Whistle cast went to escape room together in character to bond before shoot

The cast of the new horror Whistle went to an escape room together in character as a bonding exercise before filming.

The new horror follows a misfit group of unwitting high school students who find a cursed object, an ancient Aztec death whistle, and discover that blowing the artefact summons their future deaths to hunt them down.

Director Corin Hardy was "really conscious" about building the chemistry between the ensemble cast - Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Jhaleil Swaby and Ali Skovbye - and took them on a group bonding experience before the shoot began.

"I did a number of activities with them a week before, one was taking them to an escape room and asking them to perform as their characters, not with any script, but just let's do an escape room," Hardy shared in an interview with Cover Media. "That gave them a chance to play and I could see that it was all going to work."

In addition to the group outings, the young cast lived in the same building, watched films together, and travelled to and from the set in Canada each day to help solidify their chemistry.

Hardy noted that he also had a separate meeting with Logan star Keen and Yellowjackets actress Nélisse to discuss the romance between their characters Chrys and Ellie.

"In terms of a chemistry read, it was, 'Can you guys come and meet in my office a week before we shoot?'" The Nun director said. "I would have loved to have chemistry reads, but the time is so short... but I must say I could tell straight away that there was no problem; they got on like a house on fire straightaway."

Elsewhere in the interview, Hardy praised Keen, Nélisse and Skovbye for being able to switch off between takes rather than stay in a state of fear and panic, with the exception of one memorable death sequence.

"Dafne and Sophie and Ali, they were perfectly capable of jumping in and out and they would be like waffling and chatting and laughing right up until action, and they would go straight into it," he explained.

Speaking of one specific death scene, he added, "It was a very emotional day, particularly I think for Dafne, she had to stay in a certain state of intense emotion and that was one of the first times where she didn't sort of snap out of it and just stayed in it."

Whistle is released in cinemas in the U.K. and Ireland from Friday 13 February.