The Piper (2024) by Erlingur Thoroddsen

Director: Erlingur Thoroddsen

Year: 2024

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

Trying to advance her career, a young musician attempting to get in good with her composer boss finds an unfinished concerto from her late mother and sets out to finish it despite rumors of it being cursed, which only proves to be true the more she attempts to put the final parts together.

Review:

This was a fairly solid and rather likable genre effort. Among the better aspects of this one stems from the rather strong setup in play that brings about an intriguing overall storyline. The idea of her being willing to get a better seat in her company to advance her station by wanting to track down the unfinished score her mother was writing and using illicit means to retrieve what remains of it at her estate to then complete it in secret so the rest of the troupe can rehearse it for a special performance that her career needs. The resulting attempts to do this are soon undermined with a fine supernatural mystery involving the strange reasons she initially tried to stop it from being performed in the first place that spreads to the kids she’s tasked with looking after being moving on to her, giving this some intriguing elements as the clues start to take shape as to what’s going on and why the mother failed to finish it before killing herself in a fun starting setup.

That all leads to the immensely solid hauntings and supernatural occurrences that are featured throughout here. The initial scenes surrounding the death of her mother and what happened to her, the surprisingly volatile reactions to the announcement of completing it, and the sudden influx of supernatural noises and discordant whispers affecting not just her but those around her set this off on a strong note. As she races to finish the material and the accidents start happening to those in the orchestra or the children she looks after who hear the music she’s attempting to finish, the connection between the musical piece and the classical story of the Pied Piper makes for an intriguing and quite dark notion as the sanitized nature of the popular version of the story hiding the true origins of the tale makes a drastic turn into her being the crazed interloper spouting nonsensical warnings trying to prevent others from listening or playing it. All leads up incredibly well to the true fate of the piece as the resurrection of the mythical figure and ensuing rampage is incredibly fun and brutal leading to some rather fun elements present here in the race to stop it from continuing and all work at giving this a lot to like.

There aren’t too many issues here but the film does have some minor drawbacks. The main detriment is the staggered and somewhat sluggish pacing that leaves the first half here oddly far more impactful and chilling compared to the middle sections. Getting a rather strong start with the discovery of the piece as a means of carrying on her legacy and needing to finish it, there’s a slew of sequences showing the impact playing the piece actually has only to then go into an investigative mode in the middle section figuring out what’s going on even though there’s been a bunch of visions and hallucinations about it before then. It does slow the pacing to this one down somewhat with the way it plays out, especially with the whole thing never putting the final method of defeat on-screen at all either since it just appears out of nowhere so everything has little context despite the build-up. These are what managed to lower this one overall.

Overview: ****/5

Far better than it should’ve been with a lot to like about it, there’s not too many issues here as this one manages to offer up some rather enjoyable aspects over a few minor drawbacks. Those who are intrigued by this type of genre effort or appreciate the style attempted here will have the most to like with this one while only those turned off by these factors should heed caution.