The Pyramid

Vampire Owl :: I have received this letter from this small community living on the side of the undead lands.

Vampire Bat :: I have received a copy too. But I am yet to read it.

Vampire Owl :: It is about better representation on the movie adventures list along with the other communities who are getting all the attention as of now.

Vampire Bat :: Well, sometimes one community gets the attention, and at other times, some other one will. They will have to work hard to get more attention.

Vampire Owl :: But it says here that they are among the oldest existing communities and that they came back from the dead in the impossible circumstances at times when we vampires hadn’t really become the true undead.

Vampire Bat :: What? It is impossible! Look at the final sign. Who are they?

Vampire Owl :: It says “The Friendly Neighborhood Graveyard Mummies”.

Vampire Bat :: Zombies, werewolves and now the mummies. I thought that they were finished when they were sent to China in 2008 with Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Vampire Owl :: Well, they were not the same. There are no Pyramids there and so the Mummy existence has to be questioned. I believe that their depiction in that particular movie has also motivated them further to search for the right movie.

Vampire Bat :: That should mean that now we have to find a Mummy movie. I have the perfect movie in my mind.

[Gets a cup of tea and butter cookies].

What is it about? :: While the 2012–13 Egyptian protests are going on in Egypt, a team of archaeologists lead by Dr. Miles Holden (Denis O’Hare) and his daughter Dr. Nora Holden (Ashley Hinshaw) manages to discover a special pyramid from under the desert. As the top part of the structure is excavated, they find out that it is not like the other pyramids and has only three sides instead of the usual four. Using the satellite facility, they find out that the pyramid goes a long way down and that there is a tunnel which goes into its highest point. Due to the possibility of a civil war in the country, they are asked to return home, with no idea of when they can explore more of the pyramid. But as they consider this the biggest discovery of their careers, they hesitate to go back empty-handed.

So, how does the big twist occur? :: Despite a worker being dead due to the toxic gas in the pyramid, they decide to use a remote controlled rover machine from NASA to explore as much of the pyramids they can, and the gadget expert Michael Zahir (Amir K) makes sure that it can be done. But the machine is lots inside the structure, and it turns out that they can’t return home without the expensive thing. So, accompanied by the reporter Sunni Marsh (Christa-Marie Nicola) and the cameraman Terry Fitsimmons (James Buckley), they decide to go and find the machine themselves, with oxygen masks and with ropes tied to their waists making sure that they don’t lose the way. But they will know that what awaits them inside the structure is more than just the difficulty in finding the path.

The defence of The Pyramid :: There are lots of scary moments in The Pyramid, and the setting is very well established right in the beginning itself. It has been a long time since we had a good Mummy movie, and even though this one has none either, the pyramids and the undead brings us close to that feeling which we had while watching the movies with those mummified antagonists. The mythological twist which happens in the movie is a real nice one. The moments which make the most of the movie, until the final creature is shown makes some nice impact as darkness and the creepy atmosphere inside the pyramid is amazingly good – they could have got more attention going for the last few minutes of this movie. There are some nice traps too, even though that side is not used to the full potential. This one is also more serious than your friendlier adventure starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

Claws of flaw :: The Pyramid is in no way close to being the best horror movie of the year. It has an antagonist revealed in the end which doesn’t look scary enough, and thanks to the CGI which is not that effective, we won’t get the desired strength at the end. The creatures needed to look better and more menacing; here they are just the dangerous creatures as we know them to be so. The movie also needed a better development of the mythical story of Anubis and Osiris, working on the tales about the gods and kings of Egypt much earlier and in more detail so that everything could come together in a stronger way by the end of the flick. There is also no perfect ending as one would have expected as this has strong mythological roots. Those who have a lot of knowledge in the Egyptian Mythology might also feel different, with possible innacuracies as I have seen in some forums, but I am not an expert there.

Soul exploration :: There is not much here for the acting department because the movie’s focus is never there. Still, Ashley Hinshaw has a fine presence and does a good job in this movie which asks nothing too much from its cast. Christa-Marie Nicola should come next in grabbing our attention, and the rest also just follows the routine in a horror movie – be in trouble and hope not to die. The feeling of inescapable is right there throughout the movie as we keep having the feeling that the situation is a lot more than the usual supernatural stuff, and nobody can escape death this time. It is the certainty of death that the protagonists are facing, and the inability to find a solution to the early return to the other world means that there is more than all the discoveries science has ever made and religion has ever solved- it is a symbol of human helplessness.

More of the soul exploration and the finish :: The one thing which is special about this movie is that it takes another path while dealing with pyramids, not of the usual mummy story as one would expect. There is a nice reflection of the Egyptian Mythology along with its gods Anubis and Osiris. There is some history and mythology explained in the middle as well as by the finish, and if things were more creative by the end, The Pyramid could have been a lot better movie. There are times when some movies are underrated, and this one is such a movie. We did see such problems with The Lazarus Effect, I Frankenstein, Annabelle and The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death. This has been happening with horror movies for quite some time and you have to watch these movies to know if they are good – you really can’t go and agree with the rest of the world without thinking, especially the critics.

Release date: 5th December 2014
Running time: 89 minutes
Directed by: Grégory Levasseur
Starring: Ashley Hinshaw, Christa-Marie Nicola, Denis O’Hare, James Buckley, Daniel Amerman, Joseph Beddelem, Amir K, Garsha Arristos, Omar Benbrahim, Philip Shelley, Faycal Attougui