"My brother died a year and a half ago...he got me into Iron Maiden when I was eight years old." How a tragedy, heavy metal and a cult 90s classic inspired one of 2026's best horror movies, Whistle

Whistle movie still — (Image credit: Press/Blackbear)

You wait 40 years for Iron Maiden to make it to the big screen, and then three appearances happen all at once. First, The Trooper popped up in the (movie-length) finale of Stranger Things in January, then Number Of The Beast stole the show in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Now, Maiden are back for a third bite of the pie as Killers appears on the soundtrack to Corin Hardy's new horror movie Whistle.

Released this Friday (February 13), Whistle follows a group of high schoolers who discover an Aztec death whistle that, when blown, summons death for all who hear. So naturally, someone blows it and bloody, gloriously gory mayhem ensues - watch the trailer below.

WHISTLE | Official Trailer | In cinemas Feb 13 - YouTube

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Basically, think Nightmare On Elm Street crossed with Final Destination with a bit of It Follows and The Monkey chucked in for good measure. Sound good? It is!

Hammer caught up with director Corin Hardy to talk about the movie's killer, genre-blurring soundtrack and just how important music is to this film - including a mammoth hundred-plus song playlist the director made to help actors and crew get into the Whistle spirit - which you can listen to at the bottom of the page.

It seems appropriate for a movie about a cursed instrument to have a plot-relevant soundtrack…

Corin Hardy: “I always used to make compilation tapes when we did that, and now I make playlists. When I got to making Whistle, first thing I did was put together a few-hundred song playlist called DEATH LIVES that was basically bands that were part of the vision I was having. That involved music from the 70s, 80s and 90s in a mix of genres but a lot of rock, goth and metal, as well as a lot of electronic music and techno stuff.”

And what happened with that playlist?

“I sent it out to the cast and crew. Basically, I just said, ‘If you fancy listening to where my head was at…’ I think it just helps form this movie I was making. That was the start point and then I even started working things into the script with specific bands and songs I would hope to get into the film. I’ve actually made that playlist public, so you can listen to that as well as the digital soundtrack and we’ll also have a vinyl score release [coming this Friday] because that was made by Doomphonic.”

How important was the music to the story?

“I’m trying to make a movie that is timeless, but also a nod to classic horror movies of the 80s like Nightmare On Elm Street and The Lost Boys but also The Breakfast Club. If you think of those movies, you’ll also have music you’ll instantly think of – Don’t You Forget About Me in Breakfast Club, Cry Little Sister in Lost Boys… The movie is set now but I wanted to work certain types of music in.”

So what decided which songs would make the final cut?

“I was actually inspired by this post I’d seen on Twitter, when I was on that platform once upon a time. It was a woman who said her dad had died, but he’d left her his record collection. So each day she posted some album artwork and said she was getting to know him through that, which I thought was so brilliant and moving.

I really identified with that – my brother Robin [Guy, drummer for Rachel Stamp] died a year and a half ago and we had a very close bond. He drummed in various rock and punk bands and he got me into music – he got me into Iron Maiden when I was eight years old. So this idea of connecting with someone through music was really important.”

And that literally comes up in the film.

“Yeah! With Chris – the character Dafne Keen plays – her father has left her this jacket and record collection. So she’s introduced in the movie listening to this collection of albums, getting to know him through it. What we hear in the movie is rooted in her character. That was my starting point, but I was looking for opportunities in the script for sequences.

This was before we started shooting too, so like Joey by Concrete Blonde is playing on the record player in the script. It’s pretty dangerous to do that because you don’t know if you’re going to curse it and never actually get the track. I’d done music videos for The Prodigy and I wanted to get bands that would identify into this kind of movie.”

Is there a theme to the songs?

“There’s something in all of the bands’ lyrics that is relevant to Whistle or to death, like Omen by The Prodigy. It’s about a death whistle that when you blow it, it calls upon your future death to hunt you down. But there’s a commentary about death, life and mortality going on. I’d heard the band CHVRCHES – more of a sort of modern, electronic band who have a retro sound and they had a song called Final Girl. It just felt so made for a horror movie – like something you’d hear in Nightmare On Elm Street 4 in 1989 or something.”

How did you get bands to sign on?

“I reached out! I’ve known Gunship for a while through Dan Haigh, because back when I did music videos, I did some for Fightstar and also gave my voice to a song of [Gunship's] called Cthulhu. They’d done a cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time that felt heartbreaking, which helped tap into this character Rel [Sky Yang], who is an outsider, artistic weirdo type. He’s obsessed with this character called The Revenger, and is like me when I was 14. So I tied some bands in to different characters.

