Dafne Keen of Logan and His Dark Materials and Sophie Nélisse of Yellowjackets and The Book Thief have signed on to star in Whistle, the latest horror film from The Hallow and The Nun director Corin Hardy. Filming is set to begin in Ontario, Canada on the first week in November – and since this is a Canada/Ireland co-production, governed by ACTRA rather than SAG, it won’t be impacted by the ongoing Screen Actors Guild strike.
Scripted by Owen Egerton from his own short story, Whistle has the following synopsis: 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. As the body count rises, the friends investigate the origins of the deadly artifact in a desperate effort to stop the horrifying chain of events that they have set in motion.
Keen and Nélisse are joined in the cast by Sky Yang (Rebel Moon), Percy Hynes White (Wednesday), and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead).
Whistle is being produced by David Gross of No Trace Camping and Macdara Kelleher of Wild Atlantic Pictures, with Black Bear handling international distributuion sales.
Hardy provided the following statement: “The premise of Whistle is simple, immediate and has a fresh, haunting mythology. A cursed object that summons your future death to come and find you. The screenplay has echoes of some of my favourite classic horrors like The Ring, A Nightmare on Elm Street or It Follows, with elements of seminal high school movies The Breakfast Club and Donnie Darko. I’m thrilled to be working with this brilliant young cast to bring this inventive, terrifying and cinematic new horror to death… I mean life.“
Gross added, “We couldn’t be happier to be working with Corin Hardy and this incredibly talented cast on Whistle – with his ability to combine strong visual sensibilities with atmosphere and emotion and a propensity for relentless, imaginative set pieces Corin has a proven track record at getting horror just right and we can’t wait to see him bring his unique take to Owen Egerton’s script.“
I can’t say I have enjoyed Corin Hardy’s previous horror movies, but he has assembled an interesting cast for this one and the synopsis does make Whistle sound like a movie I would like to watch. So I look forward to seeing how it’s going to turn out.
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