HARBINGER (2026)

3 stars

Miracle Media. Digital. 10th August. US 11th August. Blu ray 101 Films 7th September

An old remote house. Julia (Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott) is phoning the police when she is knocked out by a strange man with an axe – “Telling tales out of school”, he intones. She is trussed up and gagged in the loft. Police arrive and are bloodily killed by the cackling madman serial killer Henry Decker (Peter Woodward).

Escaping from being tied up, she is attacked by him (with what looks like a plastic knife). Wounded, she staggers from the house – as a police marksman puts an end to his reign of terror by shooting him. As the killer is in his death throes he speaks an incantation in front of a fortune telling machine (as you would).

Five years later. Julia is still traumatised by what happened and still has flashbacks to that night. She is approached by Mike Crags (Gary Webster) from a ghost TV show, Spectre Investigates. £50k for one days work. He wants to tell her story as the premiere episode of a new run of the programme – as he has just signed to a streaming service.

Though initially not interested, she agrees to it, partially because her mum (played by Carole Ann Ford of DOCTOR WHO fame) is a big fan – plus Julia needs the money to pay for her Mum’s care.

So Julia goes with Mike, who is a bit of a ham, and his trusty crew to the house where it all took place. We have Barney (Joseph Emms) on camera, April (Maisie Gee) on sound, Chris (Johnny Palmiero), their supernatural expert and Kathryn (Anna Arthur) on make up and not forgetting Neal their resident psychic.

Back at the now abandoned and run down house, Julia is understandably agitated. The house contains devilish artifacts (and lots of red filters it seems). Our friendly neighbourhood clairvoyant says he can hear the ‘voices’ of the house. They then persuade Julia to uncover the Harbinger – The fortune telling machine which now contains the spirit of the serial killer – Of course that’s not going to be a great idea! But it will make for good telly I guess…

This all feel rather old fashioned (which may be the intent), like an episode from an Amicus portmanteau and of course much of the acting is so so. Sothcott is okay in the lead (she is producer Jonathan’s wife after all) and Webster overplays as the host. The Harbinger (Nick Nevern) itself is quite a creepy looking creation. Dialogue is often clunky and there is little sense of tension throughout. It’s one this ‘middle ground’ productions – not absolutely terrible, like a lot of low budget British outings, but not so good that you would want another film featuring the central antagonist (though I suspect that is the intent here). Stick around through the end crawl as there is a post credits sequence.

Steve Kirkham