Coming to Irish cinemas is the latest horror from director Corin Hardy, Whistle, a film about a whistle that brings death to those who blow it.
Starring Dafne Keen, leading an ensemble cast with Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Jhaleil Swaby and Ali Skovby, Whistle has a fascinating concept that is weighed down by terrible writing, a trope-ridden narrative and wafer-thin characters. When an ancient whistle is blown, Chrys (Keen) and her new friends learn that they have summoned their deaths, you read that right, they accidentally summon their deaths. What this means in practise is that instead of living to the ripe old age of 90, a character has accidentally fast-forwarded their death to the present and is literally being hunted by the end of their story.
Whistle is not a good film, which is a real shame because it has a fascinating concept. Summoning your death to claim you early is brilliant; on top of that, the deaths on show are visually interesting. There is a particular one involving a character and a car crash that felt like actually watching a car crash in slow motion, and it was a hard, but engaging, watch.
Death Lives
If Whistle were just its kills, it would be a fun and wild ride; unfortunately, all the intensity and weirdness are sucked out of the room whenever the characters open their mouths. There is no convincing relationship in the film; it tries to set up multiple subplots, but none of them land. This is all because even though the cast is giving decent performances, they are written in the most amateurish fashion. The film moves from horror trope to horror trope; instead of building an interesting cast of characters, it goes from A to C without building on B to make us care about the characters.
Also, the film draws from an iconic horror film from the 90s for its climax. It’s painfully obvious how the film will end when you learn about the poorly devised rules of the whistle.
Whistle is a hodgepodge of better films poured through a mixer and then plastered onto the screen. With forgettable characters and a trope-ridden narrative, the only element that saves Whistle is its kills. If the same tender loving care had been given to the story and characters as was to the gore and guts, this might have been something special. Sadly, we get something that will be forgotten after the credits roll.
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