Streaming Shuffle
Your host accidentally watched a new teen horror movie and got what she deserved for it.
I mostly stopped paying attention to new teen horror films once I was no longer part of the target audience. ‘70s and ‘80s slashers? Evergreen. Scream? A masterpiece. Idle Hands? I’ll still revisit it out of nostalgic affection. But once the subgenre stretches into the ‘00s, I lose both personal connection and interest. I’m happy to let the kids have their fun.
But since I failed to realize Whistle was a teen horror movie and not–like It Follows–a horror movie with teens, I’m going to briefly make that everyone else’s problem. I’m sorry.1
Whistle has an intriguing central horror idea: if you hear the sound of this Aztec death whistle, your fated, inevitable death, which has always been out there waiting for you, will start coming for you now-now-now. Your dying form stalks you until it can supernaturally pass on all its horrors in a barrage of causeless effect. And boy, do these kids have rotten luck. Steel mill accident, drunk driving crash, burned alive … no community in history has ever been in such need of a series of PSAs.
Being hunted down by death–why, it almost sounds like these young folks are being spirited along to some final destination.
It’s safe to say that Whistle wears its primary influence on its sleeve, even similarly shoehorning in the names of classic horror directors, with cigarettes called Cronenbergs and Nick Frost as pissy teacher Mr. Craven; it’s also safe to say that wouldn’t always be a problem. Formal originality isn’t always required. Didn’t I start off this article declaring my affinity for the slasher, surely one of the most plug-and-play conceits of all? But Whistle can’t equal its predecessor’s strengths: a gory car-less car crash, digital or not, shows a certain imagination, but nothing here is as laugh-and-squirm-inducing as the Final Destination franchise’s elaborate Rube Goldberg death traps. That makes its inherited faults, like a certain dramatic inertia, all the more apparent. We don’t expect this glossy but affordable cast to be able to effectively fight death itself, so we’re just waiting around between attacks. And alas, Whistle has a weak script that pulls too much from contemporary trauma-driven horror to muster a good hangout vibe (or sharp dialogue) for these lulls; instead, we mostly spend them with po-faced dead dad material, addiction backstories, and a drug-dealing youth pastor subplot that’s one of the most random things I’ve seen in a movie in a while.
It can’t help picking up a little more energy once its characters start strategizing, but in the context of all the Final Destination nods, it’s unforgivable that one of the ways out here is “technically die but get resuscitated.” No! Pick something else! You also have the idea about smearing your blood on someone else as your death approaches you, just go with that! I haven’t seen it a dozen times already, and it gives the characters the chance to either kill to save themselves or make a life-ending moral stand, which is revealing and cool! (Or it would be, anyway, if one of the two earmarked-for-the-finale characters who chose death before dishonor didn’t have Reverend Feelgood accidentally solve her problem for her, saving her life in a way that keeps her safely blameless. This annoys me. Just let her kill someone.)
In the end, this pulls too much from a single source without developing or rethinking that source. I don’t need every movie to feel fresh, but I do ask that they not feel reheated.
However, to circle back around to the start of this, would any of this matter to a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old horror fan getting into the genre for the first time? I suspect not. They get some good scares, a likable enough cast, at least one clever plot beat and one great setpiece, and a strong (mid-credits) ending, and they get it with far more queerness and racial diversity than the teen horror movies of my era ever offered. I don’t feel much affection for this movie, but I feel plenty for this movie’s audience. Welcome to the party. I hope you’re having a good time, and I’ll see you in a few years.
Whistle is streaming on Shudder.
About the writer
Lauren James
Lauren James is a writer who wears many different hats (and pen names). She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two cats.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Justified, Season Five, Episode Thirteen, “Restitution”
“Thought less about that pig and more about what I wanted to do to Arlo.”
“Did you do it?”
“Not as such.”
“Well why didn’t you just say so?”
Everything after Darryl’s death is intoxicatingly cool. Here I’ve been thinking, once Darryl is cleaned up, Raylan has no reason to stick around in Kentucky, and then they throw in this great button to the show. Justified isn’t a tragedy, it’s a character question kind of show, and though I can’t articulate how yet, this next season will answer that question. Raylan being so obviously pumped to go for Boyd; Ava turning out to be a snitch for Raylan; Boyd being set up to go further into business with Mary Steenburgen. It’s all coming together so elegantly. I’m up for this.
Biggest Laugh: “Don’t even have to get up to piss.” / “Well don’t get too comfortable!”
Biggest Non-Art Laugh: Those two guys tricking Boyd for a second.
Top Ownage: Wendy shooting Darryl a few times. “Don’t you remember me tellin’ ya you’d wish I’d kill ya? Well, don’t ya?”
That “Well, don’t ya?” is great payoff.
I never quite bought that Raylan has spent all these seasons assembling a detailed dossier on Boyd’s crimes to wait for the perfect moment to go after him, so to me that always felt a tiny bit too much like a deliberate setup for next season; Olyphant plays the moment very well, but Raylan–past S1, when going after a released Boyd means correcting his own fuck-up–never seemed that intent on targeting him. He feels more like someone who takes his causes as they come to him rather than someone who seeks them out. But I can buy that Ava’s situation + the suspicion that he’s been in Boyd’s pocket would combine to count as this one coming for him, even if I can’t entirely believe he’s been planning on it the whole time.
Hah, I clearly slightly misunderstood that scene – I thought it was Raylan happening to keep a document of them that ends up used, not him deliberately going out of his way to do it.
To be fair, I haven’t seen this one since it aired, so I could easily be wrong.
Oh, I’m more than willing to accept that I get so swept up in the beauty of the dialogue that I miss the meaning.
I kind of read it as the former, especially given that Vasquez points out earlier how Raylan doesn’t see Boyd as a crime boss and this is bizarre.
