Whispers (2025) by Miroslav Petkov

Director: Miroslav Petkov

Year: 2025

Country: Bulgaria

Alternate Titles: The Whisper 3

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

Desperate to find his missing sister, a man contacts a series of shady characters to begin a search of the local woods where she and many others in the community have mysteriously vanished, forcing them to come across the same bizarre fate as the others that have gone missing.

Review:

Overall, this was a fairly likable indie effort. Most of this is based on the generally solid and creepy idea of the missing individuals taking place in the same section of forest and the strange history that goes on at the location. The background information on this one involving a series of strange incidents where various people visit a section of the woods where they film themselves supposedly encountering something in the area, but are killed off before we can see the culprit, causing everything to be handled well enough to give this a rather solid hook. With his missing sister unable to record her confrontation like the others but him still very much aware of what happened to her, it sets off a frantic quest to find her with the mission to recruit enough allies in the area to mount an expedition to find her proving to keep this one going along in the first half, building up the different characters while also spelling out part of the story involving the section of the woods.

This is accomplished rather well, as it goes into a series of investigations involving the fate of other missing figures in the woods. Played out over recovered recordings as they learn more about the woods, the constant sight of the characters on the tape wandering through the woods in a vlog attempting to discredit the rumors of the area, meeting up with someone or something off-camera, and attempting to escape only to be met with a violent fate afterward without ever getting a look at what’s causing it, keeps the mystery angle really intriguing as it goes along. A flashback dream sequence to help spell out what’s going on offers even more fun with the inclusion of demonic spirit possession of others to keep the curse going, and with everything going towards a creepy finale that ties together multiple threads involving the spirit world’s connection to the location and why they’re so heavily tied to the area, it all comes together rather nicely. A low-key finale and obvious low-budget limitations may be some detrimental factors with this one, but for the most part, this one comes off incredibly well, with a lot to like about it.

Overview: ****/5

A really fun low-budget genre effort, there’s quite a lot of likable factors here that are brought down only slightly by a few minor detrimental factors that appear. Those with an interest in this type of indie effort or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while only those turned off by these factors should heed caution.