Whispers – 2025

Whispers is the third movie, if you count the two shorts from the previous years, that explores mysterious disappearances and strange markings on trees where people apparently get teleported to an abandoned building where strange things happen. Wow! That was a long sentence! I think you clearly benefit from having the previous two shorts in your consciousness. It might not be essential but I think it brings an extra dimension of understanding to the story.

Maybe I should do a short recap? In the first  minute of the film a tree with strange markings was found in the woods. The woman finding it also found a  mysterious  notebook that instructed her to RUN! She didn’t and disappeared without a trace. In the second one everything was a little more evolved. The production was a little bigger, the film was a little longer and the characters had actual lines. It was not totally clear if it was a sequel, prequel or if everything happened simultaneously.

In Whispers, the third installment and the first feature film it’s still not really clear on where on the timeline it really takes place. To begin with I thought it was pretty straight forward but some events didn’t really add up. I’m not saying that in a bad way, I think it adds to the mystery and I kind of think it’s a genius move to not tell us exactly what is going on, to keep the story from being too obvious.

And, let me tell you, there is nothing about this story that is obvious. Either I’m much dumber than I thought I were or the movie is deliberately written in such a way that we’re not supposed to figure it out. I really hope the latter is true. Not because it makes me smarter but because it makes the storytelling brilliant!

Things really start to get weird about half way through the film when the credits start to roll. I was like… WTF? But it had a logical explanation and I got it. It was a fantastic twist and from there on we get to experience the film from several different angles, from the perspective of all the people participating in driving the story forward. Again, it’s really messy and If you relax for just a second there’s something else confusing you. That’s something about these movies that I really like. 

That makes up for the dialog sounding a little unnatural at times or that some actors are better than others. The main thing is the mystery and when it’s over I’m not totally sure what I had just seen. It’s one of those movies you can think about for a long time and still don’t conclude a definite answer. Like a David Lynch movie almost. Strange and with a timeline that might make sense, but it doesn’t necessarily do.

Oh! And there’s a jumpscare in this that I was totally unprepared for. That is very rare these days, but I was clearly affected by it. It was a great feeling feeling that again. It was many years ago a film managed to surprise me in that way.

So… is this one another sequel or prequel, or what is it? I think it’s both. It seems like all of the films use time as something that is not linear but Whispers in particular. And to be honest, I’m not sure I want it to make conventional sense. I like the strange and unusual and Whispers is just that. Strange and unusually. Very strange…