Whistle (2026) Review | MovieTalk+

⭐⭐☆☆☆

Whistle is one of those horror movies where you can clearly see the cool idea — but the execution just never lives up to it.

Directed by Corin Hardy (The Nun, The Hallow), the film follows a group of high school students who discover an ancient Aztec death whistle. When it’s blown, it summons manifestations of their future deaths to hunt them down. On paper? That’s awesome. It’s basically cursed-object horror meets Final Destination. There’s so much potential there.

And to be fair, there are moments where you can feel that potential trying to break through.

The overall look of the spirit hunting them is genuinely unsettling. Hardy knows how to frame horror imagery, and some of the set pieces are staged with real intensity. A few of the kills are creative and brutal in concept. The problem? They’re buried under heavy CGI. Instead of feeling visceral and grounded, many of the deaths feel artificial — like you’re watching a visual effects reel instead of a horror movie. It completely undercuts the tension.

The acting isn’t bad. Dafne Keen gives a solid performance and does what she can to anchor the story emotionally. The young cast overall feels committed. But the script doesn’t give them much to work with. The characters are thinly drawn, and because of that, it’s hard to really care who lives or dies. When you’re not invested in the characters, the scares don’t hit nearly as hard.

Story-wise, it feels derivative. You can see the influences from other teen supernatural horror films all over it, but Whistle never adds enough of its own identity to stand out. It moves, but it doesn’t grip. It scares, but not consistently. It shocks, but not memorably.

There’s also a tonal uncertainty that holds it back. It never fully commits to being mean, fun, punk rock horror, nor does it lean fully into psychological dread. It just kind of sits in the middle — which ends up feeling safe.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Whistle has a genuinely cool concept and some strong visual ideas, but uneven writing, underdeveloped characters, and distracting CGI keep it from working. There are flashes of a better movie in here, which almost makes it more frustrating.