Whistle joins the group of harmless yet mildly entertaining horror flicks geared towards kids that aren’t legally allowed to see them without an adult but will anyway. Not really knocking that. It’s part of the fun. Here we meet outcast, new-girl Chrys (Dafne Keen) as she moves to a new town, into a new high school, only to discover an ancient relic in her locker with the power to summon death. To be fair, the locker belonged to another kid that burst into flames in the shower after a basketball game and he sorta kinda left it in the locker.
Rel (Sky Yang) is Chrys’ cousin and, after she goes through an ambiguous family tragedy, he hopes to help her acclimate to his school. A first encounter with the popular kids establishes Chrys as a bad ass but lands both her and love interest Ellie (Sophie Nélisse) in detention with the snooty Mr. Craven (Nick Frost). During detention Mr, Craven confiscates the death whistle from Chrys and soon disappears. Chrys and her friends get it back only to flippantly decide to unleash its powers by blowing in it.
All of this seems pretty pedestrian thus far, but screenwriter Owen Egerton infuses the formula with a few fiendish ideas. It seems that, whoever hears the death whistle is cursed by having their death seek them out early and kill them. That kid in the beginning of the movie would have died in a fire later in life for instance. Soon Chrys and her friends are pursued by specters of their deaths who will stop at nothing to kill them. Okay so, this is actually a pretty interesting idea that lends itself to a handful of fun moments.
But how to stop the curse? Good question. The original owner of the artifact has no answers and these “kids” that look like they are flirting with 25 might be even closer to death than ever before. They have to find a way to stop death from coming.
When a movie is dumped into a February release it could be for any number of reasons. The most likely here is that the studio didn’t have too much faith in the film. The other reason is counter programming. With Whistle it feels like a little of both. This is a painfully formulaic teen horror film. Yet, the soundtrack is impressive and, there are some noteworthy kills. Make that REALLY good kills. They save some of the best for the second half of the film.
Whistle is an entertaining, if safe piece of horror. It is at times fun, at times surprisingly gory, and even clever here and there. At over 90 minutes it begins to run thin, dragging a finale out further than needed and adding a villain that really is unnecessary. Who needs an angelic drug dealer at the school when there is a friggin’ death whistle? Stop already! Whistle might have faltered further if not for Egerton’s snappy script and Corin Hardy’s cheeky direction. It’s not worthy of Wes Craven, or even Kevin Williamson. It’s more of a Whistle to a Scream. I will see myself out.
