Review - Whistle (spoiler-free)

Although the likes of 'Ouija' (2014), 'The Gallows' (2015) or 'Polaroid' (2019) hold their place as popcorn horrors made for easy viewing, akin to a guilty pleasure manifested in its truest form, whether they are objectively good films is still up for debate. As isolated as this may seem, the point is that when the trailer for Corin Hardy's latest horror, 'Whistle', was released, it came across as just another disposable teen horror that will inevitably come and go. However, hopes were high considering that the film stars an impressive line-up in Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Percy Hynes White, Nick Frost and Michelle Fairley, alongside the featuring of Hardy's talents behind the camera as shown in his debut 'The Hallow' (2015) - the less said about his follow-up film, 'The Nun' (2018) the better… 

Nevertheless, Whistle still premiered with very mixed reviews. One half of the consensus leads with the woes of the film and its ties to the tropes and cliches of the genre, whilst the other half adds praise to the exact re-establishment of horror archetypes that its counterpart rips into. If the 'Final Destination' (2000-) series stirs excitement, the desktop frights in 'Unfriended' (2014) appear nightmare-worthy, and if 2000s horror remakes offer a sense of nostalgic warmth, then Whistle will provide that quintessential sense of familiarity and fun found in the cheesiest of horror films, where low-stakes catharsis and foolish entertainment thrive. However, for those who crave originality and an actual cinematic experience, Whistle will not scratch that itch. 

Whistle etches its territory early on with its cold open, offering a memorable sequence of how the film's central curse works its brutal ways. After the fiery start, the lead and resident misunderstood new girl, Chrysanthemum (Keen), Chrys for short, moves to a moody steel town after a family tragedy. Besides the company of her cousin, Rel (Yang), Chrys is ostracised amongst the small-knit environment that plagues the dreaded high school experience, that is, until she is sentenced to a group detention with a motley crew of students. The monotony of the Breakfast Club-esque detention is broken up as a mysterious artefact that Chrys found in her new locker tumbles out of her bag. Filler scenes overstay their welcome before we learn that the relic is an ancient Aztec Death Whistle, whose emitted sound curses those who hear it. The hook here is that the cursed are hunted down by their future death, leading to a barrage of grisly kills. 

Shameless exposition is flecked amongst the admittedly epic kills, with the teens visiting elders with an almost omniscient presence as they divulge the horrific truth about the whistle's intentions, alongside moments of classic sleuth work from the group doing their own research about the deathly ornament. All of which leads to a rip-roaring time of gory shenanigans as Whistle offers up a whole smorgasbord of memorable deaths. In its press run, Hardy discusses how he wanted each death scene to almost embody a different subgenre in horror, which is not only a genuinely intriguing concept but also the most apt way to define the varying deaths. 

There has been one scene in particular that has had audiences in a chokehold since its release last week, with the film enacting a vehicle-less car crash. As bewildering as it may sound, for Whistle viewers, this exact segment really is worthy of all the attention. On that note, as exemplified by its many death scenes, the film unabashedly replicates the aura of the Final Destination series, with the entire premise of Whistle being an exploration of imminent, inevitable death at the hands of a curse. Whether or not Whistle holds a candle to the infamous franchise is a whole other matter, but what can be rest assured is that the future of Final Destination does not have to worry about a Whistle series taking over the 'escaping death' clique of horror. 

Whistle is by no means offers a negative viewing experience; in fact, it's pure entertainment through and through, just nothing else. Substance is awry, and any attempts at a contextual analysis only resemble the surface-level analogy that the film emulates. That being said, the performances are impressive, and the direction does not feel dull, but Whistle certainly lacks a necessary oomph to make it more than a typical, teen popcorn-horror that no doubt will be forgotten in due course. 

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