Two years have gone by since we learned that Elizabeth Hurley (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) had signed on to star in Piper, a new horror film from director Anthony Waller. More than a year has passed since the film had its world premiere at FrightFest… but now it’s ready for a wider release. Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has picked up Piper distribution rights and will be making it available to rent/own on all North American digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms, as well as on DVD, as of November 12th.
Back in 1995, director Waller made an impressive breakthrough with the thriller Mute Witness… then quickly squandered the good will he had earned with that movie by following it up with An American Werewolf in Paris. Waller has made a couple movies since the Paris debacle – the 2000 Bill Pullman thriller The Guilty, the 2009 sci-fi horror film 9 Miles Down – and here’s hoping that Piper will earn him some positive attention again.
Scripted by Waller from a story by Duncan Kennedy, this supernatural thriller is said to put Hurley against “an evil, child-stealing folklore legend” in “a darker and contemporary twist on the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, whose vindictive restless spirit seeks out those who have gotten away with a crime, and punishes them by taking away their children”. The film has the following synopsis: Émigré Liz (Hurley) moves to a quaint German town with her daughter Amy but ends up in the Piper’s crosshairs when it is revealed she’s hiding a dark secret from her past that puts Amy’s life in jeopardy. The girl\s only hope for salvation comes when she falls for a young and mysterious street magician, Luca. Can he save her from the Piper’s clutches?
Hurley is joined in the cast by Mia Jenkins (Hanna), Jack Stewart (Float), Ryan Webber (The Funhouse Massacre), Robert Daws (The Man Who Fell to Earth), Ieva Aleksandrova-Eklone (Out), Arben Bajraktaraj (Taken), Alma Rix (Dumar), Gundars Abolins (What Silent Gerda Knows), Jurijs Djakonovs (Crime Solving for Beginners), Elizabete Liepa (Christmas in the Jungle), Madlena Valdberga (In the Mirror), newcomers Evija Koltone and Dominik Gabriel Roseti, and Waller himself.
This is the second Pied Piper of Hamelin horror movie we’ve gotten this year, as a film called The Piper, starring Julian Sands, was released back in March.
Are you looking forward to watching the Elizabeth Hurley and Anthony Waller film Piper later this month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.