The Whistle everyone fears…
Now for many the travesty of the junior school orchestra was an abomination to music being as it was nearly wholly composed of that pariah of musical instruments, the recorder. An instrument of no musical merit and yet seemingly simple enough to master and yet every British child struggled to play Three Blind Mice on it – a travesty of British education when there are children in China who can build a mobile phone …..albeit they are working 18 hours a day in a sweat shop doing it. But the school recorder is not the Whistle of the title of director Corin Hardy’s new film. Instead it is an ancient Aztec instrument which, when blown, sees death visited upon those that have blown it (and those that have heard it too) as seen in graphic style in the film’s opening scene that sees a football player brunt alive like an over eager Brit abroad seeing sunshine for the first time.
Does Whistle blow it?
But its Chrys (Dafne Keen) the new girl in High School with a troubled history of OD’ing on drugs and rumoured to have killed her father. Its she who inherits the dead football player’s locker that has said Aztec whistle on a shelf. It’s not just her former dalliance with drugs that torments her but also the struggle with her sexuality as coming out as gay that is spotted by Ellie (Sophie Nelisse) that sees become ever closer. It’s one of the films strong points that their tentative relationship has a ring of truth about it.
The horror!
But all this is set against a back drop of the whistle having been blown and heard by Chrys, Ellie and several others including a teacher that sees death stalk one by one killing them in ingenious ways. Those kills are really what the audience will want and owes much to the Final Destination films and whilst not as intricately convoluted they are still spectacularly realised none more so than one that takes a car crash as its inspiration in quite shocking detail.
Does it blow?
Whistle does of course adhere to the horror tropes of bad decisions – a character tells the others they must stick together before driving off on their own – and there is the expected get out clause to escape death. But that aside the set pieces work well in a combination of CGI and practical effects and there’s a lot of Easter eggs in here too for horror fan enthusiasts and the inevitable set up for a sequel .
……( do stick around for the mid-credit scene)
related feature : ‘Primate’ director Johannes Roberts chats to us about his horror films
related feature : How they made the skyview restaurant disaster in Final Destination Bloodlines
W chat to director Corin Hardy about creepy props, easter eggs and difficult special effects….
Here’s the Whistle trailer….
