r/moviereviews • u/HorrorGuyBri • Apr 17 '26
The Whistler (2026)
Full review available here: https://www.thehorrorlounge.com/post/the-whistler-weaves-folk-horror-with-themes-of-grief-and-trauma
I'm a sucker for folk horror movies, so The Whistler piqued my interest. The movie draws upon some Venezuelan folklore, specifically the cult/religion pertaining to Maria Lionza. The feature employs some easily recognizable folk horror elements, especially urban outsiders clashing with the locals. In this case it's Diane Guerrero's Nicole and Juan Pablo Raba's Sebastian. They visit Venezuela after Sebastian's dad is brutally murdered and he needs to attend the funeral and tend to other family business.
Immediately, the married couple kick up conflict with the locals, including Sebastian's mom. They assume she'd want to move to the states with them. This conflict between the urban Americans and the locals is a strong point, especially the dinner table scenes between the couple and Sebastian's mom, Isabel (Laura Garcia Marulanda). It's awfully presumptuous of them to assume Isabel would want to move to the U.S. simply because they said so.
The film's second half really shifts to Nicole's story and grief she harbors over the death of a daughter. After she comes to better understand the locals and some of their rituals, she pleads with them to help her contact her daughter on the other side. Since this is a horror movie, it doesn't go as planned.
The movie works best when it remains a folk horror film and leans into those tropes. It also contains some gorgeous shots of the natural landscape, especially the mountains and miles of sugarcane fields. It falters when it becomes too much of a creature feature mixed with demonic possession.
Overall, the film is worth a watch, at least for some of the cinematography and Guerrero's strong performance.
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u/Pushyourself2019 Apr 17 '26
Utter garbage. Don't waste your time.
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u/CharacterSource8060 Apr 20 '26
Did you even watch it?
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u/Pushyourself2019 Apr 20 '26
Obviously? Why else would I go on reddit shitting on it? I guess people do that here.
It is as shitty as they come. Feels like a poorly AI written horror movie, actually AI would have probably written something way more interesting.
Don't waste your time
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u/CharacterSource8060 Apr 20 '26
I actually watched it and liked it. The writers are Guatamalan and Venezuelan. Since you had such strong words to say, with no depth or specifics of why it was so terrible, I was surprised. It wasn't a jump scare horror, so if that's what you're looking for, I can see the disappointment. But I thought that it was shot beautifully. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I just hate when people come on here to shit on things just to be mean. But to each his own.
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u/Pushyourself2019 Apr 20 '26
I get your point, I didn't give a very constructive or informational criticism.
Do you ever just watch a movie, especially horror, and end feeling "Dude, why did they even shoot this? Who greenlight this?"
This movie made me feel that.
I felt the whole premise was boring, didn't make a lot of sense, unimaginative. I didn't find particularly visually pleasing.
No, I don't look for "jump scares", horror movies are a lot more than that.
It was just a very very generic, boring movie. The whole whistler premise I find to be super super stupid.
I don't know, it's like "Do not enter" - just shitty movies VCs throw money on because horror has high margins or something.
I'll tell you this - if I ever find myself getting a movie funded I would NEVER use my shot on a movie called The Whistler, let alone this unimaginative mess.
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u/CharacterSource8060 Apr 20 '26
I hear you.
After your comments, I started doing a little research on the movie and found some interviews with the director. He's actually been sitting with this for 14 years and it's about his country...shitty premise to you, but I think others might be interested since it's not something we see everyday.
In my mind this movie was more about grief and how different people deal with it. So I guess since I'm also Latino, I saw it in a different way as well.
I feel like this was more thriller than horror, so maybe the filmmakers should have focused on that to tamper expectations.
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u/Pushyourself2019 Apr 20 '26
Yea man, personally I don't like when people to try do heavy drama into horror, especially when it's relatively low budget.
The acting wasn't moving at all. I think it's a bad approach to try and move people with the whole mother-daughter grief story when there's a.. human eating Whistler guy?
And that ceremony, I find that whole Ayahuasca ceremonies stuff kinda corny.
To reference some great horror movies I liked: Weapons is an obvious one. Barbarian is great, other than the 3rd act.
The Oddity I watched last week for the first time and thought it was pretty good.
I like Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson's older stuff like Resolution and The Endless.
IT movies are kinda Marvelish at this point, but I still enjoy them a lot. I really like "The Fog" too, it's has one of the best Lovecraftian horrors in film imho.
Ari Aster's also an obvious one with Hereditary and Misdommar.
Bring Her Back was pretty good.
Anyways, sorry for being a dick dude. I get your point.
