Rent Whistle on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Owen Egerton
Directed by: Corin Hardy
Starring: Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Jhaleil Swaby, Ali Skovbye, Percy Hynes White, Michelle Fairley, Nick Frost
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
A misfit group of unwitting high school students stumble upon a cursed object, an ancient Aztec Death Whistle. They discover that blowing the whistle and the terrifying sound it emits will summon their future deaths to hunt them down.
Verdict
This offers what you'd expect. Teens die throughout the movie as the scares and gore increase each time. There's the inherent tension of whether they'll defeat what's killing them or perish in the process. If you're looking for a mostly predictable horror movie, this provides that. It's by no means novel or unique story wise, but the whistle is an interesting starting point.
Skip it.
Review
We don't even know the names of these characters and this kid is already seeing evil spirits. What is happening? This demon sets this kid, Horse, on fire. To anyone else it looks like spontaneous combustion, as unlikely as it is. We skip ahead six months later with no exposition.
Transfer student Chrys (Dafne Keen) gets Horse's old locker, and the object Horse destroyed in the earlier scene before a demon killed him is in the locker. It's a strange whistle. She's just about to blow the weird object before she's saved by the bell. She and her cousin Rel (Sky Yang) ask their teacher about it. Mr. Craven (Nick Frost) realizes it's ancient, telling them he'll hold onto it. He plans to sell it, but he can't resist blowing the whistle.
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| Sophie Nélisse, Dafne Keen play Ellie, Chrys |
This does a nice job of building tension, though it generates a lot of questions. We know the end result is death. Is that for holding the object or blowing the whistle? Where did Horse get it? This is standard horror movie fare, and it seems clear the kids will blow this whistle and meet the same fate. Now we know what happened to Horse, even if we don't know how.
Rel steals the whistle back before Craven dies. Of course one of the kids blows the whistle. Originally I suspected the person that blew the whistle would die, but I'm guessing even hearing it might be your end. Chrys and Ellie (Sophie Nélisse) find Horse's grandmother who traffics in the occult. She explains everything, and it's all quite convenient.
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| The whistle |
The kids are marked for death, but how do you stop it? Chrys and Ellie get more answers after Grace (Ali Skovbye) and Dean (Jhaleil Swaby) die. It's possible to transfer the curse to someone else, but the pair also suspect if they die and revive themselves they can escape their fate. This gets more outlandish as it continues, relying on gore to keep the shocks going.
This offers exactly what I suspected. It's not a new plot, just a new method. Each death is more shocking than the last. Is it really possible to avert death once you've been marked? In the final scene we see the whistle intact yet again sitting in a locker. Why does the whistle keep appearing in this one locker, even after being destroyed? Maybe it's the locker that's cursed.
A mid credits scene shows what the latest student does with the whistle. I'm not sure why other than it's a great stinger. Logically, it's lacking.
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