being the central figure in a movie. Jonathan Sothcott, Shogun Films CEO and the producer of Harbinger, alludes to that in the making-of in the special features so you would think that, given they have something of an original idea, they would run with it more than they actually do, but the budget is the obvious restriction here and the movie, despite having some ambition, never quite manages to lift itself above those limitations.
But that isn’t to say there isn’t a lot of potential here, in fact more so than in anything Shogun Films have put out so far. The obvious nods to Hammer and Amicus are fun – as many of their classic movies took place in one central location, with crews trying to make the most of very little – even down to the opening credits, which tap into the Satanic movies of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s brilliantly with some cool imagery and offering up a bit of visual flair that the rest of the movie tries to replicate, but, thanks to that pesky low budget, doesn’t quite hit.
However, Harbinger is not only a nod and a wink to British horror as every scene shot in the house is lit with a lurid purple, pink or red neon light. Decker’s weapon of choice is a large knife (although one that didn’t clearly have such a thick, i.e. blunt, blade would have been more effective) and although he isn’t wearing black gloves the Dario Argento influence adds an edge of danger to the classic British horror worship that works in the movies favour.
Harbinger is a movie that should set them on a course to have their own genre icon (and not Cane from Helloween, as we already have Art the Clown), as the character of the Harbinger is definitely one that needs to be explored as it is both creepy and a little bit camp (although in certain scenes it does resemble the robot Bill and Ted when it moves). That could still happen, of course, but if sequels are forthcoming the filmmakers need to go all in with the weirder aspects of the supernatural and let the lack of budget necessitate invention rather than inhibit it.
Overall, Harbinger is a movie that, despite probably having more negatives than positives, still manages to have a bit of fun. The acting isn’t great – although former Minder star Gary Webster could easily fill the void left by Michael Ripper and Patrick Troughton as that reliable character actor face to offer solid support – and the pacing is uneven, but the gore effects are decent, the cinematography excellent and the spirit of those old British horror movies is there, making Harbinger a big improvement over Helloween and shows that Shogun Films have the basics in place to create something with impact if they can overcome their budgetary – and creative – limitations.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
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Chris Ward
