Whistle: Aztec death whistle horror is good fun, but offers few surprises

Horror cinema is enjoying a moment of mainstream recognition right now, with critically acclaimed films Sinners, Weapons and The Ugly Stepsister all receiving Oscar nominations from an academy that usually turns its nose up at the genre.

To my mind, the brilliant Sally Hawkins also deserved an Oscar nomination for her performance in the unmissable Bring Her Back, my personal favourite of an incredibly strong series of horror releases in 2025. Horror films generally come out around Halloween, but thanks to the current critical and public interest there’s a steady stream throughout 2026 – including Whistle.

A British-directed, Canadian-Irish co-production set in an American high school, Whistle is named for its focus on Aztec death whistles or ehecachichtli. Archaeologists believe these real objects were probably used in rituals to conjure the sound of the underworld. It is surprising that death whistles haven’t yet featured in a horror film, given their striking skull-shape designs and eerie shrieking sound.

Whistle is an example of the tried-and-tested sub-genre of horror films that has kids tinkering with supernatural artefacts they really should be leaving well alone. Think Talk to Me (2022), Ringu (1998) or Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016).

In this film, a group of American high school friends discover an Aztec death whistle and, for reasons best known to them, give it a blow at a party. This triggers the early deaths of those who hear the sound, killing them off in spectacular fashion. This is the main motivation for the film: the special effects team get to creatively imagine what it would look like for someone who, say, would have ultimately been hit by a train several years later suddenly and inexplicably exploding in a spray of gruesome injuries.

The bracing, disturbing Talk To Me used its story of high schoolers contacting the dead through a withered hand to engage meaningfully with themes of addiction and social media pressure. But Whistle shows little comparable interest in examining adolescence with nuance or empathy.

Whistle has no ambitions toward awards-season prestige or thematic complexity.
It is horror for its own sake, delivered with undeniable enthusiasm but lacking distinguishing qualities beyond imaginative CGI violence.

The central characters are likeable, led by rising star Dafne Keen, best known for playing Lyra in the BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Keen plays the new girl at school, who encounters the expected mix of jocks, geeks and misfits. She works hard to elevate a script that relies heavily on horror conventions.

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Read more:
His Dark Materials: how the small-screen adaptation deals with the novel’s big ideas

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Whistle’s British director Corin Hardy showed enormous promise in 2015 with his acclaimed first film The Hallow – an original, atmospheric story of deadly fairies in a deep, dark wood based on Irish folklore. The quality of this independent film led to a rapid move to the mainstream with a stint in Hollywood directing The Nun (2018), a bland and cliched spinoff of the popular The Conjuring series. After mixed reviews for his tenure as show-runner on the ultra-violent crime drama Gangs of London (2020), he returns here to a genre for which he has a clear passion.

There is obvious delight on the part of Hardy at the opportunity to make an American high school film in the manner of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Scream (1996) or Final Destination (2000). Fellow Brit Nick Frost puts in a serviceable impression of the grouchy high school teacher archetype, named Mr Craven after the celebrated director Wes.

A packet of cigarettes falls to the floor featuring the fictional brand Cronenberg’s after Canadian horror pioneer David. Moments like this tell the audience that Whistle is carved with the very best intentions to celebrate the genre and to entertain a core of genre enthusiasts.

The American director Nia Dacosta brought a nuanced outside perspective to the British landscape in the brilliant, visionary sequel 28 Days Later: The Bone Temple (2025), and here we have a British director working in a distinctly American setting, paying tribute to the films that shaped his youth.

It is not clear that Hardy has found a new perspective or approach to this kind of material however, and the film follows a disappointingly familiar and well-trodden path. While Whistle admirably centres around a lesbian romance, its characters remain broadly drawn, with little effort to subvert archetypes or complicate expectations.

So while Whistle brims with an infectious puppy dog enthusiasm for the (much better) films that it reverently evokes, this chaotic, unfocused film fails to inject sufficient vitality or originality into well-worn genre tropes.

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Matt Jacobsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.