Looking a bit angry there?
As a Darker and Edgier retelling of the classic The Pied Piper of Hamelin tale, it's to be expected that the 1986 animated film would have a couple of scares to pop up.
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
- The overall tone and design of this film. The tone is pretty dark as the townspeople are greedy and corrupted and they will easily do anything to get what they want (even resorting to murder to do so). As for the designs of the characters themselves, the townspeople are frightening to look at, especially during the scenes where they are angry and they end up sporting horrific Nightmare Faces. Also, the warped style of the buildings can be disorientating for some viewers.
- The Pied Piper himself can be quite frightening at times:
- His appearance is much more mysterious and intimidating than his appearances in other media as he looks like a scary drifter with coal black eyes and he has an angry scowl that is constantly on his face.
- The scene where the town leaders refused to pay the Pied Piper for his services has the Pied Piper remain silent for a few minutes and then suddenly, the camera zooms in on the Pied Piper's face as loud and intense organ music plays in the background and his face suddenly goes pale and his eyes go completely black, giving him a ghostly appearance.
- The ending where the Pied Piper goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after he is refused payment for his services and sees the dead body of the innocent woman he fell in love with. The Pied Piper then starts transforming all of the townspeople into rats and then leads them all to the lake to drown.
- The scene where the Jeweler and his companions ended up raping and murdering an innocent young woman. The whole scene is played up like a horror movie as the Jeweler and his companions force their way into the woman's house, with the woman trying desperately to keep them out. Once they make their way in, they start cornering the woman with the Jeweler letting out an unholy screech as he and his companions advance towards the woman, with the woman cowering in fear.
- The ending scene where the Pied Piper turns the townspeople into rats. You can see the townspeople panicking as they slowly start turning into rats and there are some Body Horror elements during this scene as some of the townspeople have rat heads on human bodies and others have human heads on rat bodies. Also, there's the fact that the townspeople as rats are being forced to go to the lake and throw themselves off of the tower and into the lake, where they all drowned.
