Starring Dafne Keen and Sophie Nélisse, this new horror is sure to have your heart pounding
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGE BY BLACK BEAR
Corin Hardy’s new horror film begins during the tense final moments of a basketball game. It’s not really the setting you’d expect for a horror film (unless you really hate basketball!). However, things turn awry when the star player is confronted by something too gruesome to imagine: his own dead corpse. Why? Well, it might have something to do with the ancient death whistle he has in his locker.
Fast-forward six months, Whistle introduces us to the new kid in school – Chrys (Dafne Keen). Your archetypal loner, Chrys is quickly made into school gossip with whispers of her prior overdose. Her luck doesn’t begin to change when she finds the death whistle waiting for her in her locker. With some bad Google Translate, a whole lot of teenage hormones and some pretty gnarly deaths awaiting her and other members of the school, Whistle is a rollercoaster from start to finish.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that horror and sapphics go hand in hand. After all, we love Halloween. Think films like What Keeps You Alive or The Perfection. Whistle is set to give queer audiences a new sapphic couple to root for who are trying to escape their impending death. Fans of Yellowjackets or Heated Rivalry will be stoked to see Sophie Nélisse playing the role of Ellie, Chrys’s ultimate crush. Together, Ellie and Chrys make it their mission to understand how and why this death whistle is targeting them before time runs out.
In a film about terrifying murders and ancient mythology, finding a sweet, heartfelt sapphic romance seems unlikely. But Whistle manages to weave the two together seamlessly, with their love story becoming pivotal to the story itself. Dafne Keen and Sophie Nélisse capture the awkwardness of texting your crush with the same vigour as seeing your friend be brutally killed. The film also conveys a very important message: sapphic love can save your life!
For lovers of gore, there are plenty of standout moments – or perishments as Corin Hardy describes them – which are sure to give you nightmares for weeks. But more than that, Whistle is also self-consciously an ode to the American high school stories many of us grew up watching. You have the jocks, the preppy girls, the outsiders and loners, the school spirit, the grumpy teacher overseeing detention. In combining these features with ancient mythology, Whistle manages to capture moments of absurdity and humour even in its darkest times.
WHISTLE is released in cinemas in the UK and Ireland from 13 February.
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