HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT THIRTEEN: The Piper (a.k.a. The Guest, Somnim,2015)

So after that deluge of mediocre to terrible in the last few nights of Ratapalooza, I needed to get a refresher of sorts...you know, something that didn't fill me with ennui.  Given my love of Asian cinema and television, I turned to the 2015 Korean film The Piper...and man, that was the ticket.

First off, The Ratapalooza Checklist!

1) IS CANADA SUBBING FOR AMERICA?  No.  This film is set in a small village in Korea after The Korean War.

2) DOES SOMEONE OFFSCREEN THROWS A RAT AT SOMEONE TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT'S ATTACKING HIM?  If it happened, I did not see it.

3) ARE THERE CUTE RAT PUPPETS?  No.  The rats are portrayed by a combination of live rats and CGI of varying effectiveness.

4) IS THERE A SPEECH ABOUT HOW BAD-ASS RATS ARE? No.

5) IS A CAT VICTIMIZED BY RATS? Yes, although mercifully we're only shown the aftermath and not the actual attack.

6) IS THERE AN EXTERMINATOR CHARACTER, AND IS HE COMIC RELIEF?  Technically, the titular Piper is the exterminator character...and trust me, even though he wears a clown nose at times, you won't be thinking of him as comic relief.

7) DOES THE RESEARCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RAT CATASTROPHE MENTION CANCER? No.  This film is a classic 'Karma Revenge' situation, so there's no scientific mischief involved.

Woo-Ryong (Ryu Seung-Ryong) is a piper who is traveling with his sick son to Seoul.  They come across a relatively untouched village that has been plagued by rats after the death of a colony of lepers and their shaman.  Woo-Ryung, who has an uncanny ability to lead animals with his piping, offers to clear out the rats and succeeds while also entering into a romance with Mi Sook (Chun Woo-hee), who has been proclaimed the new shaman by the Village Chief (Lee Song-min).  However, in an effort to keep a terrible secret...well, secret, the Chief frames the piper as a communist spy and leads the village in mutilating and beating him.  The developments before and during this act, including a suicide, a poisoning and the death of his child, push Woo-Ryung to enact a horrible revenge in the name of scores being settled.

The reviews I've seen of this film always call it a 'fantasy horror,' but I really don't see the fantasy part.  Yes, the piper claims to be able to charm animals with his music--but we also learn that Woo-Ryong is a bit of a con man and does his work through his knowledge of pharmacology more than anything else.  I'm sort of glad they only touched upon his dishonesty lightly, though, because a heavier emphasis might have blurred the 'more sinned against' line the story walks.  You never question who's in the wrong here, even if we didn't learn of the secret this village holds, which reminded me a bit of The Fog.

I really liked how the cinematography by Hong Jae-sik keys into Woo-Ryong's emotional state.  In the first half the shots are gorgeous, colorful and bright...but as the village conspires against him, the color palette gets duller and darker until it's a grim, hazy, dark tableau when it comes time for Woo-Ryong to get his revenge.  And the film is refreshingly free of jump scares, choosing to save its entropic imagery for moments of atmosphere or--in one striking case, when Woo-Ryong accepts his son's death, a little bit of poetic magic realism.  Unlike other films which try to use such moments we've seen previously in this year's Horrorfest, those moments are earned.

You know what else is earned?  The run time, which is almost two hours.  Writer/director Kim Gwang-tae skillfully paces this so that I was able to watch it in one sitting without getting antsy and checking the clock.  While I certainly believe films, especially horror films, should be shorter and punchier, I am very pleased when a movie like this doesn't fill its long running time with filler.

The Piper was an overall satisfying entry.  Yes, it's subtitled (and to be fair, not subtitled very well--it could have benefited from the color of the text being changed to yellow so it wouldn't blend into some of the characters' clothing), and yes, it foreign...but if you're not willing to venture outside your box, you're missing out.  I highly recommend it!

Tomorrow, The Ratapalooza Randomizer brings me down to earth with yet another film from the dark days of the career of Tibor Takacs.  I thought The Gate was okay, I loved I, Madman...but will I like2003's Killer Rats, or will it disappoint me like Mansquito did last year?  Only one way to find out...

There are presently seven open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.