In the opening scene of Andy Mitton’s The Harbinger, a masked man enters a woman’s apartment to find her screaming and clawing at her arm so tightly that it’s dripping blood. He’s the landlord, and she’s having a nightmare of a predatory Plague Doctor. It’s standard horror stuff, but when the exhausted woman is awoken, she hastily apologizes and quickly dons her own cloth mask…because the film is set during lockdown.

There has been no shortage of COVID-era films, but The Harbinger feels like one of the few that engages with the pandemic in a way that isn’t exploiting or sensationalizing the virus for cheap scares. The events of the film just so happen to occur during lockdown, when people are already isolated, suspicious, and paranoid about infection and death. As a result, characters regularly discuss masking, self-isolating and no-contact food pick-ups; it grounds the film in the realm of the familiar while providing important contextual information about who these characters are and how they respond to the world around them.

And that’s important context given that The Harbinger is a story about a demon that feeds on negativity and despair.

The woman suffering from unrelenting nightmares is Mavis (Emily Davis). Following her most recent episode – and because she has no one else – Mavis reaches out to College friend Monique (Gabby Beans) for help. Mo is living in the suburbs with her brother Lyle (Myles Walker) and their father Ronald (Raymond Anthony Thomas) and there’s a raucous joy in the family’s interactions, despite concerns about both the pandemic and Ronald’s poor health. In this way the two women are in stark contrast: Mavis’ life is joyless and grim, while Mo has plenty of laughs and love.

When Mo opts to venture into “Ground Zero” of the infection at her friend’s behest, both her brother and father are understandably worried and upset. It’s clear that Mo hasn’t made the decision lightly, though: the women’s tearful reunion is evidence of just how deeply their friendship runs.

One of the reasons that The Harbinger is so effective is because Mitton takes the time to introduce both women and their shared history. The pandemic provides both a healthy dose of paranoia and mistrust, as well as an explanation for why the women haven’t been in contact. The first act is organic and well-paced, patiently introducing the film’s themes of mental health and female friendship without being obvious or belaboring the point.

Of course, this is a horror film, so Mavis isn’t just suffering from bad dreams. She’s getting lost in them, sometimes for days on end. Regardless of what happens in the dream or what she does to wake herself up, she can’t. Mavis is a prisoner and the shadowy male figure who haunts her warns that her time is nearly up.

The Harbinger uses the relatively simple premise of never-ending dreams to create a whole new supernatural mythology. While there is a threatening figure controlling the dream world, however, the film isn’t a riff on A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s more akin to under-seen Canadian classic Come True, in which nightmares are recalibrated as gauntlet-style endurance runs. Mitton’s visual style is less surreal and evocative than Anthony Scott Burns, but the dreams in The Harbinger, which include hands punching through walls and environments changing on a dime, are still visceral and filled with effective jump scares.

When Mo realizes that simply hearing Mavis’ story and staying in the apartment with her is enough to “infect” her, it’s a clever parallel to real world COVID concerns. By setting the film during lockdown, The Harbinger is interrogating the notion of safety and responsibility (to yourself and others) at a time when friends and strangers alike can threaten your health. There’s even a recurring bit when Mavis’ neighbour Crystal (Stephanie Roth Haberle) interrogates anyone who enters the building, but, in a sly bit of condemnation on the film’s part, the angry woman is always unmasked.

Despite familiar tropes, such as conducting research on the web and Facetiming a demonologist (Laura Heisler), The Harbinger excels at striking a balance between fantastical genre elements and topical real-world concerns. As Mavis and Mo become increasingly ill, the film’s underlying message is two-fold: a disease you don’t believe in can still infect and kill you, but hope and optimism are essential for combatting the dread and despair of this world.

It’s a lesson that extends well beyond the world of The Harbinger…and one that real-life audiences would do well to remember.