Review of The Pyramid (2014) by Thequietgamer — 19 Jun 2015

The claustrophobic and dark corridors that can be found in a pyramid could have translated well to a horror movie by at least giving it an interesting setting. Unfortunately this movie fails to capitalize on it. What we are left with is a scareless horror movie that experiments with some good ideas but ultimately falls short in just about all of them.

I was kind of hoping for an As Above, So Below style horror film. That movie made great use of it's claustrophobic setting to create an Indiana Jones style horror film that while not scary was still enjoyable (at least in this reviewers opinion). Unfortunately we don't get that here. While the characters in that movie solved ancient puzzles the characters in this movie fumble around in the dark and walk into traps while trying to act intelligent because they can read some hieroglyphics. That's the biggest problem with this movie. It doesn't know just how dumb it is.

The use of Egyptian history and beliefs ultimately doesn't amount to much. The movie tries to shoehorn in as much of it as possible in order to give as much detail about what is going on as possible. The result is a film that feels like it talks way too much. Rather than actually trying to escape their predicament the characters are too busy talking about what the hieroglyphics are telling them is going on. It's annoying. The inclusion of James Buckley's character just serves as a way to have someone constantly tell the others "hey, this is interesting and all, but we need to get out of here if we want to live." Yeah, the film even makes fun of itself.

The film is shot in both a found-footage style and a traditional cinematic style. That's actually a good thing as it means we aren't left watching too much of the film in first person through a shaky camera. Admittedly though this film doesn't seem to have much of a problem with the actors holding the camera still. The change between styles also means that we don't suffer through too much of the increasingly overused found footage style. The horror genre already has way too many movies like that so it's nice to see that this movie doesn't overdo it.

The actual horror is practically non-existent. Everything here is borrowed. It's got your predictable jump scares and totally obvious callbacks to other horror movies. Some scenes are just straight up ripped off from classics. The monster design is actually pretty cool even if the not so great CGI is evident. There's quite a bit of gore here so if you are looking for a more supernatural horror film you may want to look elsewhere. This one feels more like a slasher film with a villain who isn't really present. I personally recommend looking elsewhere regardless. Simply put all of this is just not scary.

What we get here is a movie with a lot of potential that ends up squandering it by being just another generic horror film that's filled with stupidity. Yeah, it's watchable, but why would you want to? It ends up being as lifeless as a mummy (which sadly aren't in this movie). You should just save your time and watch something else.