The Piper takes the folklore story The Piper of Hamelin to build a horror film on it.
The first act of the film is also good, you can immediately notice the Argentinian influences, especially Suspiria, with the photography playing a lot with the reds, purples and blues which embellish the staging and serve to create atmosphere to give strength to the individual scenes.
So far Thorodssen's direction uses slow camera movements, very well for example when Mel, the young protagonist girl who also has a daughter, must look for the missing scores of her mentor in the latter's house where the camera movements to get closer towards Mel, the detail of the shattered mirror works and overall creates a constructed atmosphere.
The direction also works while listening to the "cursed" melody with flashes of the past among foggy landscapes, disturbing figures always with good photography behind them.
The problem is that the film subsequently becomes a horror "classic" from jump scares where the direction doesn't even have the mastery to prolong the suspense scenes, so the jump scares appear mechanical and telephonic; in addition, there are also CGI effects, the eyes of the poorly rendered creature which kill the staging which however, thanks to the photography, remains accurate and argentine, recreating individual shots and good scenes, which taken on their own would work but precisely in the global context they appear yes, some beautiful scenes but not always enhanced by the context.
Despite this, the film still has its ideas both from the visual side as written but also in its messages and sub-texts.
The film talks about chaos and harmony, the demonic piper of Hamelin, therefore chaos, in the film is evoked by two men, Gustaftson the master/director, for whom Mel also plays, and Franklin, in fact the "rival" of the protagonist, the one who competes to be "the star" of the event.

While instead it will be two girls, Mel and her daughter, who will bring harmony with single shots which are also well constructed above all the moment where mother and daughter stand playing the flute among the rain and the flashes.

Criticism towards chauvinism and patriarchy is very present as Gustaftson is only interested in the success of the concert, receiving money for the foundation and will put Mel in a corner, the latter presented in financial difficulties as she has to manage her daughter alone, so in order to achieve success she initially sets out to look for the missing score.

The relationship of preference that Gustaftson has towards Franklin is the embodiment of united machismo, which does not want to bring out the girl therefore the female gender.

However, it is not that type of film where the male characters are all negative, in fact Mel's professed friend helps the latter, too bad that as a character he is left too much to himself; its horror scene, that of the ear, is unfortunately "flat" without strength, which will be one of the major defects of the film and the direction.

As regards the film itself and its narration, Thorodssen, director, is unable to give strength to the scenarios present in the flashes, even when the Piper goes into his dimension there is no visual strength therefore the recreated scenario is not up to par.
Another negative aspect is that the Piper will start to behave almost like a the villain of a slasher will therefore use his hands to fight, effectively taking away his mystique and his disturbing presence dictated by the flute.

If the final fight overall is managed in a standard way and with little verve in the management of timing , there are notable individual shots such as the one already written of Mel and her daughter playing the flute but also of the Piper among the lights at Suspiria.
The awakening of the Piper also has a body horror moment worthy of mention, too bad for the excessively dark photography and the blue that hides the blood, however in mainstream horror it can be a plus point to have a scene like this.
However, in the central body of the film, the children attracted by the melody, how this is managed it's super cliché and standard in terms of time management and use of jump scares, the mouse sequence for example is poorly managed and instead the potentially disturbing one on the bus fails to have the right visual strength or even a gestation of the times to render all atmospheric.
It is certainly a better film than many mainstream horror films, better than the films of the conjuringverse, except those of Wan, but overall it is not a good horror film due to a lack of too many standard horror mechanisms in the direction , for a lack of visual strength expressed in certain moments and for not having been courageous when the film had the potential both thanks to the subject but also to the good photography and because good flashes are still there but they are not enough.