The Pied Piper(1986)

Submitted by Evan B

Pooper:
The Piper turns the gluttonous and greedy inhabitants of the town into rats and has them jump off a parapet to their deaths. A kindly fisherman is spared, and he adopts an infant who also was left alive.

Long Ending:
A small town located within the walls of a massive castle is dominated by commerce. Every townsperson values money and goods over everything. The jeweler uses his wealth and jewels to seduce women, and many tradespeople find sneaky ways to defraud their customers. The town is run by a council of gluttons who do nothing but count their riches and indulge in large quantities of food and wine every night.

The town is soon invaded by rats. The rats steal the food, wine and goods from the townspeople. At around the same time, a piper mysteriously appears and enters the town. He demonstrates to the council that his songs can hypnotize the rats, and then offers to get rid of the rats for them. The council agrees to pay him $1,000.00 if he exterminates the rats. The piper begins to play his recorder, and every rat emerges from its hiding space. The rats follow the piper to a high parapet where he induces them to jump off to their death below.

As the piper awaits payment, he witnesses the jeweler trying to force himself on a beautiful and innocent woman. The Piper chases off the jeweler and he and the woman become friends. Time passes and the Piper finally confronts the council about their lack of payment. The councilmembers just laugh at the Piper and only give him a button as payment. While the Piper is at the council, the jeweler and some of his henchmen break into the woman’s house and rape her. When the Piper returns, he finds the woman dead and her house destroyed.

The Piper goes up to the clocktower where he finds Death holding an hourglass. When the hourglass runs out of sand, the Piper begins to walk through the town and plays a tune. The villagers begin turning into rats and, once transformed, are hypnotized by the Piper’s music. He leads the now-rat townspeople to the parapet where they are also compelled to jump off to their deaths. The Piper then disappears and his cape blows off in the wind. A kindly fisherman is revealed to have been unharmed. As he walks through the empty town, he finds a baby. The fisherman takes the baby and they leave the abandoned town together.