Whistle (2025 film)

Whistle
Canadian theatrical release poster
Directed by	Corin Hardy
Written by	Owen Egerton
Produced by	David Gross Whitney Brown Macdara Kelleher John Keville
Starring	Dafne Keen Sophie Nélisse Sky Yang Jhaleil Swaby Ali Skovbye Percy Hynes White Michelle Fairley Nick Frost
Cinematography	Björn Charpentier
Edited by	Nicholas Emerson
Music by	Doomphonic
Production companies	No Trace Camping Wild Atlantic Pictures
Distributed by	Elevation Pictures (Canada) Black Bear Pictures[1][2] (Ireland and the United Kingdom)
Release dates	25 September 2025 (2025-09-25) (Fantastic Fest) 6 February 2026 (2026-02-06) (North America) 13 February 2026 (2026-02-13) (Ireland and the United Kingdom)
Running time	100 minutes[a]
Countries	Canada Ireland
Language	English
Box office	US$1.3 million[5]

Whistle is a 2025 supernatural horror film directed by Corin Hardy and written by Owen Egerton. It stars Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Jhaleil Swaby, Ali Skovbye, Percy Hynes White, Michelle Fairley and Nick Frost. The film follows a group of students who find an Aztec Death Whistle and discover that the sound it emits will summon their future deaths to hunt them down.

Whistle premiered at Fantastic Fest on 25 September 2025, and was released in the United States on 6 February 2026, and was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 13 February.

During a game of basketball, star athlete Mason "Horse" Raymore suffers repeated hallucinations of a severely burnt man in a cloud of smoke. After winning the game he retreats to the locker room, where he destroys an artifact in his locker. He is assaulted by the burnt man in the showers, and Mason himself bursts into flames, burning to death in front of his friend and teammate Dean.

Months later, Chrysanthemum "Chrys" Willet moves in with relatives, including her cousin Rel. She attends high school with Rel, where she inherits Mason's old locker. This angers Dean, who taunts her, having heard that she has a history of drug abuse and is responsible for her father's death. The encounter becomes violent, and a teacher, Mr. Craven, gives Chrys, Rel, and Dean detention, as well as Dean's girlfriend Grace, and Grace's friend Ellie, who attempts to defend Chrys. Chrys then discovers an urn in her locker which contains a strange whistle carved in the shape of a skull.

In detention, the whistle falls out of Chrys' bag, and Mr. Craven examines it, believing the carving translates to "summon the dead." He confiscates the whistle. Following detention, he discovers similar artifacts are quite valuable, and blows into the whistle to ensure it is still functional. Rel sneaks back into detention, sees Mr. Craven's research, and steals the whistle. Chrys is approached by Noah, a local youth pastor who attempts to sell her drugs, and assaults Rel when he attempts to intervene. Later that evening, Mr. Craven is stalked by a sickly apparition of himself, who kills him.

The five students from detention hang out at Grace's house, and at Dean's urging, Grace blows the whistle, the sound of which is painful to all who hear it. Chrys gets uncomfortable and leaves, but not before Ellie invites her to the Harvest Celebration, a local event being held the next day. Chrys admits to Rel that she is attracted to Ellie.

The following day, Mr. Craven's death is announced to the students. His death is attributed to advanced lung cancer, despite no previous apparent symptoms. Grace, Ellie, and Chrys all feel themselves watched, and endure haunting visions. Chrys and Ellie decide to return the whistle to Mason's family, and encounter his terminally ill grandmother, Ivy, who has a vast collection of occult items from all over the world. She explains that their artifact is an Olmec death whistle, and the inscription actually translates to "summon YOUR death". The whistle summons the death of all who hear it. Death appears as the listener in their final moments, and bestows whatever death they are destined to endure. Ellie examines the medical files of Mason, which claims that the coroner had identified his age as in his late forties, despite having died at seventeen. Ellie and Chrys rush to the Harvest Celebration to warn their friends.

