By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
Stop me if you heard this one before…a “Breakfast Club” assortment of teens stupidly experiments with a mysterious relic, bringing death and carnage upon themselves. “Whistle” is another in a long string of unimaginative horror films that fail to frighten, much less entertain. With a cast of young actors who can’t hack it on a TV commercial, this is a movie that will mercifully be in and out of the theater in a week.
Despite the spontaneous combustion of a student in the high school locker room, it’s business as usual for the unconcerned teens and teachers. For the brooding, goth inspired Chrys Willet (Dafne Keen), it’s her first day and she luckily inherits the dead student’s locker, which hasn’t even been cleaned. She happens to find an ancient Aztec Death Whistle that has the power to summon death. When Chrys and her newfound friends recklessly blow this whistle, their future deaths oblige them to hunt them down one by one.
Corin Hardy, the talentless director of the universally panned horror film, “The Nun,” returns with an even worse effort with “Whistle.” Everything about the construction of this film feels hasty and rushed, from the simplistic narrative that cuts corners every chance it gets to the cheaply made special effects that look like they came off the shelf of a Dollar Store. There’s a ridiculous scene in which one of the characters is put through an invisible grinder, yes completely invisible, and his body is chewed up in mid-air spraying blood and gore everywhere. All that can be heard in the theater are groans and mocking laughter, condemning this production for what it is, a forgettable waste of time.
Hardy’s laziness becomes even more apparent in his efforts to generate suspense and jump scares. The set ups are painfully obvious as he continually uses the same misdirection of the character and camera staring in one area the spectral image of death is thought to be, only to suddenly turn around and come face to face with the ghastly spirit. After the second time Hardy does this, the infuriated eyerolling from viewers begins in earnest. He tries unsuccessfully to dress up the horror scenes with grotesque imagery and bloodletting, but these moments only unleash yawns of boredom and ambivalence. The result is a poor man’s version of “Final Destination” combined with “Talk to Me.”
And just like all the other dime-store horror flicks, the cast is comprised of mostly younger, no-name actors who are simply incapable of doing anything more than regurgitating lines in a monotone fashion or providing generic screams. Dafne Keen, who audiences may recognize as the killer child mutant X-23 from “Logan,” does her best Jena Ortega impression from “Wednesday.” Her dark mysteriousness and sullen attitude towards life is more a hollow caricature, however, than providing any real depth. Then there’s Percy Hynes White, who is an actual castoff from “Wednesday.” He’s given an odd, afterthought kind of role as a drug dealing youth pastor with bullying tendencies, and his overacting destroys any credibility or usefulness of his character.
Also, in accordance with the B-movie template is bringing in a veteran actor or two in bit roles to add some star power to the production. In this case, it is Nick Frost and Michelle Fairley. Frost, mostly known for his comedic film roles like in “Shaun of the Dead,” is an arrogant, tyrannical teacher in this film and utterly pointless. Fairley is best known for her part as Catelyn Stark in the “Game of Thrones” series, and she offers the only poignant moments in the film, providing those key words of wisdom that predictably influence the plot’s direction.
About the only positive thing that can be said regarding this film is that it has a very scripted beginning, middle, and end. Beyond that, someone from the production team should have blown the “Whistle” and reported the filmmaker for malfeasance and negligence of duties. The sheer lack of entertainment value is the equivalent of somebody pursing their lips together and blowing raspberries rather than a sharply shrill tune.
This movie earns:
