First time on this site but I must comment on this amazing movie I saw at an independent film festival. I've now seen it twice (bought it) but I can't explain how stellar the acting is without giving spoilers. There are multiple twists in this movie, but I only need to give away two to exemplify my point.
First of all, it's not a spoiler to say a "Harbinger" is a person sent to a town to get people to kill themselves by dropping an evil relic within the vicinity of the victim. The relic influences the person to commit suicide, so Lucifer can have their soul forever. The film doesn't really go into graphic detail about it, but that's what a Harbinger's job is - to drop the relic near someone (doom them).
The spoiler is that the main character, the dad in this movie, is The Harbinger. This is not a main twist in the movie, however, and an astute observer may even notice that the first scene in the movie shows the dad entering a room with a hanging body to retrieve the relic he has left there.
The dad has a justified reason why he dropped the relic on this individual, but he struggles with his conscience and can't bring himself to doom any others. The devil knows this, which is why he has taken the girl's spirit hostage, to hold as collateral to force the dad to be a Harbinger. The daughter is not really possessed, she's just sort of a vacant, evil (sort of) vessel who observes the devil's actions with little emotion. The taking of her soul has already happened before the film begins and gets explained fairly early on.
The second twist I'm going to reveal here, is that the town of St. Heraldson that the dad and his family have been sent to (by the devil) isn't just a town he's been sent to in order to do the work of a "Harbinger." It's literally Hell on Earth. What the Harbinger (the dad) doesn't know is that not only is the town Hell on Earth, but it's a town full of EX-Harbingers, intended to force current Harbingers that are no longer effective into retirement (AKA get them to kill themselves so the devil can get their souls).
Those are the only two twists I need to give away to make my point here. The dad's acting here is flawless. Knowing he's the Harbinger and seeing how perplexed he is and trying to negotiate his confusion with what job he has to do, the fact he can't do it, and seeing his anguish over having to find another way to get his daughter's soul back from the devil is outstanding. His acting range is shown again in flashbacks when his daughter was normal. They are moments that really got me. And it's an opportunity to see the father and daughter show other sides of their personalities - again, great acting on both their parts.
Upon my first viewing, the main actors were great, but I thought some of the minor roles were odd. After seeing it a second time, I need to praise the acting across the board. Knowing those two twists just made all of the acting so much more colorful and compelling, minor roles along with the majors. The dad's acting is unbelievably on point every scene once you know what you know. Again, they give it away in the first scene, but most people won't really know what to make of it, nor do they need to know. The great thing about this movie is that the audience is either going to watch it as a mystery and watch everything get revealed in it's own time, or people will watch it knowing the spoilers and in my opinion, enjoy it just as much or more.
Because this is a low budget movie that can't rely on effects or big budget, the acting must be top notch. And it's phenomenal, whether you know the twists or not. And for me, it got even better.
I'm writing this review in the hopes the world discovers this great film.
97 out of 107 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Tell Your Friends