At the festival, Chrys and Ellie are waylaid by Noah, who threatens them with a knife. Chrys breaks his hand and cuts his nose before fleeing into the Harvest Celebration to find their friends. Grace is stalked through a haybale maze by an old woman, who attacks her at the centre of the maze, causing her to age rapidly and die. Chrys and Ellie share their findings with Dean and Rel, but Dean refuses to believe that the dead woman is Grace, and drives home after becoming intoxicated. Rel, meanwhile, has a vision suggesting he will die by falling into machinery at the steel mill where he is employed. Dean is haunted by a mutilated version of himself, and dies the next morning from injuries of a severe car accident while hiding in his room.

Chris, Ellie and Rel return to Ivy, who is bedridden and dying. Ivy claims that they can avert death by offering another soul in their place by marking them, before succumbing to her illness. Rel flees, and Chrys and Ellie follow him, afraid that he will attempt to kill someone to prevent his own death. Chrys reveals to Ellie that she had overdosed, and her father died in a car crash while trying to rush her to the hospital, for which she blames herself. Chrys and Ellie kiss. Rel arrives at Noah's church with a gun and subdues him, bringing him to the steel mill, where Rel prepares to mark Noah with his blood. Chrys and Ellie arrive in time to convince him to stop, and Rel is soon after pulverized by an invisible grinder.

Chrys realizes that they only need to die, and not stay dead. Using Ellie's insulin and an ice bath, they plan to stop their hearts long enough to be considered dead, before resuscitating each other with an AED. Ellie forces Chrys to go first, and Chrys realizes that this scenario matches the visions she has seen of her death. She is plunged into the ice bath, where she struggles against an apparition of herself. Noah, meanwhile, frees himself and disrupts their plans, using Rel's gun to shoot and disable the AED and injuring Ellie just as her death begins to close in. Chrys manages to escape her death and awakens to find Ellie in a seizure. Noah touches the blood from Ellie's gunshot wound, and immediately, Ellie's death vanishes and her seizure stops. The curse transfers to Noah, and he is killed by a bloated, moribund version of himself.

Three months later, Chrys and Ellie are in a relationship. Another new student finds the whistle in her locker and, in a mid-credit scene, blows it at a school assembly.

• Dafne Keen as Chrys Willet
• Sophie Nélisse as Ellie Gains
• Sky Yang as Rel Taylor, Chrys' cousin
• Jhaleil Swaby as Dean Jackson
• Ali Skovbye as Grace Browning
• Percy Hynes White as Noah Haggerty
• Michelle Fairley as Ivy Raymore
• Nick Frost as Mr. Craven
• Stephen Kalyn as Mason Raymore
• Conrad Coates as Clayton Jackson

Whistle was written by Owen Egerton from an adaptation of his short story and directed by Corin Hardy. A Canadian and Irish co-production, it was produced by David Gross for No Trace Camping and Macdara Kelleher for Wild Atlantic Pictures.^[6] In October 2023, Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Percy Hynes White and Nick Frost were added to the cast.^[6]

Principal photography took place in Hamilton, Ontario, from 15 November 2023 to 19 January 2024.^[7] Scenes were shot at Delta Secondary School, a house off Aberdeen Avenue, and at the Rockton Fairgrounds.^[8]

In October 2023, Black Bear Pictures handled sales at the American Film Market.^[9] In May 2025, Independent Film Company and Shudder acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the film.^[10]

Whistle premiered at Fantastic Fest on 25 September 2025, and was released in the United States on 6 February 2026.^[11][3][12] Black Bear Pictures was released the film in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 13 February.^[13][2]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 61% of 92 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Whistle doesn't blow it when it comes to milking some memorable frights from its nifty conceit, although this horror flick could've dared to be more original beyond its main hook."^[14] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[15]

• Official website at Black Bear Pictures
• Whistle at IMDb