‘The Whisper Man’ Review: Child Abduction Mystery Rebukes Netflix Association

James Ashcroft’s latest directorial outing is one of the best child abduction thrillers of the last 20 years, surpassing other great films such as Weapons with sharp and intellectual dialogue, creating one of the best mystery thrillers ever.

In the past few years, Netflix’s name has become worrisome to many regarding how they create obvious scripts to account for background viewing. Programs such as Stranger Things and Cobra Kai were pretty infamous among online circles for this type of thing, so it always was a dwelling thought in the back of my mind when I was sitting through The Whisper Man and I am extremely delighted to say it blew away my expectations, immersing me in a scarily real environment where the horrors are what lurks out of sight in the shadows and who is watching you at night as opposed to poorly crafted jumpscares and cheap imitations of 80s slashers.

The movie follows Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott), an author who moves to his wife’s hometown following her passing to raise his son Jake (Acston Luca Porto). When kids, including Jake, begin to go missing, mimicking a 30 year old case that his father Pete (Robert de Niro) investigated, the hunt is on to find The Whisper Man. Also included in the A-list cast are Michelle Monaghan as dedicated detective Beck, Michael Keaton as the original Whisper Man in prison from his ’90s murder spree, Hamish Linklater as a collector, and Owen Teague as the mysterious George.

When his 8-year-old son is abducted, a widowed crime writer looks to his estranged father, a retired former police detective, for help, only to discover a connection with the decades-old case of a convicted serial killer known as “The Whisper Man.”

Like one of its predecessors, Denis Villeneuve’s atmospheric masterpiece Prisoners, The Whisper Man deals with familial relationships, one here that can be boiled down to sins of the father. First, between Adam Scott and De Niro’s characters (who are both expectedly great here), and then between another set of characters who I will not name to avoid spoiling. I think for its pretty brief runtime it handles it incredibly well, and even though Scott is sidelined by the time the third act rolls around he still plays a sizeable role at the conclusion. Beyond the Prisoners comparison, The Whisper Man also takes elements from The Black Phone, specifically Scott Derrickson’s 2022 adaptation. Despite being unnecessary for both thematic and plot reasons, it does add a little more flair to the film.

With films such as these, I do believe atmosphere is the most integral part of the experience. Whilst writing is important for this, direction, sound design and cinematography plays more assertiveness over the feel of the film. I found a lot of the horror to come from the lighting here, where the killer’s face is shrouded in shadows with perspective lens keeping the killer in the periphery rather than at the forefront or even in the centre. It makes the killer eerily distant but still close enough to remain a threat. A lot of the film takes place on rainy or overcast days and I think that matches the mood perfectly for the movie, feeling like the cinematic equivalent of a shiver. Peter Deming served as cinematographer, who is probably best known for Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, and here his cinematography is very dynamic, able to make big spaces feel claustrophobic yet mysterious at the same time whilst Thomas Varga’s sound design makes your heart jump out of your chest every three minutes (complimentary).

The Whisper Man is an example of a great story that was allowed to be developed in a great way. Director James Ashcroft has created what will surely be remembered as not only one of the best streaming horrors this decade but of all time. Propelled by its A-list cast, but not overly reliant on it, it’ll make your skin crawl. The film excels in its craft, allowing the movie to speak for itself and not only does it speak, but it whispers. It makes you wonder what lurks behind that door, or within those shadows, or behind that curtain.

The Whisper Man is directed by James Ashcroft, and stars Adam Scott, Acston Luca Porto, Robert de Niro, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Keaton, Owen Teague and Hamish Linklater. The film is now streaming on Netflix.

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