The defence The Arthouse Gremlin
“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.
Back to trending 
The Piper
Horror · Mystery · Thriller · 2015
Shortly after the Korean war, a father and a son are wandering through the country and make a stop in a remote village, where strange and dangerous happenings occur.
Movie details
The Piper
“This is what death sounds like.”
2015 Horror · Mystery · Thriller 1h 47m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.4 / 10
2K votes
TMDB
7.2 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Shortly after the Korean war, a father and a son are wandering through the country and make a stop in a remote village, where strange and dangerous happenings occur.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Piper?
For the defence
The Arthouse Gremlin
“The stranger, the better.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Perfect Number
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Ghost Mansion
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A horror webtoon writer journeys to a shabby apartment building in search of ideas. The building's caretaker tells him about multiple strange events that happened throughout the building's history.
Following
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A realtor who loves sneaking into people's homes finds the dead body of a scamming social media influencer – can he find out who did it?
Guimoon: The Lightless Door
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In 1990, at a secluded community center, the custodian murders all the guest lodgers and kills himself. Ever since, on every Old Year's Night, paranormal events begin to take place within the building. Eventually, the center is shut down and left abandoned for years. A renowned paranormal investigator who had lost his mother during an exorcism and three college students who heard about the rumor of the unexplained phenomena heads over to the building, resolved to uncover the buried secret.
The Red Shoes
Horror · 2005
A woman who finds a pair of pink high heels on a subway platform soon realizes that jealousy, greed, and death follow them wherever they go.
The Cat
Horror · 2011
So-yeon suffers from claustrophobia and inherits a Persian cat when its owner dies. She begins having nightmares and people around her begin dying as she searches for the truth.
Confession
Crime · 2022
Min-ho's adulterous lover Se-hee is murdered in a hotel where only the two of them were present, and Min-ho is immediately singles out as the prime suspect. Insisting on his innocence, Min-ho hires the talented lawyer Shin-ae to defend him, and confesses to her that a car accident on the day before may be connected to Se-hee's murder.
Three
Horror · 2002
An anthology consisting of three horror shorts from different Asian directors: Memories by Kim Jee-woon, The Wheel by Nonzee Nimibutr, and Going Home by Peter Chan.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Horror · 1983
When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.
The Drowning Pool
Thriller · 1975
Harper is brought to Louisiana to investigate an attempted blackmail scheme. He soon finds out that it involves an old flame of his and her daughter. He eventually finds himself caught in a power struggle between the matriarch of the family and a greedy oil baron, who wants their property. Poor Harper! Things are not as straight-forward as they initially appeared.
Where it lives
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Kim Kwang-tae
Written by
Kim Kwang-tae
Ryu Seung-ryong
Woo-ryong
Lee Sung-min
Village chief
Chun Woo-hee
Mi-sook
Lee Joon
Nam-soo
Goo Seung-hyun
Young-nam
Lee Min-ji
Min-young
Kyul Hwi
Deok-soo
Court is in session
Put The Piper on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.