WHISTLE
(director/writer: Corin Hardy; screenwriter: Owen Egerton; cinematographer: Bjorn Charpentier; editor: Nick Emerson; music: Doomphonic; cast: Dafne Keen (Chrys Willet), Nick Frost (Mr. Craven), Jhaleil Swaby (Dean Jackson), Ali Skovbye (Grace Browning), Percy Hines White (Noah Haggerty), Michelle Fairley (Ivy Raymore), Sophie Nelisse (Ellie Gains), Sky Yang (Rei Taylor), Mika Amonsen (Tanner Church), Stephen Kalyn (Mason ‘Horse’ Raymore), Mikayla Kong (Asha Nelson); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Whitney Brown, David Gross, Macdara Kelleher; IFC Films and Shudder; 2025-Canada/Ireland)
“A middling supernatural horror thriller about an ancient, cursed skull-shaped Aztec whistle.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A middling supernatural horror thriller about an ancient, cursed skull-shaped Aztec whistle, whereby whoever blows into the whistle will know how they will die in the future. The Brit director Corin Hardy (“The Nun”/”The Hallow”) and the Australian Owen Egerton are co-writers of this creepy occult pic that’s targeted for the high school crowd and horror fans who love derivative films without fresh ideas.
Pellington High School’s new student Chrys Willet (Dafne Keen) has since the death of her father been living with her misfit high school senior stoner cousin (Sky Yang) in an unnamed North American steel-mill town. At school, the sullen, tattooed, dorky Chrys is given the locker that belonged to a basketball star who died of mysterious burns in the shower. She finds atop the locker a strange-looking urn with a whistle.
Chrys parties with her cousin and his misfit student friends, Grace (Ali Skovbye) and Dean (Jhaleil Swaby), who blow into the whistle and are summoned to their future deaths.
The alarmed Chrys wants to stop the death scenes before it reaches her classy potential lesbian girlfriend Ellie (Sophie Nélisse). The cursed victims go through some gruesome death scenes, dying one-by-one. Their favorite teacher Mr. Craven (Nick Frost), whose last name references horror film director Wes, also blows into the whistle. So does a sleazebag church youth leader/drug dealer (Percy Hines White).
The characters are mostly unlikable, the story is as weak as its limp insider jokes, and the acting is at best horror pic acceptable. Only the stylish visuals don’t blow.
REVIEWED ON 2/18/2026 GRADE: C
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