A group of teens plays around with an Aztec death whistle, leading to expected results, in Whistle, which premiered at last year’s Fantastic Fest and opens in Prague and cinemas worldwide this weekend. While this initially appears to be another in the long line of lamebrained children-playing-with-haunted-things horror films (see also: Ouija, Wish Upon, Truth or Dare, Tarot, Spin the Bottle), director Corin Hardy (The Hallow, The Nun) knows exactly what he is working with here and lets his audience in on the joke.
The result is a wildly entertaining supernatural chiller that embraces the inherent silliness of its well-worn template and dials things up to 11. Backed by some engaging performances and showstopping scenes of gore, Whistle is as entertaining as the so-bad-its-good classic Wish Upon … only the filmmakers know exactly what they’re doing here.
Whistle stars Dafne Keen as Chrysanthemum—let’s call her Chrys—who moves in with her cousin Rel (Sky Yang) and begins life as a high school senior in a new school after an unexplored tragedy back in Chicago. “I heard you were a junkie who O.D.’ed and killed your dad,” varsity basketball star Dean (Jhaleil Swaby) teases her before taking a knee to the groin. Ah, good old high school ribbing. Two scenes later, these characters are the best of friends.
Also among the core friend group: prom queen type Grace (Ali Skovbye), Dean’s girl and Rel’s crush, and Ellie (Sophie Nélisse), who immediately shares some meaningful glances with Chrys that develop into a romance. Decidedly not in their friend group: “youth pastor” Noah (Percy Hynes White), who deals drugs to his flock, corners Chrys with an offer of free goofballs on her first day in school, and turns into a villain of utterly baffling motivation.
But Chrys and co. have more pressing matters to attend to: namely, that Aztec death whistle she finds in her locker, left over from Horse (Stephen Kalyn), who spontaneously combusted in the locker room in Whistle‘s opening scene. Mr. Craven (Nick Frost) gives us another taste of what the whistle can do before Grace blows it at a pool party and casts their fate.
In horror terms, the representation of death—and how it kills—is what sets Whistle apart from the other films of the genre (as well as the Final Destination franchise). As explained by Horse’s mom (Michelle Fairley), death here is the physical embodiment of each character upon their own future death, now called into the present when the death whistle is used. When Horse blew into the whistle, he summoned himself as a charred corpse at the moment of his own fiery death years in the future.
That sets Whistle up for some bravura gore sequences, which include characters being pursued by their own mangled corpses from car wrecks and industrial accidents. When the corpse catches up to you, the moment of death is re-created, resulting in some genuinely impressive—and stomach-churning—effects work as characters are isolated and violently maimed; unlike other recent horror films (Primate), Whistle doesn’t play its card too early, resulting in some showstopping sequences at the climax.
But what really separates Whistle from the pack is that it knows what kind of movie it is, and plays all the tropes up to the hilt. The script (by Owen Egerton) is wall-to-wall clichés, but director Hardy turns that into a strength by pushing everything so over-the-top his film becomes a satire full of not-so-subtle in-jokes. Viewers expecting something as serious-minded as Talk to Me might be put off by what’s on display, but those who can appreciate the film’s sarcastic tune will find a lot to like.
Strong performances also help: Whistle has an unusually engaging central performance from Keen—evoking memories of a Beetlejuice-era Winona Ryder—that breaks through a real lack of characterization in the script and exceeds anything we might usually expect from these kinds of films. She’s backed by a pair of scene-stealing turns from Hynes White (aping Caleb Landry Jones) and Yang (dressing up as The Crow—or, uh, The Revenger for the big autumn carnival), in support.
Whistle succeeds not by reinventing the teen horror formula but by fully committing to it, embracing its clichés with a knowing wink and escalating them into gleeful excess. Anchored by a strong central performance from Keen and elevated by outrageous gore sequences, the film finds its identity as a self-aware supernatural chiller that understands exactly how ridiculous the premise is—and blows right into it.