There’s a Tiger Army track, Dark And Lonely Night that worked really well and I wanted to use that because over the years I’ve been flagging different tracks and thinking, ‘I’d love to get this in a movie.’ Then finally, there’s a romantic scene where the lead character is alone in her bedroom, trying to contact this girl through a message and there’s a lot of longing, uncertainty and romance going on and that Tiger Army track is perfect – it sounds like Elvis as a gothic vampire.”

Whistle Movie Poster — (Image credit: Press/Blackbear)

Were there any songs that didn’t make the final cut?

“A few. There was a Suicidal Tendencies song I wanted to use, Type O Negative too. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, we can’t find a place for it. I wanted to try and get Rachel Stamp, my brother’s band, in and I’ve always loved this song of theirs called Witches Of Angelholm which has such a groove in the guitar riff and the lyrics, ‘Hey little girl…’ which worked perfectly for the Harvest scene.”

How did Maiden come into the picture?

“Iron Maiden were my first love, the first band I got into in the world of rock and heavy metal. I always was like, ‘I want to feature a Maiden track’ and had got to know them and their management, we’d done things together like carving pumpkins for the Eddie videogame. I contacted them and they’re very particular about who gets to use their music. This year they’ve got Number Of The Beast in [28 Years Later] The Bone Temple, The Trooper in Stranger Things and now Whistle has Killers.”

Have you seen those others?

“Oh yeah. They’ve got the best scene in The Bone Temple!”

Maiden have a good presence in the film even before they show up on the soundtrack…

“What Maiden stands for as a band was relevant to this strength that Chris as an individual has. I didn’t want it to just be, ‘She’s the goth weirdo and she listens to goth weirdo music.’ She’s got a number of tastes going on. But Maiden are actually quite symbolic for Chris through the film – she’s into that stuff and has this Live After Death vinyl early on in the movie, but then you’ve got characters like Ellie (Sophie Nélisse) who is very safe and set in her ways early on, but when those characters come together they become like Ying and Yang where they need to work together to fight this terrible death whistle curse. So when you see a Maiden t-shirt pop up [later in the movie], it’s a subtle hint things are changing.”

It’s wild that Maiden haven’t really featured in movies or TV for years and have now been in three big projects in as many months.

“Well yeah! I think they’re in Demons [1985 horror directed by Lamberto Bava], but it was a real honour [to get them for the soundtrack]. I actually got The Duellists in Gangs Of London too, which is also featured for a good reason.”

You mentioned The Revenger earlier – that’s something you created for this movie… it’s very The Crow, isn’t it? You were attached to that movie for a few years, would you still want to try making your vision?

“I did like three years of pre-production, nearly making The Crow. It was more of an opportunity [in this film] to say something about Rel. Originally in the script, Rel was obsessed with The Green Lantern, but when I read that it was like, ‘I’m not a massive Green Lantern fan’ so suddenly I don’t identify with the guy as much. Plus, we wouldn’t be able to clear The Green Lantern.

So without spoilers, with his arc it made more sense for him to take on characteristics of this character he’s obsessed with who’d be like The Punisher or The Crow. So we got to design a new superhero! I was amazed to clear the name ‘The Revenger’, which was pretty cool. I knew there’d be things like him sitting on the roof in the rain, so it’s a gravitation towards the kind of costumes and things I knew and did growing up.”

It feels like there’s a lot of brilliant easter eggs in the film.

“Absolutely. There’s one key sequence that stood out to me, which was a real challenge to do. It definitely took inspiration from Wes Craven’s Nightmare On Elm Street where Tina gets dragged up to the ceiling, or Johnny Depp gets sucked into the bed.

But there was also a bit of American Werewolf In London going in – the transformation scene where we see it happen right in front of your eyes. So we wanted to have a transformation sequence using different techniques like prosthetics, animatronics, puppetry, contortionists, wire work… all these visual effects to create an illusion that feels visceral and immersive.”

No spoilers, but my hand still feels weird after seeing it.

“That was actually done with a real, in-camera animatronic that they built!”

Is there a future for Whistle as a franchise?

“The mythology felt too simple and effective to not want to tell more stories within it. With something like this, while you’re making it – all the way through to the edit – you’re honing and exploring what it is. In some ways this is the first story of this death whistle, but with this mythology it could be in different time periods, settings and whatever. Given the opportunity, I’d be excited about doing more stories in this world."

WHISTLE is released in cinemas in UK and Ireland from February 13. The official WHISTLE SCORE by Doomphonic will also be released on digital platforms February 13. The Vinyl through MUTANT will be released soon.

Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn't fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token.

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