The “death whistle” is something I’ve seen gain some popularity with several of the paranormal YouTubers latching on to this artifact for content. The death whistle is basically an Aztec artifact that resembles a skull, and when you blow into it there’s a creepy screaming noise that comes out of it. Because it’s an artifact from so long ago, archaeologists basically have to guess about what it was used for. For the film they take some liberties and say it was used to conjure “death”, and basically death will track you down and kill you sooner than you were supposed to die. So is Whistle worth checking out, or is it a film that had me begging to blow into a death whistle because the film couldn’t end fast enough? The film has a fun opening sequence where we see a high school basketball player being stalked by death after scoring the winning basket for his team. This sequence follows many familiar tropes, setting up the rules of the film and showing us that death just can’t be reasoned with. We even see him destroy the whistle, but that does nothing, because he still ends up a victim. The film then introduces us to Chrys (Dafne Keen), an ex-drug-addict who is new in town after her father was killed in a car accident. She now lives with her cousin, Rel (Sky Young). With Chrys being the new girl at school, she finds herself getting the same locker as the basketball player who died and finds the death whistle inside her locker. How was it put back together? Why is it in her locker? These questions are not answered and are meant to be overlooked. We just have to accept that the whistle picks and chooses who it wants.
It’s at a small pool party where Chrys and Rel meet up with some other students, and of course, on a dare, the whistle gets blown. This of course sets things in motion, and basically all the teens who were present and heard the whistle are all doomed to have their lives cut short, and in some pretty gruesome ways. Sure, the fim is a bit formulaic, but it’s a nice throwback to the horror films we got in the late 1990s and 2000s, and I’m here for it.
I’ve been wondering how Dafne Keen would develop after doing Logan. She was fantastic in that film and showed promise. While I’m not about to say her performance in Whistle is mind-blowing, it’s the kind of role I feel she needed to really separate herself from Logan. In this film I couldn’t help but think of her resembling a younger Wynona Ryder, and I kind of hope she keeps finding roles where she can be the weird and quirky character, What I did find frustrating with the casting is Nick Frost. For me he makes every film better just by having him in it. While I’m glad he was in the film, his role was wasted with just a couple of scenes, when he really could have done more for the story.
Getting back to the story, I’m fine with the simple plot. This is simply a fun supernatural slasher … but it would have been nice to have at least some things explained, like why the whistle keeps picking kids at the school when we find out where the artifact originally came from was nowhere near the school. It would just make more sense if it was haunting the people who dug it up rather than a girl just trying to pass her American History class.
Some people may have a problem with the CGI gore, and normally I wold agree, but several of the kills in this would be a nightmare to achieve as practical FX and would be costly. For example, there is one kill in particular where a character gets mangled and shredded as though they fell into a machine, and, well, I understand why they had to go with CGI. Despite my nitpicking, I still had fun with this Whistle, and if they made a sequel, I’d be on board. This is definitely a film for those who love the Final Destination films. This really did feel like it was originally supposed to be a Final Destination film but got repurposed into this. Is this one of the best horror films of the year? No, but it is fun and is perfect for someone trying to find what kind of horror they like and they are not ready for Terrifier or heavier stuff like Hereditary.
Whistle is now streaming on Shudder.
