4. Pied Piper
Most of us have heard of the Pied Piper, the story comes from a German legend that dates back to the Middle Ages. Some historians say that the story is grounded in fact and that a town called Hamelin lost all its children due to the plague rather than a man with a pipe. The story begins in 1284: the town of Hamelin is infested by rats. One man appears, dressed like a Hogwarts professor, who manages to lure the rats away using a musical pipe. All but one rat drowns in the Weser river. The mayor promised to pay the rat-catcher but suddenly becomes stingy and refuses to give the full payment. The piper leaves town in a huff. He comes back the next day. Whilst most of the townfolk are at church he plays his pipe and lures all the children out into the street. Completely entranced, the children follow his music into a cave where they are never to be seen again. In some versions of this story there are three children left behind. One of these children had a disability and was unable to keep up, the other was deaf and was not affected by the music and the third was blind and therefore unable to see where the group were headed. More child-friendly versions state that the Piper returned the children when he received his pay check.
How To Make It Awesome: The Pied Piper has all the ingredients to become an edgy film that mixes youth in revolt with the eeriness of a cult-like community like M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. In my opinion, our heroes are the three children that survived, who didn't get led by the pied piper and thats not just because of their impairment. There was something within them that managed to block the influence of the pipe. Okay, now it's sounding like an anti-drugs daytime television film but you know what I mean?
Dream Team: Pied Piper: Johnny Depp (think Alice in Wonderland) Children who survive: Oliver Woolford (Channel 4's Utopia), Colin Ford (Push) and Elle Fanning (Somewhere). Director: Tim Burton (goes hand in hand with Depp really...)