Ali Skovbye, Corin Hardy, Dafne Keen, Fantastic Fest, film festivals, horror, Jhaleil Swaby, LGBTQ, movies, New York, Nick Frost, Percy Hynes White, reviews, Sophie Nelisse, Stephen Kalyn, Whistle
February 15, 2026
by Carla Hay
Directed by Corin Hardy
Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Pellington, New York, the horror film “Whistle” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A troubled misfit teenager relocates to a new high school, where she finds a mysterious skull-shaped whistle that causes death and destruction to those who blow the whistle.
Culture Audience: “Whistle” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of predictable but competently made horror movies about deadly curses that are hard to stop.
“Whistle” is sufficiently entertaining, as it follows a typical horror movie formula about a curse that kills people. (In this case, it’s a cursed whistle.) The movie’s big showdown is jumbled, but the overall story delivers scares and some unique visuals. No one seeing this movie should expect a masterpiece. However, there are some genuinely creepy moments that should satisfy most horror fans who are looking for a movie about supernatural curses that get passed along to unwitting people.
Directed by Corin Hardy and written by Owen Egerton, “Whistle” had its world premiere at the 2025 edition of Fantastic Fest. The movie takes place in the fictional city of Pellington, New York. “Whistle” was actually filmed in the Canadian cities of Toronto and Hamilton.
“Whistle” doesn’t waste time in showing the movie’s carnage. The movie’s first scene takes place during a basketball game at Pellington High School. The school’s team, the Steel Wolves, has a star player named Mason “Horse” Raymore (played by Stephen Kalyn), who has just made the winning dunk for the team. However, before making this dunk, Horse sees a frightening vision of a burning man in front of him. The burning man’s entire body is covered in black ashy scales.
After the game, Horse runs into the locker room before his teammates arrive. He’s too scared to tell anyone what he’s seen and avoids talking to his teammates. Horse goes into the locker room and takes an urn out of his locker. The burning man follows him.
“Please, please. Not yet,” Horse tells this burning man, who remains silent. Horse throws the urn down on the floor. The urn breaks into pieces. “See, it’s gone!” Horse shouts at the burning man. “Leave it alone!”
Thinking that he has solved the problem, Horse takes a shower in the locker room, as his jubilant teammates start arriving in the room. But the burning man appears in the shower and shoves his arm down Horse’s mouth. Horse screams in pain and terror. His teammates rush into the shower area to see Horse engulfed in flames.
Six months later, a new student has enrolled in Pellington High School and gets the hallway locker that Horse used to have. Her name is Chrysanthemum “Chrys” Willet (played by Dafne Keen), who has a troubled past that some of the students know about already and have made Chrys the target of malicious gossip. Chrys’ widower father died in a car accident that people have speculated was caused by Chrys. Chrys is also a recovering from an opioid addiction where she used needles.
Now that Chrys is an orphan, she has relocated from Chicago to Pellington to live with her cousin Rel Taylor (played by Sky Yang), who is about the same age as Chrys. Rel and Chrys are both in their senior year at Pellington High School. Rel is a quirky and somewhat goofy character who likes horror movies.
Rel is accepting of Chrys but also mildly teases her about certain things, such as her taste in music. Chrys has a collection of old vinyl records that used to be owned by her father. She listens to mostly music from the 1980s and 1990s. Chrys is also a lesbian, but she’s not completely open about it except to certain people who are close to her, such as Rel.
During her first day at school, Chrys finds two strange objects in her locker: a skull-shaped whistle and Horse’s urn, which has now been put back together. Strange whispers can be heard in the movie, as Chrys almost puts the whistle in her mouth, but she doesn’t go through with blowing the whistle. These whispers are heard every time the whistle is picked up, and it looks like someone could blow the whistle.
In the school hallway, Chrys makes eye contact with a red-haired student named Ellie (played by Sophie Nélisse), and they look at each other in a way that indicates mutual attraction. Much later, Chrys asks Rel if he knows if Ellie is straight or queer. Rel says he doesn’t know, but he suggests that Chrys find out for herself.
While having a conversation with Rel in the hallway near her locker, Chrys has an unpleasant encounter with an arrogant bully named Dean Jackson (played by Jhaleil Swaby), who is a star on the school’s football team. Dean is with his pretty blonde girlfriend Grace (played by Ali Skovbye) when he asks Chrys if it’s true that Chrys is a “psycho junkie” who killed her father. Chrys gets angry and kicks Dean in his genital area.
A fight breaks out and is stopped by a teacher in the hallway named Mr. Craven (played by Nick Frost), who happens to be the history teacher for all the students involved in the fight. Mr. Craven orders Chrys, Dean, Rel and Grace into detention. Ellie intervenes and says she witnessed the entire conflict and says Dean was the one who instigated it. Mr. Craven doesn’t appreciate Ellie butting into this dispute, so he gives her detention punishment too.
During the detention that Mr. Craven is overseeing, Chrys shows Mr. Craven the whistle that she found in her locker. Mr. Craven looks up the whistle on the Internet and finds out that it’s an Aztec death whistle. He keeps the whistle. Later, after the students are gone, Mr. Craven goes on the Internet to find out how much the whistle is worth and sees that it’s worth about $35,000. A delighted Mr. Craven then blows the whistle.
The rest of the movie is about what happens when someone blows the whistle: The person is killed by another version of that person, who would have died another way if the whistle hadn’t been blown. If a person was supposed to die in a fire (such as Horse), then that person is killed by a version of that person with a burned body. It’s a creative twist and change of pace from the usual “mysterious demon” killer that these horror movies about supernatural curses tend to have.
In “Whistle,” the parents of the non-orphan teen characters are rarely seen. Instead, the teenagers who are at the center of the story have to contend with a local youth pastor in his 20s named Noah Hagerty (played by Percy Hynes White), who is a sleazy hypocrite because he sells drugs to the teenage kids of the parents who think Noah is a wholesome role model. One of these teenagers died in a drug overdose.
Rel despises Noah and doesn’t hesitate to show it. Meanwhile, there’s some other interpersonal drama because Rel has had a longtime crush on Grace, who only sees him as a platonic friend. And although mopey Chrys and cheerful Ellie might seem like opposites, they both have a troubled past in common, which Ellie eventually reveals to Chrys. Ellie also happens to have diabetes and works at a local hospital, which is a job that comes in handy at one point in the story.
“Whistle” does exactly what most viewers expect it to do in telling this horror story. The characters of Rel, Chrys and Ellie manage to rise slightly above teen stereotypes, with all the cast members giving fairly good performances. “Whistle” has a creative way of showing people’s fears about knowing in advance how they are going to die while also facing the possibility that they could die in a much more horrific way from the whistle curse.
Independent Film Company and Shudder released “Whistle” in U.S. cinemas on February 6, 2026. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 3, 2026.