Frightfest 2023: ‘Piper’ Review
Stars: Elizabeth Hurley, Mia Jenkins, Jack Stewart, Tara Fitzgerald, Robert Daws | Written by Anthony Waller, Duncan Kennedy | Directed by Anthony Waller
Teacher Liz and her daughter Amy have relocated to Hamelin, THAT famous small town in Germany, but as they settle into their new life things start to take a dark turn… a local girl dies in horrifying circumstances and there are sinister events abound. A dark secret from Liz’s past has awoken the Piper, an evil entity from beyond who seeks redemption by taking the children of any parent who has done wrong… and Mia is in grave danger. When Amy meets the kind and mysterious, Luca, could he be the key to saving her from the Piper’s clutches?
Piper, from Mute Witness and An American Werewolf in Paris director Anthony Waller, feels very much like a throwback, like something that has stepped out of the ’90s or early 2000s era, when genre films were ten-a-penny and made a fortune on DVD. And as a fan of that period in genre history that’s not a bad thing. I say that as, honestly, Piper doesn’t really rock the boat, it’s not something we haven’t seen before in a myriad of those “urban legend” inspired horrors – only this one takes its inspiration from the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin… and it does so with a sense of seriousness rather than the camp attitude of some other more-recent fairytale horror.
That’s not to say there isn’t an inherent campiness to Piper, there is. In particular in the relationship between Liz Hurley’s teacher Liz (not much imagination in naming her character there then) and her daughter Amy (Mia Jenkins) – especially after the matter witnesses the death of her schoolmate after she throws herself off the roof of a building on a class trip. Liz and Amy seemingly ignore the subject and have their regular routine evening meal without so much as acting shocked at the situation. That’s not the only odd thing about Piper, core to the strangeness is the fact we see Amy forge a relationship with “gypsy” Luka (Jack Stewart), a man who looks far too old for Amy, who’s still in school! That particular plot point is “explained” at the film’s close but I’ll be damned if that entire relationship doesn’t give Piper a weird tone throughout.
On the plus side, the titular Piper is – as the film closes – a wonderfully grotesque creation. A man born of rats who returns to them when vanquished. It’s a stunning visual that comes a little too late to add the truly ‘horrifying’ element that Piper needed to push it over the top – from cliched, throwback horror to insane fairytale fear flick! As it stands though, Piper is still a fun film, it’s just that it feels a little banal at times. Though for all its banality, the film is NEVER boring, the audience is thrown in at the deep end and the story never lets up; which means, thankfully, the 100+ minute runtime flies by!
*** 3/5
Piper screened as part of this year’s Frightfest London.
