Plot: A family must try to protect their daughter from damnation.
What is a harbinger? In case you don't know, the definition will be given at the very start of the movie so that you don't have to reach for a dictionary. In case you forget the title of the movie, the very word is repeated several times, especially towards the third act when secrets are revealed.
THE HARBINGER plays out more like a theatre play than a movie. The story, while interesting, has shades of suburban drama more than horror elements.
THE HARBINGER Plot
The movie begins with a man who is hanging himself. The camera turns to show a relic on the ground next to him. The door opens, and a man enters with a briefcase. He's hardly disturbed or saddened by the man's death. He picks up the relic, and he's off.
Later at the funeral, the man is joined by his wife and daughter, who are standing next to the man's widow.
The girl is called Rosalie, and she makes ominous comments about the man. The widow, who has a bruise on her eye, is shocked by Rosalie's comments about her husband burning in hell but doesn't try to come to his defense. Clearly, the man was a wife-beater.
Later on, Daniel and Theresa take Rosalie to see a therapist who suggests Rosalie needs therapy for her schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. Theresa gives Daniel a look, and he gets up, implying the session is over and that they are moving, so they don't need to book future appointments with her. The therapist looks disappointed to lose clients.
The family moves to a new town, which is small and nosy. The very first day, Daniel is invited by the neighbours for dinner. Then there's nose-in-everyone's business, Betty.
She knows all about her neighbors and their going-ons.
At dinner with the neighbours, Rosalie is brooding and making ominous comments.
The neighbours appear stunned, but no further comments are made.
The conversation shifts to native Americans, and the neighbours warn Daniel not to step onto the land because he would be cursed.
Daniel has every attention of risking being cursed.
The dinner comes to an end when they hear a scream. One of the neighbours' sons has fallen off the slides, and Rosalie is standing there watching him. Of course, she's the prime suspect.
Daniel and Theresa assure the neighbors that Rosalie needs time to adjust, but they make faces and leave.
Daniel keeps having flashbacks of a happy, smiling Rosalie and all the fun family moments. The question is, just what happened that changed her. Daniel dreams about a man in a hat and even sees him outside his home, and every single time, he is filled with fear.
Theresa demands to know how much time they are going to spend her and that she wants her daughter back.
Daniel keeps the curiosity going without revealing much. He assures Theresa that he is here for work and they will leave when he is done with it. He does go to work, and it is assumed he is a salesman who loves to caress his briefcase.
There's another neighbour, John, who seems to pop up everywhere and is keen on befriending Daniel. There's nothing suspicious there...
Eventually, the family goes to visit the Native American, and they were warned not to visit. The woman's name is Floating Hawk, and she immediately tells Daniel that he can stay, but Rosalie can't.
Theresa takes Rosalie back to the car, but Floating Hawk tells her she's not allowed to even be on the land.
After they are gone, Floating Hawk advises Daniel that he needs to kill the girl as her daughter is no longer in there. Daniel will not hear of it. She tells him he needs to find a dagger to stab Rosalie with as that is the only way to get rid of the demon.
Later that night, Daniel goes to one of his neighbour's houses, that of an old woman who wanted him to do her life insurance. He finds her hanging from a tree, the same relic by her side. He picks it up and makes a clean getaway, except he and his family become the talk of the town. All of the neighbors pretty much call the family bad luck.
Things become murky and confusing from hereon.
Daniel and John pretty much become best friends as they bond over alcohol and how the neighbors are terrible, and how interested they both are in relics and artefacts and curses.
Meanwhile, Rosalie creeps out the neighborhood children by squishing frogs with her bare hands.
Theresa has trouble finding playmates for her daughter because of that.
The police comes to investigate and Daniel is taken for investigation because there is no way an old woman could climb so high on a tree and hang herself. And since everyone hates the new family now, Daniel is prime suspect.
Later at night, Rosalie pops in to hand him the dagger saying she found it in the tunnels. Which tunnels? Daniel is about to find that out much later.
Before that there is some more stuff going to happen that is just going to add in to this confusing script.
There is a man that keeps showing up that makes Daniel curious.
And then there is the memory of a man that shows up at his door and supposedly stole his daughter's soul in exchange for saving Daniel from financial ruin.
So...Daniel made a deal with the devil by mistake?
Anyway, Floating Hawk tells him he must get rid of his fear of that man.
Anyway, Betty, the nosy neighbor dies too. Daniel is implicated for her death. He is taken in and interrogated because the relic the police keep finding at crime scenes, shows up in Daniel's briefcase.
He is let go and then Daniel confides in John about being a harbinger. John says he is one too.
Now the real bad guy downstairs usually sends one harbinger, so why were two sent this time? John reasons it is so they can collect more souls.
Nope. There is a twist coming that doesn't make much sense.
Anyway, John decides to help Daniel stab his daughter so that her soul finds peace.
THE HARBINGER Ending Explained
The family enters the tunnels. Rosalie doesn't put up a fight and lays down on a platform, ready to be stabbed.
Daniel finds out that the devil has come because of one of the artefacts. Apparently, Daniel was sent into a community of harbingers because he hadn't done his work properly which entailed him encouraging people to kill themselves so that their damned souls could be collected.
There is some fight going on and some mention of Daniel and his family going through many reincarnations.
John reveals himself to be an ally of the devil. He laughs maniacally as the floor opens to let the dead neighbors go back to hell.
There is a small fight after which Daniel makes a deal with the devil to return his daughter's soul in exchange for his.
Agreed. He stabs himself and falls. Theresa weeps but Rosalie comes alive and she decides it's time to move on.
She walks upstairs with Rosalie. Suddenly Daniel comes alive too because he had some card or artefact that was supposed to protect him.
Turns out the man who had been stalking him was actually an angel who made sure Daniel had the right artefacts to use at the right time.
The movie ends with the family getting together.
THE HARBINGER may have been a good story on paper but the execution was tedious and the acting barely passable.
The story was unnecessarily complicated and took various paths which unfortunately didn't merge into one road toward the climax.
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