Film Pick of the Week: The Whisper Man - review by Yvette Huddleston
The Whisper Man Netflix, review by Yvette Huddleston
Based on a novel by bestselling Leeds crime writer Alex North (aka Steve Mosby), this dark psychological thriller opens as a team of police officers search in woods near the fictional town of Garretton for a child, Neil Spencer, who has been reported missing by his grandmother.
Leading the search is local police detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan). Then a body is found but it is one that has been there for some time and bears all the hallmarks of notorious serial killer Frank Carter, known as ‘the whisper man’, who murdered several boys during the 1990s. Before abducting his victims, he would whisper to them and then tape-recorded messages of him interviewing them which he would send to their grieving families. Beck reaches out to local respected retired cop Peter Willis (Robert De Niro) who arrested the killer thirty years previously. She asks for his help, specifically whether he would go and speak to Carter, but he is reluctant to get involved.
Meanwhile recently widowed crime writer Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott), who is also Willis’s estranged son, has just arrived in town with his young son Jake (Acston Luca Porto) to start a new life in his late wife’s hometown. Both are still grieving and Jake is finding it hard to be among people, becoming increasingly isolated and has an imaginary friend, a girl in a blue jumper, who Tom is gently trying to steer him away from. The rental house that they move into is a classic creepy, horror movie establishment – creaky floorboards, dark basement areas and leaking ceilings, all of which suggest that something unpleasant is in store.
One day Tom discovers a man loitering in the basement of the house and chases him out, then later he finds Jake talking to someone through the letterbox of the front door. Shortly afterwards, Jake is abducted in the middle of a stormy night. Then the body of Neil Chapman is found. In desperation, Tom calls his father and the two men, who haven’t been in contact for several years, begin to work together, alongside Beck and her team to try and find Jake before it's too late.
Be prepared for plenty of tension, some gruesome moments and a fair few jump scares as well as a truly chilling performance from Michael Keaton as Frank Carter whom Pete eventually agrees to visit in prison – the scene between the two veteran actors is electric.