Originally, this review for the Diego Velasco directed folk horror; The Whistler (no, not that The Whistler) was intended to go up roughly a week back. Some personal issues led to me being in a bit of a funk, but after an unexpectedly good Friday, I'm back in business, and finally got around to finishing this horror, the first horror I have seen that was filmed in Colombia to my recollection.
After the death of his father, USA based Sebastian (Juan Pablo Raba - Coyote) and his wife, Nicole (Diane Guerrero - Encanto, Orange Is the New Black), head to his family's farmstead back in his home country of Venezuela (while filmed in Colombia, that isn't the setting for the story). They are there both to attend the funeral of the deceased, but also have come to try and convince Sebastian's mother - Isabel (Laura Garcia Marulanda) to sell the family farm and move to America to be with them. Since he has been gone, life on the farm has became increasingly hard for the people who live and work there. First, a group of squatters who practice a strange religion (the real life cult that worships the Goddess Maria Lionza) have created a commune in their woodland, and then soon after there came rumours of an evil spirit known as 'The Whistler' roaming the farm's vast sugarcane fields, bringing death with it.
Mourning the somewhat recent death of their daughter, Nicole becomes increasingly interested in the squatters when she witnesses a ceremony that briefly allows a dead spirit to inhabit the body of a willing host. She hopes that they might perform this ritual so she can once again speak to her dead child. Even though she is warned this might catch the attention of 'The Whistler', Nicole becomes laser focussed on getting the ritual to happen, unaware of the danger this would cause.
Over a week ago I first tried to watch this, only managing twenty minutes before I switched it off. I just wasn't feeling it, it felt like (location aside) another of those generic supernatural horrors like The Bye Bye Man. Picking it back up, I was pleasantly surprised to find this was actually a solidly made folk horror. For those wanting high thrills and ghostly horror this might not be the best choice, with the scenes involving the antagonistic force being some of the weaker parts of the movie. It did however have some great lore, both in the origins of the whistling spirit, but also with how it came to be haunting the land around the farmstead. It never really felt like a cohesive threat, despite it existing by possessing the body of a human, this force was seemingly able to travel vast distances in the blink of an eye, likely for pacing reasons than it literally able to move that quickly. This being features in a whole bunch of death scenes, some more entertaining than others, but usually featuring a victim to be wandering around looking scared, before a barely glimpsed figure leaps out the darkness at them.
I did think that everything around these scenes worked much better. I loved the locations this was filmed at, and the squatter's commune in particular stood out, as did the labyrinthian sugarcane fields bringing a bit of a Children of the Corn feel. The ritual scenes were also a joy to watch, well shot, and very folky.
There was an almost Shakespearean quality to the story, with the film beginning with the squatters and farm-hands already in some type of Cold War type situation, that Sebastian and Nicole just happen to have stumbled into. Sebastian, seeing the actions of The Whistler as being perpetrated by the squatters, is determined to get rid of them by any means. Nicole on the other hand falls more into believing it to be an actual supernatural entity, and that the squatters have wisdom to their beliefs. The epilogue in the last five minutes or so of the movie were not particularly inspiring, leading to a finish that was the film at its most generic.
As a protagonist, Nicole was ok, a bit of a one note character, only seeming to care about her dead child, and not having much more to her personality. She could have been irritating, but, sure her decisions lead to the horror getting worse, but it was already an ongoing problem, and her selfish desires didn't cause most the events of the movie. I thought Isabel was a perfectly fine side character, more likeable than you may expect, and I thought Indhira Serrano as Petra (someone on the farm side of the conflict who also practices rituals) was useful in providing a lot of the explanation for what had been going on for the viewers benefit.
The Whistler was well made, and I enjoyed the rural setting and the more folk-horror feel it brought with it. The antagonist may not have been amazing, but everything around this character was interesting, I liked the back and forth between Sebastian and Nicole's very different plots going on. Occasionally derivative, slightly slow-burn, but always enjoyable to watch, this was better than it initially seemed it would be. The Whistler had its world premiere at Fantaspoa in Brazil on April 11th, and opened in select theatres on April 17th via Vertical.
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