Egyptology has long fascinated the British – Shakespeare laid out its opulence in some of his most famous scenes, centuries later the country became a British colony for 74 years, British explorer Howard Carter opened Tutankhamen’s tomb and Britain’s eyes to the possibility of ancient death-dealing curses in 1922, and some of the greatest exhibits of the British Museum are much-loved treasures of the Nile. And then, to crown our national obsession, we sent our finest acting export to explore Egypt’s great mysteries on film – Jay from “The Inbetweeners”.
“The Pyramid” valiantly attempts to recreate the excitement and fear that came with the great era of exploration – a mysterious 3-sided pyramid is discovered buried deep in the Egyptian desert and a small team of archaeologists and documentary film-makers defy the authorities, as they must, to plunge into the darkness and uncover the secrets buried within. It’s not long before they get hopelessly lost in the labyrinthine corridors, as they must, and begin to be taken down one-by-one by various bloody misfortunes, both natural and possibly supernatural. As they must.
“The Pyramid” invokes a sense of place effectively – the titular tomb is a vertiginous, confusing and eerie place, full of tight squeezes, collapsing floors and demon cats – all the elements you expected such places would have as a child. However, the mixture of found-footage and standard camerawork is confusing, making it difficult to work out from whose perspective things are being seen. Similarly confusing is the tone of a film which clearly has straight horror at its heart but veers indelicately towards sarcastic comedy with a misjudged role for James Buckley from “The Inbetweeners” who stands out amidst a clutch of colourless characters but seems like he’s been hooked in from a different, less interesting film.
Where the film earns its dough though, ensuring that you’ll probably remember it when a thousand bland found-footage horrors have faded, is its big reveal, which is surprising, ridiculous, and even a little bit scary. Suffice to say, you probably haven’t seen anything quite like it and you certainly can’t accuse the film of wasting its theme. Added to the mix is enough history to keep the more actively-minded interested in what is essentially a basic “then there were none” structure, and the overall result is a rather bland concoction livened immeasurably by its bonkers, blood-drenched ending.
Like the similarly-themed “As Above, So Below”, “The Pyramid” isn’t a bad film and has some treats for horror fans with a yearning for the unusual and esoteric. Compared to some of the thoughtless, witless nonsense littering DVD shelves across the country, this mostly derivative, yet occasionally weird and memorable horror is definitely worth a punt and marks first-time director (and writer of the impressive “Maniac” remake) Grégory Levasseur as a genre-lover to watch.
OVERALL SUMMARY
A team of archaeologists get lost in a long-forgotten pyramid deep in the Egyptian desert. Bad things ensue. A hoary narrative and weak characters are saved at the last gasp by a bizarre reveal and some decent scares that, unexpectedly, make this stand out from the pack.
