22 is the first of four one-word prompts for social groups, with Goths, Punks, Jocks and Stoners. This one covers most of these bases.
22.
Whistle (2025)
Not an adaptation of the M. R. James classic “Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You My Lad” but does have a whistle that makes something bad come to you. In this case an Aztec death whistle, a genuinely alarming sound here exaggerated with sound effects and it doesn’t actually do this in mythology but never mind.
After a cold open with a pretty good walking burned body and a pretty bad CGI burning body, Dafne Keen plays understandably moody youth Crys discovering the death whistle in her new school’s locker as she signally fails to make friends and gets the other characters detention. Showing it to the teacher doing this (Nick Frost) he drops a lot of exposition then dismisses them and tries to sell it online, but blows it to test if it works. The gang get it back and one tries it and the others are close enough to count - which avoids the common problem of why everybody keeps using the cursed item but feels like a copout answer - and they start having premonitions of how they should die and then it happens early. With some advice from a collector of Memento Mori and grandmother of the cold open victim (Michelle Fairley) they try to work out a way around the curse.
So the plot is mostly an excuse for the kills (I’m a Final Destination kid, I can’t talk here) and the kills are definitely the reason we’re here. One standout sequence has someone die of the effects of being hit by a truck in his bedroom in broad daylight.
Directed by Corin Hardy (The Hallow, The Nun) it includes a bit inspired by him being involved in one of the unmade remakes of The Crow, although not an action scene or anything that shows what might have been.
Oddest thing was discovering that the side villain switchblade-wielding drug dealer who claimed to be a youth pastor actually was one. He’s a pretty odd character.
Props for the use of Final Girl by CHVRCHES on the soundtrack.
Nil props for the ending.
The medium: Prime
Gameability: How do you stop a cursed object, as this presents both practical and moral issues.
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