Columbo, “The Greenhouse Jungle”
Ray Milland is the big guest star draw here, but while he’s a convincingly arrogant killer, the highlight of the episode is Sandra Smith’s performance as the victim’s wife. I think Smith is an underrated actress who deserved a more remarkable career: while there are obvious faults in the ST:TOS episode “Turnabout Intruder,” her performance as a body-swapped Kirk is terrific, unshowily capturing the essence of him at his best. She has a similar sense of inherent command here as a woman who won’t accept anyone rewriting her life. She admits she was having an ongoing affair, but she’s defiant about still loving her husband, and her unshakeable sense of self-knowledge about exactly who she is and what she feels eventually wins Columbo’s respect: the scene where he reveals her current boyfriend was willing to take a payoff to leave her could, under other circumstances, have felt like a dig, but here it clearly comes as a friendly tip from someone who believes she deserves better.
And Smith isn’t the only female Trek alum in the cast, because we also have the great Arlene Martel (aka Arlene/Arline Sax, aka T’Pring), who also gets a “more complex than you might expect” role as the former assistant the murdered husband actually was not sleeping with. A very good episode for female characters.
On the male front, in addition to Milland, we also have Bob Dishy as Columbo’s temporary partner, a very eager officer fanatically invested in the newest techniques and technologies. I know the show would famously try adding partners from time to time to no avail, and Dishy’s appearance here makes it clear why they would never quite work. He’s a good character, but he’s paired with a paragon, one of the few Always Noble and Correct Yet Somehow Likable characters TV has ever pulled off; there can’t be too much of a reciprocal relationship here, because Columbo can’t learn much from him. I don’t want him to. I want him to go on being rumpled and brilliant and kind. And it’s unfair to ask someone like Dishy’s character to exist on a week-to-week basis just to almost always be wrong about things, because he would then become the butt of the joke in a way that flies in the face of the appeal of Columbo and Columbo.
Has anyone in movies or TV ever grown orchids and not been at least somewhat menacing?
Columbo the show will eventually just throw its hands up and have one actor show up now and then as a partial sidekick to Columbo, who exists mainly to just cope with Columbo and do some work for him. You will know it when you get there.
Of course, his true sidekick is the dog.
Elementary, “Corpse de Ballet” – As the title suggests, a ballet dancer is found murdered, and the main suspect is the lead dancer (Aleksa Palladino). Before long we learn that the lead dancer is a prima donna, has a one night stand with Sherlock, seduces other ballerinas in the company to undermine them, and actually cared about the murder victim. I am not sure if this is a good, matter of fact portrayal of queer women or just more “kill your gays.” But it’s a pretty solid mystery. Meanwhile, Joan tries to locate a missing homeless veteran, and we learn that her dad had a mental break when she was a baby and is himself homeless, creating empathy in Joan and allowing the show to demonstrate a level of empathy for the unhoused we all need. (Oh, and Sherlock is very fond of one night stands with consenting adult women of like mind, and that’s fine but Joan seems to find that uncool. None of her business, if you ask me.)
MLB on TBS, Padres-Phils – A pretty standard issue but well pitched mid-season game. As I never get to watch Mets games (and am probably better off for that), it’s nice to hear Ron Darling doing color on TBS from time to time.
Live Music – French antifolk (?) duo Freschard & Stanley Brinks, who opted to play three sets covering stuff from throughout their wildly prolific careers together and apart rather than have any support acts etc. I wouldn’t have minded two sets and a bit of variety from another act to be honest, as a very casual fan, but they are very charming performers so I guess I’ll let them off this time. Lots of Jonathan Richman in their DNA, and their voices sound great together.
Woo, live music! And I do like Richman so I’ll check it out.
I’ve seen them live before but still haven’t actually gotten around to checking out much of the (vast amount of) recorded stuff. But I really liked this one: https://fikarecordings.bandcamp.com/track/orange-juice
And this one: https://fikarecordings.bandcamp.com/track/near-future
Tales From The Crypt, “Judy, You’re Not Yourself Today” – A delightfully strange and even touching episode in contrast to “The Sacrifice” guest starring Carol Kane(!) with a jaunty score. A witch wreaks havoc on a married couple by perpetually switching bodies with them. Like “Collection Completed”, it’s about marriage between two weirdos; the distinction is that they have long ago figured out a certain routine to work out their individual dysfunctions, so the final reversal is surprisingly devastating.
Widow’s Bay, “Our History” – One of the best things Ti West has directed, certainly because there were ACTUAL PACING RESTRICTIONS. The episode delves into Widow’s Bay’s early history from the POV of colony founder/first mayor Richard Warren’s new, increasingly terrified wife Sarah. Great performances from Betty Gilpin (of course)* and Hamish Linklater and the final reveal adds real moral ambiguity to what could be an otherwise pat depiction of evil seemingly vanquished. Warren was, as it turns out, a murderer who made a pact with what seems to be a demon…but what if he’s right?
*Who supplies some real black-hearted laughs with her discomfort and fear, and she makes the eighteenth century dialogue sing by being as natural as possible. “You must take ten good and strong men!”
Hell yeah Carol Kane.
Co-sign everything here, especially that bullshit moral dodge with the blood. Cowards! I hated the mid-credits ending though, which made no sense logistically (three months after Halloween and it’s a new year? Or is summer in January?) and in general, why the musical setup for something so ridiculous? Anyway, I did laugh a lot at the one death that was a literalization of “behold the ravages of age!” hopefully today’s teens will grow into understanding/mentally adding classic Simpsons references in their mediocre slashers.
You know, I didn’t think about the timeline aspect, and you’re right, that’s bullshit.
Fingers crossed for the youth inheriting classic Simpsons references.