Troubled new girl in school Chrys (short for Chrysanthemum, played fantastically by Dafne Keen) has been assigned her locker. Unfortunately for her – and her soon-to-be-friends – its former owner was Mason, a basketball prodigy who spontaneously combusted in the showers after a game. It also contains one of his old possessions – a stolen ancient Aztec whistle.
Intrigued but scared by the item, she shows it to her new buddies, Emma (Sophie Nélisse), Dean (Jhaleil Swaby), and Grace (Ali Skovbye). Grace dares to blow the creepy artefact, and the hideous sound seals their fates – it unleashes an evil spirit that knows how they will eventually die and brings forward their fate.
Director Corin Hardy presents his latest film as an unholy marriage of The Breakfast Club and Final Destination, giving us a sense of familiarity from the start. The eighties setting strips away the mod cons, giving us the typical Hollywood version of an American high school. The premise of an ancient object that holds a deadly curse is simple, but the execution is excellent. A sequence set in a maze during a Halloween celebration is particularly effective. There are enough grisly deaths to please the horror hounds, with Hardy using plenty of practical effects as much as possible. He also peppers the movie with plenty of Easter eggs for keen-eyed fans.
The script, by Owen Egerton (Blood Fest), ticks all the boxes for a teen-based horror, and Björn Charpentier’s cinematography is impressively atmospheric and evocative. The story embraces the genre’s clichés and Hardy has plenty of fun with the concept along the way.
WHISTLE is in cinemas from February 13th.
