Stories of touching artifacts we shouldn’t are a dime a dozen but what the Shudder film Whistle does is allow them the agency to fix it on their own. And, to be fair to the kids of this small town, it was the adults who started this mess.
Chris (Dafne Keen) moves in with her cousin Ralph (Sky Yang) after a complicated past and while the people of this town eventually accept Chris, it isn’t an easy time. Especially since she takes the locker of Mason, the basketball star who suddenly caught fire in the shower after winning the team a big game. Why? Because he blew an Aztec death whistle and called upon his own death. Probably unwillingly so.
As the film goes on, a lot of the fear comes from death lurking in the shadows. Which, poignant. But as everything begins going well for Chris, her crush Emma (Sophie Nélisse), and the teenagers of this high school, Dean (Jhaleil Swaby) dares Gracie (Ali Skovbye) to blow the whistle and, well, you know how that goes.
What really works about Whistle is the use of Chris getting to know these characters in the midst of them all trying to stop this death whistle. And if you ignore things like Chris wearing crop tops to high school, there is a lot to love about this movie. Mainly because it feels like the old school horror movies of the 80s where everything was just slightly too unrealistic but we suspended our disbelief for the movie.
Which, is the sign of a good horror movie. If you re willing to ignore the things you know are inaccurate, that means it has you hooked. And, for the most part, Whistle had me hooked from start to end.
Not every horror movie has to change the game
For what Whistle is, it works. Now, if you paired it up against movies like Sinners or Nope or Midsommar, it would pale in comparison. But for what director Corin Hardy was going for in tone and his own love of a style of film, it works. Prior to the screening, Hardy talked about his love of both The Breakfast Club and The Lost Boys and this movie does feel like a marriage between those. Minus the vampires but you get it.
And it felt nice to see a horror movie that had that tone and feel to it. Horror can turn camp very easily and we can also have horror films that don’t take their audience seriously. Whistle does none of this but instead feels like a nod to the classics while being original and fun.
With some gnarly kills and an emotional core that makes the inevitable deaths hit that much harder, I do think that Whistle will find its place among the favorites of this great time in horror. Will it stand the test of time as one of the best? No but I think that any movie that has a killer soundtrack like this is one that will, at least, have its cult following.
(featured image: Shudder)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
