Whistle Review: Death Comes Quickly in This Supernatural Horror

There’s a twisted ingenuity at the heart of Whistle, the new horror from the pen of former Austin literary scene mainstay Owen Egerton. The victims of the supernatural shocker meet the final fate that they always would have faced: It’s just a lot earlier than they’d hope.

That’s explained to teen investigators Chrys (Dafne Keen, Logan) and Ellie (Sophie Nélisse, Heated Rivalry) by Mrs. Raymore (Michelle Fairley, Game of Thrones), the creepy lady in the spooky house who knows about such things. The ancient and mysterious Death Whistle that she picked up in Guatemala decades earlier doesn’t suddenly summon some strange new fate. It just signals your whereabouts to the death that you were getting anyway, and it arrives prematurely. Supposed to die in a car crash in 20 years? Then you’ll suffer those impacts and broken limbs in your own bedroom. Destined to pass away of old age, decades from now? Your youthful body will wither and decay in a matter of moments.

Director Corin Hardy made an impressively creepy debut with folklore horror with 2016’s The Hallow before getting caught up in the Conjuringverse withThe Nun. While Whistle is in many ways a conventional high school horror, he finds ways to highlight the bleaker and more emotionally nuanced aspects of Egerton’s script beyond the simple jump scares. There’s an undeniable desperation to this town, a post-industrial, cloud-covered city clearly on the way down, with everyone looking for a way out. It’s almost understandable when the foul-mouthed history teacher, Mr. Craven (Nick Frost, Shaun of the Dead, How to Train Your Dragon) “confiscates” the whistle and tries to sell it on an antiques website. If he’d only not blown it to make sure it worked …

Whistle works because it knows it’s ultimately a funhouse horror ride – quite literally. Egerton’s signature fascination with a good old Halloween carnival is there, and the massive maze that the kids get lost in is even more over the top than that in his 2019 comedy-horror, BloodFest. It provides Hardy with one of the film’s most exciting scenes, as one of Chrys’ classmates is chased by her own fate through the hay bales.

It’s the same thrill as the Final Destination movies, which Egerton and Hardy have both noted as an influence: watching likable protagonists try and sometimes fail to evade death. Of course, there’s always the odd character who you’ll be begging to see dispatched in a suitably agonizing and poetic fashion: In this case, it’s Percy Hynes White as the most despicable youth pastor on the planet. At the same time, the inevitability of their fates becomes a moral test for the targeted teens. While her burnout cousin, Rel (Sky Young, Rebel Moon), is trying to pass his fate on, Chrys is running towards her own demise. She’s surrounded by all the classic cinematic tropes of Gothdom (heavy makeup, The Cure’s discography), but her burgeoning relationship with Grace is played out with delicacy.

The death scenes are when Egerton and Hardy get to cut loose with some deliciously grisly visual effects – Hardy in particular seeming to have learned all the lessons about popcorn cinema from his Conjuring spin-off. Everyone’s death arrives early, but that doesn’t mean the mechanism does. Ever seen what a car crash does to the human body without the car getting in the way? There’s even a couple of particularly gnarly methods of death where half the fun is working out exactly what is happening to the soon-to-be-departed. Of course, the fact that the source of this menace – that ancient whistle crafted by Hardy and Spanish creature designer Daniel Carrusco – is just an immobile yet indestructible grinning skull means that there’s plenty of potential for sequels. Let’s hope the bloody story of the whistle avoids a premature demise.

This article appears in February 6 • 2026.