Five Netflix movies to watch if you loved ‘The Whisper Man’
Netflix has snatched everyone’s Friday night sleep with The Whisper Man, and now it’s past midnight, and we’re still frantically checking our windows, lest a faint whisper or tap startle.
Although the reaction to follow, if it all turns out to be real, would be one for the mystery books, the best way to overcome the dread is to queue up more such Netflix movies that make the sleepless night worth staying awake.
The mystery thriller follows a widowed crime writer who relocates to the sleepy town of Featherbank with his son, oblivious to its haunting history involving a terrifying serial killer who preyed on young boys by whispering promises before abducting and murdering them. Although the killer was apprehended, when his son is also kidnapped following a fresh disappearance in the town, he’s forced to pair up with his estranged father, who put away the original killer.
While the adaptation features a desperate father, a chilling serial killer copycat mystery, and heavy family secrets, here are five more Netflix movies to watch if you loved The Whisper Man.
Five Netflix movies to binge after The Whisper Man:
In the Shadows of the Moon (Jim Mickle, 2019)
In the Shadows of the Moon is undoubtedly a fantastic fit for those looking for movies that bridge the gap between a gritty serial-killer investigation and a mind-bending mystery after The Whisper Man.
In Jim Mickle’s 2019 film, a gritty neo-noir detective story meets a high-concept sci-fi thriller, where Philadelphia police officer Thomas Lockhart grows increasingly obsessed with tracking down a ritualistic killer who resurfaces every nine years.
The carnage began in 1988 when rookie cop Lockhart started investigating the mysterious killer who left puncture wounds on victims. Although he managed to corner the suspect on a subway platform, she was struck dead by a train moments after she inexplicably revealed details about his life.
In the Shadows of the Moon follows Thomas nine years later, when another apparent copycat killing spree sends the public into panic as the original killer seemingly reappears looking the exact same age.
Lost Girls (Liz Garbus, 2020)
Based on Robert Kolker’s 2013 nonfiction book Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, the story is a chilling mystery drama, inspired by the true story of Mari Gilbert.
While The Whisper Man captures a grieving, desperate father’s determined journey to rescue his son, this 2020 film follows a mother whose daughter, Shannan, goes missing from a gated community on Long Island after making a tense 911 call.
Frustrated by slow local police response, her mother, Mari, launches her own relentless campaign for answers, just as the search for Shannan leads authorities to discover the remains of other missing young women linked to the Long Island serial killer.
Lost Girls captures the same agonising, boots-on-the-ground parental desperation to uncover the truth behind a disappearance, hampered by systemic indifference.
Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)
Although not a Netflix Original, Prisoners is currently available on the platform, and it only makes sense that we count on it during the post-The Whisper Man viewing marathon.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the twisted crime drama opens with the disappearance of two young girls: six-year-old Anna Dover and her friend Joy Birch, who go missing while walking back to Keller Dover’s house, resulting in the immediate arrest of Alex Jones, a youngster with developmental disabilities.
While he’s released due to lack of forensic and incriminating evidence, upon realising that law enforcement isn’t moving fast enough, the desperate father takes matters into his own hands, kidnapping Alex and brutally torturing him in an abandoned property.
Prisoners follows Keller’s unrelenting search for the truth, which culminates in a wild revelation that the most unimaginable threat is often close to home.
The Invisible Guardian (Fernando González Molina, 2017)
If you want your next pick to lean heavily into moody small-town secrets, deeply buried family wounds, serial-killer mysteries, and haunting atmospheres, The Invisible Guardian will most certainly hit a chord after The Whisper Man.
Based on Dolores Redondo’s eponymous novel, the Spanish thriller opens with the brutal crime scene where the naked body of a teenage girl is found on the riverbank that mirrors an earlier killing, convincing inspector Amaia Salazar that she’s hunting a serial killer.
The FBI-trained homicide investigator is forced to return to her rainy, myth-laden hometown of Elizondo in the Baztan valley of Navarre, Spain, to solve a case that’s stranger than fiction. But as local superstitions and rumours blame the crimes on the Basajaun, an ancient, fabled, giant forest-dwelling protector spirit from Basque mythology, Amaia must balance rational police work against panic and folklore of the community while navigating the ghosts of her own past.
The Pale Blue Eye (Scott Cooper, 2022)
The final stop of The Whisper Man’s post-watch party has to be The Pale Blue Eye, where a blueprint-style murder pattern meets gothic, historical mystery.
Although the film is a period piece set in 1830 rather than a modern police procedural, the core mystery revolves around a killer who meticulously mimics ritualistic, macabre heart-removal methods on victims, drawing the attention of veteran detective Augustus Landor and a young Edgar Allan Poe.
Set at the West Point Military Academy, The Pale Blue Eye follows the retired detective as he investigates the gruesome hanging and heart extraction of a young cadet, Leroy Fry. While the investigation initially points toward the occult-obsessed family of the academy physician, who seem to be practising an ancestral grimoire, Landor’s eccentric, poetry-loving cadet Poe actually knows better.