‘Whistle’ Blends Supernatural Horror With a Sapphic Love Story

Featured Image: Sophie Nélisse and Daphne Keene in ‘Whistle’. Photo courtesy of Shudder

Okay scream queens, horror girls, and sapphics who like their yearning served with a side of impending doom—Whistle is very much for you.

Arriving in theaters on Friday, February 6, the new supernatural horror film blends old-school teen terror with something the genre has historically struggled to deliver: a properly developed lesbian love story that’s an important subplot. On its surface, Whistle embraces the best traditions of early 2000s horror—hot teens making terrible choices, cursed objects with a body count, and death lurking like it’s got a personal vendetta. But beneath the blood and bone is a soft, aching queer romance that raised the stakes far beyond who survives the final act.

The film follows Chrys, played by Daphne Keene (His Dark Materials, Logan), a guarded teen with a traumatic past who moves in with her cousin, hoping for a fresh start. New town, new school, but unfortunately, familiar havoc: bullies, mean girls, and an unsettling sense that something ancient and evil is waiting in the wings. That something turns out to be a death whistle, a hexed object that seals your fate once blown by two people. It’s ominous, deeply unfair, and very much not extracurricular-club approved.

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Enter Ellie, played by Sophie Nélisse (Yellowjackets, Heated Rivalry), a kind-hearted, open-minded classmate who immediately becomes Chrys’s emotional anchor—and, let’s be real, the crush of every baby sapphic watching. Where Chrys is closed off and sharp-edged, Ellie is warmth and sincerity incarnate. Their connection is instant and magnetic, the kind of pull that feels both exhilarating and terrifying when you’re young, queer, and still figuring out how to name what you want.

As Nélisse explained to PRIDE, “They’re complete polar opposites, but there are two magnets that are so drawn into each other…They bring out the best in each other, but also they bring out a strength that I don’t think they would have been able to ever find on their own.” That strength, unfortunately, becomes essential once death starts quite literally hunting them down.

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What makes Whistle stand out isn’t just its mythology, but the way it treats love as something worth fighting and dying for. The relationship between Chrys and Ellie isn’t a throwaway subplot or queer window dressing; it’s the emotional core of the film. Their bond becomes a form of survival, a rare tenderness in a story otherwise filled with dread and gore.

Director Corin Hardy, who co-wrote the film with Owen Egerton, was intentional about grounding the horror in emotional reality. “It was just a big part of what appealed to me in telling the story of Whistle,” Hardy told PRIDE. “As well as the great mythology and this concept of your future death coming to hunt you down…I want the heart, and I want to have characters you care for.” That care is evident in every quiet glance, awkward smile, and moment of vulnerability the film allows Chrys and Ellie to share.

There’s a truth and ache to their romance that almost makes you wish you were watching a different kind of movie—one where the biggest threat is teenage embarrassment instead of supernatural annihilation. For queer viewers especially, their story captures the hope and fear of first love, where being seen can feel just as dangerous as being rejected.

Still, Whistle never forgets that it is, first and foremost, a horror movie. The kills are gruesome, and the tension is relentless. By pairing genuine sapphic tenderness with supernatural terror, Whistle delivers something rare: a horror film that’s scarier because you care. Between Keene and Nélisse’s gentle, believable chemistry and Hardy’s commitment to emotional stakes, the film feels destined to become a cult favorite for queer horror fans.

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Blood? Yes. Trauma? Absolutely. Lesbians trying to survive both high school and death itself? Finally.

We’re listening—and we’re screaming.

Catch Whistle in theaters starting February 6th.