The bagpipes show up in a number of different films of all types of genres, be it comedy, drama, even sci-fi! Films as diverse as Braveheart, Army of Darkness, The Thirty Nine Steps and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan at some point feature the pipes being blown. here are some of our favourite examples:

Braveheart (1995) Ooft, try being an English kid in a Scottish school in the mid to late 90s, everytime this Mel Gibson directed Oscar winner showed up on television the next day was pretty hard going. The bagpipes show up in the soundtrack and whilst the film is famously littered with historical inaccuracies (Primae Noctis? Not a real thing. Robert The Bruce? Good guy.) the pipers are not one of them.

Or maybe they are, I mean Mel Gibson was making up most of this as he was going right? Its still a pretty decent film though I’d say.

Hot Rod (2007) Hot Rod is a very funny, sadly mostly forgotten film starring two members of The Lonely Island and a few SNL alumni. Andy Samberg, Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Will Arnett, Isla Fisher and Ian McShane all show up as part of a phenomenal cast in this comedy about a useless stuntman. One of the highlights of the movie occurs near the end where a riot breaks out to the tune of ‘You’re the Voice’ the 1986 John Farnham song. If you know the song you know it features bagpipes and a group of pipers show up in the scene! Its very funny and worth your time tracking down the film on Netflix.

Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness (1993) Considering the notorious nature of the first Evil Dead (one of the so called “video nasties” of the 1980s) Army of Darkness is a relatively light hearted adventure film. Directed by Spiderman director Sam Raimi the film sank without a trace at the box office upon its release before building a skid cult following over the years. The scene in question sees an army of the dead march towards battle with special effects reminiscent of the legendary special effects creator Ray Harryhausen. In it (possibly Scottish) skeletons can be seen playing bagpipes in a weird but striking visual. Check it out in the video below, another film well worth tracking down on Netflix:

Thats all for today but we’ll pop another blog up about bagpipes showing up in movies again over the next week or so.