'Whistle' Review: Creative Deaths, Likeable Characters but a Ghost of a Script
- 8 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Shauna Bushe - February 16, 2026
Directed by Corin Hardy (The Nun), Whistle is a supernatural teen horror film that mixes the "inevitable doom" of Final Destination with the cursed-object mechanics of Talk to Me.
Hardy trades the gothic cathedrals of The Nun for the claustrophobic chill of a quaint North American town in Whistle. The plot centres on a group of high school outcasts who stumble upon an Aztec Death Whistle, a relic that, once sounded, triggers a supernatural death sentence with a cruel twist: it manifests the physical death of the one who whistles. Rather than a basic slasher, Hardy shapes a grim race against time where our outcasts are pursued by their own inevitable ends, forcing them to confront the terrifying question; what they are willing to sacrifice to rewrite their preordained fate?
The films premise is deceptively simple; a group of non-serious kids find an antique artifact. In Mexican folklore, these instruments were used to mimic the shriek of the wind or the screams of victims. In Hardy’s universe, the whistle acts as a temporal beacon. When blown, it doesn't summon a demon from the past; it alerts your own “future death” to your current location. The genius of Owen Egerton’s script lies in this subversion of the “slasher” archetype and creates a unique visual language for the film: the “killer” isn't a masked stranger; it is a distorted, mangled version of the protagonist, arriving from a point in time decades away to claim them now.
The films saving grace is undoubtedly its leading duo. Chrys (Dafne Keene) and Ellie (Sophie Nelisse) bring an emotional weight to the screen and are easy to root for. Keen, is a brooding, detached teenager, who carries a Winona Ryder-eqsue intensity and manages to make Chrys’s grief feel authentic, rather than a plot device. Their chemistry provides a grounded, queer-romantic undercurrent which ends up being the only real stakes of the film. Unfortunately, the supporting cast is demoted to standard horror fodder: the "youth pastor" drug dealer (Percy Hynes White) and the jerk history teacher (a briefly utilized Nick Frost) feel like they wandered in from a different, more satirical movie. Because we never get to know the broader group beyond their high school tropes, their eventual demises feel more like special effects showcases than emotional losses.
Whistle clearly wants to be a full-bodied horror experience that tackles the terrifying transition from seeing death as an abstract hypothesis to realizing it is an immediate, personal certainty. Director Corin Hardy excels at atmosphere, filling the screen with visceral thrills and autumnal dread, yet the film falls victim to becoming repetitive in its final act. By spelling out its internal logic too clearly and relying on "die to reset the curse" mechanics (reminiscent of Flatliners, Final Destination 2), it strips away the mystery. The result is a film that is "fine" but forgettable, a "popcorn horror" that provides enough jumps for a Friday night but lacks the psychological teeth to haunt your dreams.
Finally, Whistle is a stylish, gory throwback that knows its horror history but is too content to repeat it. While Dafne Keen’s performance and some genuinely gnarly kill sequences keep it afloat, the film’s lack of original narrative depth and its over-reliance on established tropes prevent it from becoming a new classic. It’s a fun ride that peters out just as it should be reaching its crescendo.
'Whistle' is out now in cinemas.
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