Quick synopsis: Terror strikes when a group of misfit high-school students discovers an ancient death whistle.

Thoughts going in: Saw this the same day I watched Cold Storage, and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. I knew this would be the one I enjoyed least.

It may not seem like it, but I do genuinely love horror movies. I’m getting that out of the way now, because I did not like this. It had too many moments which annoyed me. The most obvious one was the use of music. Horror movies have a long history of music use, probably more than any other genre as a whole. But it has to be done a certain way. During the early 2000’s, it was standard for horror soundtracks to consist of nu metal tracks, whether it suited it or not. This resulted in a weirdly high number of deaths set to the songs of Ill Nino or Spineshank, which tonally didn’t work as there was no atmosphere. This does something similar; there are at least two deaths which are accompanied by what sounds like the start of a metal/hip hop song. This makes it seem like the deaths are supposed to be “cool”. The songs don’t even lead anywhere, so it’s not as though they build into the next scene where we find characters listening to the song. It also felt weird to have a character who was portrayed as a dark, brooding gothic teen, and have her accompanied by an Olivia Rodrigo track. That’s not a slight against the big O, I love her stuff, but it doesn’t suit the character as much as the movie thinks it does.

It’s a shame that one of the deaths is so badly soundtracked, as that death is otherwise pretty good. The deaths are unique here, with the characters being killed by what would have killed them later. Kind of. Some, the ones which are disease/age-based have the disease rapidly develop, so it is that which still kills them. Then there are some where it just injures the body in the same way; so a car crash victim is thrown into the air by an invisible force. The disease death happens almost instantly, whereas the accident deaths seem to happen in real-time. So there’s a kind of inconsistency which harms the internal logic.

Speaking of logic: a scene in a hospital establishes that a teenager who died was identified by the coroner as being in his late 40s. So the coroner was handed a body of someone who died in mysterious and unexplained circumstances (he burst into flames in the shower), you’ve been told that the deceased was a 17-year-old athlete, yet in your analysis, you discover that the body in front of you actually belongs to a man in his late 40s. Would that not be a big deal? Would that not get reported? At the very least, there’d be a conspiracy theory about it. Yes, you could make the argument that the town covered it up. But if that’s the case, the coroner wouldn’t note the age in his report; he’d list the body as 17. Also, the staff at the school haven’t taken a vow of silence about it, because the teacher has zero idea either, being equally confused at the death whistle.

The way the town reacts is weird: it doesn’t. A star basketball player dies mysteriously, and the school barely acknowledges it. They don’t even clean out his locker. You could say “but the whistle magically transported itself back into his locker”. 1) That’s lazy writing. 2) Why did it wait six months? Why not transport to another locker straight away? 3) Unless it also packed lunch and schoolwork, that’s demonstrably false.

I looked at the user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and saw some which called it “agenda-driven propaganda”. Which made me think I watched the wrong movie. Then I remembered the main character is a gay woman who ends up in a relationship with another girl. It’s weird to hate this film for that, considering there are many other reasons to hate it. Plus, that relationship provided some of the best parts. Dafne Keen and Sophie Nelisse have a naturally sapphic chemistry when they share the screen. It’s badly written, though. They fall in love far too quickly, and it means Chrys seem kind of callous when she appears to be unbothered by the death of her cousin, but completely crushed by the harm potentially coming to a girl she’s known for roughly two days. You can’t deny their chemistry, though, and I’d love to see the two of them work together again in a standard romantic drama/comedy.

Anything else positive? It constantly flirts with good concepts, but then turns away from them. Characters hitting future versions of themselves, which causes physical harm to their current self? Smart. Those same people continuing to fire a gun at future versions of themselves, even after they’re aware of what’s happening? Less smart. Death skipping you if you die, then come back to life? Smart, albeit a rehash of Final Destination. Being able to “pass death” onto someone else if they touch your blood? Also smart (but the way it’s done in this is done in a way that absolves them of responsibility, because you can’t have morally complex characters). Using BOTH of these at the end? Feels like overkill.

In summary, some good ideas, but the script is nowhere near good enough to make the most of those ideas. Also, can we call for an end to horror movies doing the “creepy character crawling unnaturally” thing? It’s overused to the point of annoyance. The image at the top of the screen may make it seem like an 80’s throwback, but this is very much a film of the 2020’s, for better or worse.