Reviews
Whistle
Horror movies are well and truly back. 2025 brought us some of the genre’s very best and with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and even Primate to a certain extent, 2026 is already off to a promising start. So, when I heard about Whistle, a new horror movie headed up by The Nun director Corin Hardy and an extremely promising cast of relative upcomers, I was more than intrigued. Unfortunately, despite a strong and intriguing opening idea, the bland and frequently dull script from writer Owen Egerton results in Whistle being more frustrating and forgettable rather than the birth of a new horror classic.
Whistle opens strongly, with a terrifying, flaming ghostly figure burning alive a high school basketball team’s star player in the locker room before the eyes of his teammates. It’s an image designed to unnerve audiences from the very beginning, and I’m sure it will be successful in doing exactly that. Ultimately though, I also think this scene becomes the film’s downfall, as it sets an expectation that this level of promise will continue throughout, which unfortunately just isn’t the case.
We then jump three months into the future, where new girl Chrys (Dafne Keen) is starting her first day at the very same high school. She attends school with her cousin Ralph (Sky Yang) and through a series of awkward teen encounters in the hallway, littered with some horrendously cringey dialogue from the outset, which to its credit remains consistent throughout, we’re introduced to the other key characters Ellie (Sophie Nélisse), Grace (Ali Skovbye), and Dean (Jhaleil Swaby).
Chrys discovers the Aztec Death Whistle at the centre of the story inside her locker, which just so happens to be the same one previously used by the basketball player from the opening scene. After some more teen drama in the corridors, the group end up in detention together under the supervision of Mr. Craven (Nick Frost), who confiscates the whistle for himself and despite knowing exactly what it is, blows it anyway, sealing his own fate.
Despite their personalities clearly not aligning as a believable friendship group, with each character embodying the most stereotypical traits imaginable from the weird, quirky girl in Chrys to the obnoxious jock in Dean, the detention and Ralph’s subsequent reclaiming of the whistle somehow becomes the catalyst for them all becoming best friends. Before long they’re hanging out at the rich girl’s house, in this case Ellie’s, relaxing in a hot tub. Of course, despite the tragedies that have already occurred, these characters don’t appear to share a single functioning brain cell between them as they blow the whistle once again and set death back into motion, with the remainder of the film focusing solely on survival.
The film is painfully predictable when it comes to who will survive, something made even more obvious by some awkward romantic exposition that becomes laughable when you realise these people seemingly met less than 24 hours ago. Even more frustrating, however, is the movie’s willingness to completely ignore the rules it sets up for itself. Sometimes death takes its time with its victims, other times it strikes instantly, with no rhyme or reason as to why. Rather than building tension, the film repeatedly contradicts itself.
Whistle also fails to make you care about a single character on screen. Much of that stems from the unnatural dialogue and the frankly ridiculous decisions some of them make along the way. I’d even go as far as to say you’ll find yourself cheering death on in certain moments, just so you don’t have to endure particular characters again.
With mediocre material at best, it’s difficult for any of the actors to leave a lasting impression. I had hoped for at least some glimmers of promise, particularly from Dafne Keen and Sophie Nélisse, who have already proven themselves capable of strong performances elsewhere. Here though, neither manages to elevate the material in any meaningful way. Nick Frost, cast as a strict and unwavering teacher, simply exists in the film. I usually find joy whenever he appears on the big screen, but not even he can inject any life here, largely due to his vast underutilisation.
Up to this point, it might sound like Whistle is a complete disaster, but that would be unfair. There are a couple of genuine shining lights, most of which come from the horror itself. When death is on screen, hunting the characters down, the film becomes tense and delivers the kind of over the top horror fans tend to enjoy. To its credit, the various forms death takes are creative, entertaining, and often genuinely unsettling. The problem is that these moments are so few and far between that the filler in the middle feels even more tedious. There is also some effective camera work, with slow pans and wide angles used to create the illusion that something may be lurking at the edge of the frame, building suspense effectively. All too often though, this is undercut by cheap jump scares and overly loud sound cues that feel extremely lazy.
By the time the credits roll, Whistle feels like an exercise in wasted potential. What could have been a genuinely fun opener to the February movie calendar instead becomes an incredibly cheesy, contradictory mess that won’t linger long in the memory. The idea was there, and with a cast this strong, there was a real chance for an easy slam dunk. Sadly, it misses the shot entirely.