Nearly a year has 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. Now The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that the movie is set to have its world premiere at FrightFest this Sunday, August 27th – and ahead of the premiere, a trailer for Piper has arrived online! You can check it out in the embed above.
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.
Piper has secured UK distribution with 101 Films, but a release date has not yet been announced.
What did you think of the Piper trailer? Does this look like a movie you would like to check out? Let us know by leaving a comment below.