2026 | rated R | starring Dafne Keen, Sophie Nelisse, Nick Frost | directed by Corin Hardy | 1 hr 40 mins | 3 out of 5 |
[Thematic Spoilers]
There are a handful of paths, or initiation rituals, that a young actress can take to prove commitment to her career and loyalty to the studio. One is to be seen holding hands with Pete Davidson, but another is to be in a cheapo studio horror movie. Lucy Hale did it, Joey King did it. Elizabeth Lail did it, just to name a few. Now that Logan standout child actor Dafne Keen has aged into the role, it’s her chance. But Whistle isn’t a Blumhouse movie and The Nun director Corin Hardy knows how to shoot a horror scene for style and atmosphere (the numerous problems with The Nun lie in its script and story) and the result is that Whistle is yet another haunted objects teen horror movie that is a bit better than it has any right to be.
New in town and fresh out of rehab Chrys (Keen) is introduced to her new school by her cousin Rel (Sky Yang). A confrontation with a group of outcasts sends them all to detention hosted by archeology teacher Mr. Craven (Nick Frost, and, yes, the movie is full of these kind of horror references) who identifies a relic found in Chrys locker as an ancient Aztec death whistle. When a member of the group blow on it, anyone who hears the whistle starts turning up dead in mysterious ways, putting the group in a race for their lives as a deathly apparition stalks them one-by-one.
I mean, Good God, stop me if you’ve heard this one. If Whistle sounds like everything from Final Destination to It Follows to Wish Upon and Nightmare on Elm Street itself that’s because it is. The movie leaps through well-worn plot points you’ve seen before in the haunted object subgenre. These movies all feel like the Family Guy joke where Stephen King spots a lamp on the desk and declares his next best-selling book will be about a haunted lamp. And to be clear, the movie doesn’t exactly trade in the art of suspense and chills that’s for sure. But – the execution is not half bad and some of the details were creative enough that I appreciated them. Every once in a while, one of these cheapo movies rise out of the noise with some effort, style and solid execution and I would put Whistle with my apologist advocacy for the silly but well-made Friend Request (killer Facebook) and Polaroid (killer old cameras) as above the pack.
I like the twist on Death in this movie. Instead of a Final Destination gust of wind or It Follows random old guy, the specter that chases these teenagers is themselves in the future and they aren’t just killing them, they are accelerating how they are fated to die anyway. They’re all different and they’re all based on that character’s individual flaw. If you smoke, your lungs are going to give out. If you die in a fire, you’re going to burst into flames, if you die of old age, you’ll shrivel up. In the movie’s most disturbing and Nightmare-esque sequence we see someone who is going to die in a car wreck have their bones broken and contorted in their bedroom. And don’t forget our hero is a former drug addict and her new crush, Ellie (Sophie Nelisse, Yellowjackets) is a diabetic. Unlike this year’s hit Obsession, Whistle has rules that its ghouls follow and our heroes can use to dodge around them. It plays pretty fair with them and most importantly, squeezes them for a race-against-time in the third act. See, rules matter.
Hardy uses the unoriginal premise to build a series of elaborate stylish and far more atmospheric than they should be set pieces into the film. The first big one is a Fall Festival featuring the world’s most elaborate hay maze. The sequence is visually stunning. The movie has a handful of set pieces like that that bring it above the usual haunted objects film, all leading to a finale that’s completely done-to-death in concept and genuinely exciting in execution.
Whistle is better than it has any right to be. A perfect late night horror movie to throw on and you won’t hate yourself afterward. If you’re really feeling sparky you can do the haunted objects guilty pleasure trilogy with Friend Request and Polaroid too. It has its cheese and plenty of eye-rolling moments (of course the youth pastor is a drug-dealing arch villain) but for a first horror movie stepping stone into bigger features Dafne Keen could have done a whole lot worse.