The Piper – 2023

The Piper is somewhat based on the old tale about the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I think it was included in the Grimm Brothers’ collected writings. But is surely something that is a much older legend. In short, this Pipe used his flute to lure the rats out of the city but when the citizen refused to pay him, he used the same pipe to lure their children away. It’s a gruesome tale really. And The Piper is really a gruesome film. It has a few moments where it’s kind of scary. Of course, there are jump scares as well that are fairly effective but such things don’t go down in history. Neither will this movie, of course, but I did find it entertaining and good enough to be worth a rewatch sometime in the future.

It’s kinda atmospheric, but still not very gothic, and as you can guess from the plot, music has a central spot in The Piper. We have this flutist and composer who dies but leaves her last concerto unfinished. That won’t do of course. This last piece of her work is worth gold of course and the conductor of the jubilee performance of the recently deceased composer seems to stop at nothing to get the chance to perform it in its entirety.

Missing Final Act

But the last and final act is missing and it’s now up to our main character to complete the work, using her best guess of what the original composer had in mind. There is a curse of the work though and it’s not only soothing music. Strange and evil things start to happen. Visions immerses and noses start dripping blood. People go crazy and everything is pressed for time. Of course, it’s a carrier-driven benefit to get it ready so it can be performed.

The Piper falls a bit too short on the acting though. It’s not bad in any way but I don’t really get the feeling that it’s real from any of the actors either. in the part of the conductor, we see Julian Sands in one of his last roles. The film is also dedicated to him in the end credits, To our master, Julian. I’m sad to say that I wasn’t too impressed by him in The Piper though. I think he’s severely overacting most of the time. Which may be a blessing in disguise since I feel that many of the others are very underwhelming in their commitment to their parts.

But I liked it. It was a kind of story I haven’t seen in a while so it was kinda fresh for me. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before but those music parts are really nice and creepy.