‘You only enter once.’
The Pyramid is a 2014 American supernatural horror film directed by Grégory Levasseur (screenwriter of High Tension; The Hills Have Eyes; Maniac) and written by Daniel Meers and Nick Simon. Alexandre Aja produced.
The movie stars Ashley Hinshaw, Denis O’Hare, James Buckley and Daniel Amerman.
Plot:
A small team of American archaeologists unearth an ancient and unique three-sided pyramid buried deep beneath the Egyptian desert. As they investigate the pyramid’s depths, they become hopelessly lost in a dark and seemingly endless labyrinth.
Searching for a way out, they become desperate to seek daylight again but come to realise they aren’t just trapped, they are being hunted…
Reviews:
“The few scares are rote jumps copied from a dozen other films, with one moment that echoes both Alien and Deep Blue Sea. Suggestions that the Gods of Ancient Egypt might have been aliens, that the Freemasons are somehow mixed up in all this and that cutting edge archaeology (involving satellite imaging) is opening up new areas of mystery are just token.” Screen Daily
“It matters little that most of the jolts have been lifted from previous movies, given that much of the borrowing is from films (a Hammer Horror curio here, Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea there) that were once cut-rate knockoffs themselves: Such hand-me-downs are still cheaply effective, and all the more endearing for their familiarity.” Variety
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“Surprise, surprise, they discover that the pyramid has been designed to entrap an evil force, and these bumblers have released it, and then “Aah!” and crash and fall and they start getting picked off one by one, And Then There Were None-style. Premise-wise, this scenario (from screenwriters Daniel Meersand and Nick Simon) could produce some excitement, but apart from the occasional thrill, Levasseur fails to build tension or make us care about who lives or who dies.” The Wrap
“All the shocks are cribbed from the likes of Alien, The Descent and a ghostly host of other horror films, but they’re not even very effectively done here. The timing was a little off between sound and visuals with one shock attack, for example, and the effects look like they’re still in the rough-draft stages. Likewise, the performances have an unfinished quality, like line deliveries one might hear at a table run-through.” The Hollywood Reporter
” … the cod Egyptology is irritating, the CGI-and-rubber monsters are silly, and the creeping onset of what you assume is Undead Mummy Virus is simply abandoned as if the producers ran out of money after 89 minutes.” The Guardian
“For a film that’s named The Pyramid, it’s fair for the audience to expect to see some mummies awakening and a lineup of dangerously fun traps, but disappointingly, there’s only a labyrinth, a sand-filling corridor trap, a ground of spikes, and the poorly computer-generated mythical creatures…” Colourless Opinions
Buy DVD: Amazon.co.uk
YouTube reviews:
Trailer:
The film was released by 20th Century Fox on December 5, 2014.
Cast and characters:
Ashley Hinshaw … Doctor Nora Holden
Denis O’Hare … Doctor Miles Holden (American Horror Story)
James Buckley … Terry “Fitzie” Fitsimmons
Christa-Marie Nicola … Sunni Marsh
Amir K … Michael Zahir
Joseph Beddelem … Taxi driver
Garsha Arristos … Egyptian Worker
Omar Benbrahim … Chubby Intern
Philip Shelley … The Provost
Faycal Attougui … Shadid
