Whistle (dir. Corin Hardy)

by Jack Martin | Feb 13, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 108 mins

UK Distributor: Black Bear Films

UK Release Date: 13 February 2026

WHO’S IN WHISTLE?

Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Jhaleil Swaby, Ali Skovbye, Percy Hynes White, Michelle Fairley, Nick Frost

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Corin Hardy (director), Owen Egerton (writer), Whitney Brown, David Gross and Macdara Kelleher (producers), Doomphonic (composer), Björn Charpentier (cinematographer), Nick Emerson (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A group of teens face the supernatural consequences after coming across an ancient artifact…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON WHISTLE?

Whether it was evil genies in Wishmaster or Death itself in Final Destination, the 90s and early 2000s were riddled with supernatural slashers about teens falling victim to things beyond their realm of existence that they had no business meddling in to begin with. But regardless of whether they were any good or not – and let’s be honest, most of them aren’t – their appeal comes largely from what we all want to see happen to obnoxiously dumb teenagers: being brutally and often poetically killed in increasingly gory fashion.

Director Corin Hardy is clearly a fan of that particular horror era, and does his best to recapture the silliness of it all with Whistle, which for all of its glaring faults in plotting, characterisation and general sense-making is a fun ride that will give any other admirer of turn-of-the-century horror fond memories of simpler, slightly stupider times.

There are indeed a bunch of teens we’re following throughout, primarily new arrival Chrys (Dafne Keen) who’s come to stay with her cousin Rel (Sky Taylor) after recovering from a drug addiction. At school, not only does she quickly meet bullish jock Dean (Jhaleil Swaby), his girlfriend Grace (Ali Skovbye), and sweet-natured Ellie (Sophie Nélisse) whom Chrys soon develops a crush on, but she also comes across an ancient artefact (in her locker, of all places) which holds a mysterious Aztec whistle that they initially believe summons the dead. Inevitably, one of them musters up the courage to blow into it, and almost right away they’re all stalked by a terrifying entity that takes the form of how they will eventually die – for you see, the whistle doesn’t summon the dead, it summons their deaths much earlier than planned, and as death is to all of us, their fates are inevitable, unless they can somehow find a way to not conk out so soon.

It’s definitely a movie you’ve seen many times over, not just in those earlier examples but also many horror films that have come long after them, although Whistle doesn’t seem all too bothered about its own familiarity. You get the sense that Hardy knew exactly what kind of film he signed up for from the moment he read Owen Egerton’s script, from its stock teen characters to the numerous jump-scares to the exposition dumps about the backstory on this killer whistle, and simply turned it into something that intentionally feels like it could have come out a few decades ago. Luckily, Hardy is a talented enough filmmaker to make certain moments pop in ways that a lesser director, especially back in the days of Final Destination et al, would probably have mined for cheap dismay, with some of the aforementioned jump-scares being fairly well-shot and in some cases strongly edited, and the inevitable death scenes themselves carry a weight of creativity to them, including one involving a car crash that is hauntingly executed (not to mention extraordinarily gruesome).

But as formidable a director Hardy may be, there’s no getting around how the writing for Whistle really gets in the way of itself. In addition to the redundant plotting, which makes a lot of what unfolds here fairly predictable, Egerton’s script offers up a fairly generic bunch of teens who are performed well by their young actors but nonetheless lack extra dimensions beyond their most basic archetypes. Admittedly, there are signs of progressiveness among them, especially in how a queer romance plot between two of the main leads plays out, although even here there are times when you can notice the lack of genuine spark between them, which you can put down to how the script again doesn’t give them much to do or say to one another that feels like a believable connection is brewing between them.

The dialogue is also pretty bad, with a lot of genetic horror movie lines as well as some that to call too on-the-nose would be to insult all noses everywhere – example: a character is scolded for drink-driving, and they have the gall to work in how it will “be the death” of them (groan) – while there are certain points where you’re constantly questioning certain decisions being made among the characters that arguably make their deaths so much easier for the supernatural force that’s stalking them. You’ll also have sub-plots that feel bizarrely out of place in a movie like this, especially one involving a corrupt local youth pastor who sells drugs to kids and even carries a switchblade like he’s the bully in a Stephen King coming-of-age novel, which alone could have been the basis for an entirely different movie (and thanks to actor Percy Hynes White’s committed performance, it’s a movie you’ll kind of want to see more of) but with it being crammed into what it meant to be a typical supernatural slasher, it throws you off every time we return to this strand.

But really, you’re here to watch teens get brutally offed, and if nothing else Whistle delivers on that front. There are some fun deaths throughout the film, some of which aren’t afraid to dip their toes into Sam Raimi territory with how ludicrous and over-the-top they can get, including a sequence set in a maze that has one or two effective visuals you’d expect to see in an Evil Dead movie. Props to Hardy as well for giving Nick Frost a brief but enjoyable role as a high school teacher who exists solely to demonstrate the mighty power of the whistle, because honestly a lot of movies are improved with a touch of Frost here and there.

Even though it’s never truly scary, you’re at least entertained by the knowing silliness behind it all, and sometimes that’s all you need to have fun with a rather dumb supernatural slasher like Whistle, which for better or worse goes right alongside the very films of the 90s and 2000s that clearly inspired it.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Whistle is a generic but mildly entertaining supernatural slasher that sees director Corin Hardy defy the familiar and nonsensical script by Owen Egerton with a firm approach to some enjoyable death scenes that recalls numerous similar movies from a few decades prior.