By John Serba

Hey Whistle (now streaming on Shudder) – you had us at “Aztec death whistle” but lost us at “took ‘Aztec death whistle’ too seriously.” NEWS YOU CAN USE: “Aztec death whistle” is a real thing that actually exists, with its own Wikipedia page and everything, although its actual purpose remains unknown. So director Corin Hardy (The Nun) and screenwriter Owen Egerton craft their own mythology around the “Aztec death whistle” so stars Dafne Keen (Logan) and Sophie Nelisse (Yellowjackets) can try to outwit the grim reaper himself, inspiring in us far too much ennui. 

WHISTLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: Hey, I just like the phrase “Aztec death whistle,” especially with quote marks around it. It implies some wacky fun, which is in depressingly short supply around these here parts, specifically, this working-class steel-mill town somewheres in New York state. We open with the high school basketball star hitting the game winning shot but instead of high-fiving his bros he’s looking shit-yer-pants scared. For good reason: A humanoid gob of CGI that only he (and we movie watchers, of course) can see stalks him and makes him burst into flames in the locker room shower. So it goes.

And it’s this now-dead kid’s locker that’s the property of the New Kid In School, Chrys (Keen), short for Chrysanthemum. Her sullen demeanor belies that name. She’s kinda one of those I-wear-black-on-the-outside-because-black-is-how-I-feel-on-the-inside kids, with a post-millennium spin on the old goth type from dumb ’90s movies: She looks past the jocks and lusts after other girls, e.g., Ellie (Nelisse). Chrys arrives from Chicago to this bullshit-ass town with the partially true rumor that she’s a junkie who killed her father. She moves in with her cousin Rel (Sky Yang), a misfit who fixates on a comic book about a guy who looks a lot like The Crow. Fate intervenes when Chrys inherits the dead basketball guy’s locker, and finds the “Aztec death whistle” in it. Later in the film, a haggard old lady will label the “Aztec death whistle” as one’a them things that you don’t “find” because “it finds you.” Ooh. So why does the “Aztec death whistle” “find” Chrys? Don’t ask that, because the movie has no answer.

It does, however, have ancillary characters who will snatch the “Aztec death whistle” and learn the hard way that anyone who hears the high-pitched hoowhEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE it emits will be stalked by their “death,” here portrayed by glumpy CGI in the form of their future self, which will kill the person in the manner in which they’re destined to die, but sooner rather than later. This sounds convoluted, I know, so here’s an example: One character who dies by car accident finds himself in his bedroom, not near any cars, but nevertheless finds himself riddled with shrapnel, his limbs compound-fractured and his head caved in. Neat? Maybe a little. 

Anyway, who are some of these ancillary characters destined to be dead teenagers? Dean (Jhaliel Swaby) is a jock, Grace (Ali Skovbye) is his hot-blonde girlfriend, Noah (Percy Hynes White) is the local drug dealer-slash-preacher, and that’s about where the budget runs out. They seek out the help of their cardigan-with-a-tie teacher Mr. Craven (Nick Frost), who smokes Cronenberg’s cigarettes, and eventually find themselves in a big third-act set piece at Verhoeven Steel. Chaos reigns! But unfortunately not enough to make all this stuff interesting.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Note to filmmakers: Referencing Wes Craven, Paul Verhoeven and David Cronenberg (there are more, no spoilers here, babe) shows a level of overconfidence in your work, especially when it makes viewers wish they were watching something directed by Wes Craven, Paul Verhoeven or David Cronenberg instead. Otherwise, Whistle borrows somewhat liberally from Final Destination and It Follows, with a dash of Flatliners for good measure.

Performance Worth Watching: Unlike many of her co-stars, Nelisse is given one-and-a-third things to do, enlivening the proceedings with a raised eyebrow saying hey I’d kinda like it if you smooched me in the general direction of Keen, who gives a one-third smile in response, but is otherwise asked to do little more than look sullen and mopey all the time. 

Sex And Skin: None. 

Our Take: So why is a movie about an “Aztec death whistle” so dull? It’s not quite Hardy’s fault. He’s a real film director who manages to create some atmosphere and energy with dynamic camera movement, a nifty angle or three and a keen eye for the characters’ surroundings – although why they’d hang out at a carnival full of costumed civilians so they have a harder time discerning the ghouls from the cosplay goes against common sense, but hey, it’s a fun idea, and at least the teens’ moronic behavior is consistent considering they looked at a grimy, gnarly-ass skull-shaped ancient artifact and thought it would be totally rad to put their lips on it. 

That’s about as clever as Whistle gets, though, because this DOA screenplay is otherwise devoid of suspense, originality and decent characters. It proceeds in a depressingly bland fashion, its plot turns predictable (and landing on a conclusion that’s too much dumb luck and nonsense to swallow), its wonky pacing occasionally reminding us that this thing should be 85 minutes, not 100. It never distinguishes itself tonally, Hardy opting for flavorlessness that could’ve been goosed by a script that wasn’t afraid to throw in more jokes – or was aware that it’s, you know, an “Aztec death whistle” movie.  

Hardy indulges all the stuff of modern lower-rung horror – jump scares, a score laden with Carpenterisms, and a slight variation on ye olde crackity-bones sound effects (crackity crackity crackity bones bones BONES!!) that goes crackity-splortch! The core concept, “Our future death is hunting us!”, is too dopey to be rendered in this fashion, namely, without copious amounts of comedy, and with copious amounts of perplexing explanations accompanied by cruddy visual FX. Word of advice: Don’t make a non-porno movie in which people repeatedly huff air things, because that makes it far too easy to criticize.

Our Call: Whistle blows! (See? SEE?!?). SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.