Curses are all the rage in horror films, especially contemporary ones. Touch the wrong item or run afoul of a certain person, and suddenly you’re counting the days, seeing apparitions in your peripheral vision, or looking for ways to throw Death off your trail. With Corin Hardy’s Whistle, now in theaters, characters make the mistake of blowing an Aztec Death Whistle that calls death upon them, resulting in several very gory sequences.
If the log line sounds a little familiar, that’s because it is (though as I say in my review, that’s not necessarily a problem!) There are, however, plenty of other titles that can help you to replicate the experience, so whether you’ve seen the Owen Egerton-scripted film or you’re just in the mood to watch people try to outwit/outrun/outsmart Death, here are some like-minded films to check out.
Mild spoilers for Whistle follow…
Whistle Inspirations
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Let’s begin with the titles that influenced Hardy and Egerton as they were developing Whistle. Per an interview with IMDb, the three main inspirations were:
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Egerton clearly used the concept of “death comes for us all” as a springboard for Whistle’s general premise. More than that, though, Whistle borrows heavily from Tina’s murder for two of its most memorable death sequences (which are one of the main reasons to check the new film out).
The Lost Boys may seem like a peculiar choice, but Hardy credits the Joel Schumacher film as an inspiration because of its soundtrack and levity. This tracks, particularly the way Whistle manages to thread the tonal needle between danger, coming of age, and a fair amount of laughs (Exhibit A: the text exchange between Chrys and Ellie).
Donnie Darko also checks out, not simply because of Whistle’s focus on teenage characters, but also their social position. Focusing on characters on the bottom of the popularity hierarchy is well-trodden ground for horror films with teen protagonists, but, like Donnie Darko, this makes sense given Chrys and Rel’s role as “unusual outsiders” at Pellington High (she has a damaged reputation; he’s a “loser” with a fixation on a The Crow-like comic).
Cursed Objects
The Ring
Curses and cursed objects that result in characters’ deaths are a dime a dozen in contemporary horror films. That’s because there’s a lot of storytelling potential when individuals curse themselves – be it accidentally, out of curiosity, or sheer hubris. Curses make for a compelling horror premise!
There are countless J-horror comparisons that immediately come to mind; the most obvious title is The Ring (2002) or the original Japanese film, Ringu. Whistle doesn’t feature the same mythology (there’s no phone call/seven-day equivalent), but there is a certain amount of lore and investigating required into the origins of the cursed object. The inevitability of death, too, bears a resemblance to another J-horror title: the cursed home from Ju-On or The Grudge (2004).
Of course, there are plenty of other “oh, I shouldn’t have touched that” films in recent memory. A few notable entries include 2024’s Tarot, wherein characters are killed by the titular card they pull from a haunted deck. Then there are less popular titles like Countdown, the 2019 film, where characters literally engage with an app that tells them when they’ll die. It’s not great, but it has a certain silly charm, unlike Tarot, which hides its great monster make-up with terrible lighting.
Elizabeth Lail in Countdown
Apps and cards are less tactile than the whistle, though, so perhaps a better option is Wish Upon, the 2017 Joey King/Ryan Philippe title about a cursed Chinese music box. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve checked this one out, but something tells me it doesn’t handle the object’s cultural angle in a nuanced way.
Wish Upon isn’t good (the characters’ decision-making is dubious at best and frustrating at worst), and most of its humour is undoubtedly intentional. If you’re hungry for a comedic-leaning option, there’s no better choice than Oz Perkins’ The Monkey (2025). At the very least, Perkins doesn’t skimp on the over-the-top gore, confirming that no one can do comedic gross-outs quite like him.
Final Destination Films
Devon Sawa in Final Destination
Naturally, the other obvious recommendation for a post-Whistle screening is any entry in the six-film franchise Final Destination. The Devon Sawa-fronted first film debuted the concept of an omniscient Death that seeks out tragedy survivors, a premise that Whistle is clearly indebted to. Unlike the original 2000 film, though, Whistle doesn’t adhere to a specific order as it kills off characters (although it appears that the individual who blows the whistle is the first to go).
Whistle borrows heavily from plot points in two other Final Destination films. In Final Destination 2, Kimberly (AJ Cook) learns that Death will “skip” individuals if they temporarily die (see also: Fear Street Part One: 1994), which is what Chrys and Ellie attempt to do in the climax of the film when Chrys willingly submerges herself in freezing cold water.
Then there’s the info that Mason’s grandmother, Ivy (Michelle Fairley), offers the girlfriends on the second visit: swap someone else’s life for your own. This resembles the “new life” clause that drives most of FD2, but most closely mirrors Final Destination 5’s storyline, wherein a character can kill someone as an offering to Death. In that fifth Final Destination film, it’s Peter Friedkin (Tom Cruise lookalike Miles Fischer) who tries, unsuccessfully, to use this ploy to save himself. By comparison, Whistle‘s death swap winds up saving the day, though the death in question is far less deliberate.
Final Destination 5
That’s a preliminary list of other titles, but there are plenty of others. What are your recommendations for other texts like Whistle (good, bad, or guilty pleasure)?