‘The Whisper Man’ review: A Boogeyman story afraid of its monster

Adam Scott and Robert De Niro star in The Whisper Man, a Netflix thriller posing as a horror story without being particularly spooky.

In the 1980s, Freddy Krueger turned sleep itself into something terrifying, stalking his victims through their dreams with a razor glove and a nursery rhyme. In the 1990s, Pennywise made an entire generation of children suspicious of clowns (RIP Tim Curry). Now, Netflix is trying to add another figure to horror’s long carousel of boogeymen with The Whisper Man. Yet, despite a star-studded cast and intriguing source material, the film never quite lives up to its potential, delivering a polished but ultimately forgettable thriller about the nature of father and son relationships.

Based on Alex North’s bestselling novel, The Whisper Man takes us to Garretton, a small town still haunted by Frank Carter (Michael Keaton), a serial killer who abducted young boys in the 1990s after whispering outside their windows. His crimes even inspired a nursery rhyme that became part of the town’s folklore. Decades after Carter’s arrest, a new disappearance bearing his signature forces Detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan) to reopen old wounds. Meanwhile, recently widowed novelist Tom (Adam Scott) moves to town with his young son, only for the boy to begin reciting the same rhyme and insisting that someone or something is lurking around their new home. After the boy’s disappearance and Tom recruiting his retired detective father (Robert De Niro) for help, the two stories collide, blurring the line between childhood imagination, grief, and a very real threat.

A muted tale of a boogeyman.

The premise of The Whisper Man provides the perfect foundation for a memorable boogeyman story, particularly in the way it blends supernatural elements with the beats of a procedural crime thriller. Yet the film never fully takes advantage of that combination. Instead, it opts for a grounded approach that, at times, feels almost afraid of embracing its own genre. Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer’s screenplay approaches the material with the restraint of a police procedural. That’s not inherently a bad thing, but when the premise, imagery, and overall artistic direction evoke the great boogeymen of decades past, such restraint creates a disconnect between what the film promises and what it ultimately delivers.

Photo Credit: Netflix

It doesn’t help that audiences have spent years watching thrillers built around relentless suspense, deeply uncomfortable realism and violence or psychologically surreal experiences. The cultural success of films like Backrooms shows just how far contemporary thrillers can push those approaches. Against that backdrop, The Whisper Man’s muted treatment of its material doesn’t feel restrained so much as strangely anachronistic.

Moreover, even when evaluating the movie from the perspective of its own procedural crime approach, it also falls flat. While it aims to tell a story about intergenerational trauma and the relationship between father and sons, it fails to fully execute that premise. Characters are written flatly and are never given enough time to fully develop, only partially elevated by the performances of the star-studded cast.

Trapped by the scaffolding of horror.

Part of the problem is that the efforts to tell a more compelling story are constrained by the scaffolding of the boogeyman pot. There’s not enough room in the 114-minute runtime to develop the characters when a portion of it is devoted to suggestions of ghosts and imaginary friends surrounding Tom’s son. Rather than contribute to the story, they are left hanging between a meaningful manifestation of grief and actual supernatural entities.

Photo Credit: Netflix

None of this makes The Whisper Man a bad film. It’s competently made, well acted, and polished enough to remain engaging throughout its runtime. There are times, however, where the ideas of grief, father food and trauma hint at a much more effective movie, but that just doesn’t come together.

The bottom line.

Perhaps that is ultimately why the Whisper Man is not likely to join Freddy Krueger or Pennywise in horror’s pantheon of memorable boogeymen. Those characters endured because the films around them understood exactly what made them frightening. The Whisper Man has the rhyme, the mythology and the unsettling premise, but seems reluctant to show the horror, and that’s what ends up haunting it.

The Whisper Man is now streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer below.

Images courtesy of Netflix.

Pedro Luis Graterol

Based in Mexico, Pedro Graterol is the News editor for TV and Film of InBetweenDrafts. He is a Venezuelan political scientist, violist, and a nerd of all things pop culture. His legal signature includes Sonic The Hedgehog’s face.