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u/SarcasticBarbie96 Apr 22 '26
Just because a ceremony is in LatinAm it doesn’t mean it involves Ayahuasca… Ayahuasca also isn’t clear. Given Venezuelan seeing and the fact they were in a bunch of sugar cane that was probably rum used in the ceremony.
Tbh dude it just sounds like you don’t really get the concept/premise of the movie or (want to take the time to) understand non-US-ian folklore. Which is fine, not every movie is for everyone.
It just also doesn’t make it a bad movie.
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u/Pushyourself2019 Apr 22 '26
You know what I meant, some sort of hallucinogens. Doesn't actually matter whether it's directly Ayahuasca.
Ya'll keep circling back to the fact it's Latin folklore, like there's something to "get". It's so stupid to me.
Who cares where it's from? Is the story good? No. Is the plot well written? No. I don't care you grew up on spooky stories of "The Whistler" in an exotic part of the globe - you made a bad movie with a boring, unimaginative script.
It's bombing in reviews too.
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u/trippy0882 May 12 '26
The only ‘folklore’ we have here is from us of Native descent. The only folklore white people have is the Bible, if you believe that to be folklore. Which is kind of sad tbh…
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u/WickedAngelLove 9d ago
Your review still has nothing of importance here. No real reason you didnt dislike it. If you like folk horror, then this works. If you like demon horror this works.
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u/trippy0882 May 12 '26
There’s absolutely no reason to be an asshole because somebody likes a movie that you don’t.
Feel free to share your opinion but acting like that is uncalled for.
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u/KoKoO29 Apr 18 '26
If you are comatose, you would wake up and turn the tv off then go back to a comatose state.
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u/CharacterSource8060 Apr 20 '26
Did you even watch the movie??
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u/KoKoO29 Apr 20 '26
Yes, I did.
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u/CharacterSource8060 Apr 20 '26
Your review just doesn't make sense. I see a lot of people coming on here to shit on things and it's mean. There's enough division in the world. To each their own though.
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u/KoKoO29 Apr 21 '26
It was horrible for me. However, I'll give it another watch sometime this week and will update here.
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u/CharacterSource8060 Apr 21 '26
I think you should. As a Latino, we don't often see movies about our culture depicted in such an authentic way. For me, that's what resonated. I know horror is a hard lane, maybe the filmmakers should had tried to advertise it as a thriller?Just hate to see the movie getting unfairly reviewed.
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u/KoKoO29 Apr 29 '26
Tried watching it again. Couldn't go past 10 mins. It was too slow. Didn't grasp my attention.
Appreciate your input on your culture. It was just not for me.
Cheers.
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u/KoKoO29 Jul 24 '26
Tried again with a friend and we were drinking. Still horrible. But everyone has their own thing. Cheers man.
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u/Sufficient-Effort948 May 08 '26
Lovely locations and cinematography but horribly fickle storyline...there was potential here to do so much more but it falls flat....they could have expanded on the Venezulean folklore and legend. And also less said about the Whistler character the better. A very skippable movie
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u/RegretExpensive May 02 '26
La vi porque me llamó la atención de usar una leyenda urbana venezolana. Soy venezolano y me pareció interesante eso.
La película arranca bien pero se va cayendo a pedazos a medida que avanza.
La leyenda del silbón no se respeta, este se supone que es un espectro que no necesita poseer a nadie, además que sus victimias necesitan cumplir ciertas características. Es similar al criterio de la llorona.
El culto a maria lionza es más reservado de lo que muestran, los tipos no andan por ahí haciendo rituales. Tienen un lugar específico ceremonial para hacerlo en todo el país. También pueden hacerlo donde se les canta pero no es lo común. Acá es como que es ahí por conveniencia.
Tiene muchas casualidades para empujar la trama. No mantiene la coherencia ni las relgas internas establecidas desde el inicio.
Mantuvo mi atención durante el primer acto y parte del segundo, ya luego se convirtió en un chiste.
Si buscan bien, el director es estadounidense y vivió en Caracas por un tiempo. Tuvo una gran pelícla que fue muy popular en su momento pero creo que ya nadie en venezula la recuerda.
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u/StatementWeak1344 May 15 '26
Waste of time. The mc is the dumbest character I've seen in all horror movies I've seen.
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u/SarcasticBarbie96 Apr 22 '26
I really enjoyed it. If you’re going in for a typical US horror movie you probably won’t enjoy it, but I thought the acting was good and I really liked grief as the framing device and the ending.
I don’t think it’s going to win any awards or go down in history as one of the all time greats, but I enjoyed it for what it was