fireHorror as a genre lends itself particularly well to stories about people isolated in claustrophobic spaces. Over-features along those lines were inevitable when we were limiting the use of locations. Yet most of the resulting films don’t even mention Covid. Writer-director Andy Mitton simply produced this film, which was clearly shot in his 2021, but not his 2020 year. It is set in the month before the more dangerous vaccination. An ingenious mashup of pandemic panic and supernatural danger, garnished with naturalism and cunning to create his package of powerful, genuinely spooky horror. , a strategic moment of humor. Sure, there are logical flaws here and there, but it’s memorable long after the final credits roll.
Protagonist Moe (Gabby Beans, The Wonderful) finds herself snugly inside a bubble in a snowy corner of upstate New York with her father (Miles Walker) and brother (Ray Anthony Thomas), while the city over there faces a pandemic. is raging. Suddenly she gets a call from her old college friend Mavis (Emily Davis is also great). Mavis has no one else to turn to for help. Mavis is suffering from horrible nightmares and struggles to wake up despite knowing she is dreaming and trying to self-harm to break the spell. Feeling he owes Mavis a solid debt for a good deed he did years ago, Mo travels to Queens to find a doomed apartment building where coughs can be heard through the walls and an ambulance can be heard in the distance. You risk staying with Mavis on the block.
In fact, the ghostly figure that haunts Mavis takes the form of a medieval plague doctor with a long bird-shaped mask and calls himself the Harbinger. That’s according to a demonologist consulted via a Zoom call by a woman who wants a solution once Moe starts having nightmares featuring Harbinger.Incidentally, this scene is a comedy of the genius Black Her. Demonologists claim that everyone speaks cheerfully during conversations, no matter how frightening. more of a voice than of what is being said.
After all, Harbinger isn’t much of a bogeyman, his gore levels are minimal, and his jumps and twists are pretty predictable. Adding to the potency is the ominous belief that Harbinger doesn’t just steal people in their sleep: he wipes their memories from others, leaving only a small trail. It blends in nicely with the sudden absence when it started, the “brain fog” the survivors experienced, and the general paranoia of the time.
