The Pyramid (2014)

A semi found footage film that reminds me of a film that came out earlier this year, As above so below, but is nowhere near as spectacular as that movie.

Like the Jake Gyllenhaal film End of Watch the film tends to break the rules of the found footage genre by creating a story about a Daddy Daughter architect team being filmed going down in an accent pyramid, then breaking them by putting an unmanned camera were none should exist,

But I must admit I really did like the monster they created for this film. Can't say I've ever seen anything like it in the film, or at least done in this matter.

And I did enjoy some of the horror clichés that the film walks into. Maybe I would have liked it more if I haven't see As above So Below which had the same kind of closed space environment, but was done far better.

Still, the movie had a lot of genuine scared worth paying a ticket for.

Fmovies: I went to the movie just because there is nothing else to see in the cinema, despite reading all negative criticism on the film. I googled the film before seeing it and saw terrible rating. So I had my expectation pretty low.

But please, those critics are people too and people have different opinion and tastes on film. I for once never like action films. So I would rate every single action film 1/10. But as a Horror fan, seeing so many horror films, I think the film over all is very good. It scared me a lot of time than most of horror films.

The actors' performances are great, the storyline is interesting, the shooting is pretty nice too. I mean, even though I really hate the "Hand camera" kind of movie like Paranormal Activity and stuffs, but this one is pretty nice.

I'm glad that they did not include mummies in the film since it's going to make it looks like just another "The Mummy" films. The monster they have in the film is pretty good but somehow ridiculous. And once again, they have all these pyramid elements in the films such as dead-end, traps, secret passages/doors, secret rooms, and maze passages... etc.

The only problem I had with the film is the title. Maybe they should have something more creative and interesting instead of straight forward "The Pyramid". Maybe something that connected to the storyline.

But over all this is a great film. I would totally dig this film for movie night alone or with my homies... And it's worth seeing yo....

In times of turbulence and confusion in Egypt, an American team of archaeologists is digging a three-side pyramid in the desert. The engineer Zahir (Amir K) sends his robot to explore the interior while the archaeologists Nora (Ashley Hinshaw) and her father Holden (Denis O'Hare); the video producer Sunni (Christa Nicola); and the cameraman Fitzie (James Buckley) record and analyze the image. However they have to leave the site due to the political instability but out of blue, the expensive robot vanishes inside the pyramid. Amir K convinces Corporal Shadid (Faycal Attougui) to give two hours for them to seek out the robot. When they are in the interior, the floor collapses and they fall 30 m down. Soon they learn that the place is a maze full of traps and a creature is hunting them down. Will they succeed to escape?

"The Pyramid" is a disappointing horror movie. The story is silly and unoriginal and does not hold the attention of the viewer. The performances are not convincing but acceptable, but the plot fails since the characters are not well developed and non-likable. The lighting and camera are very poor. The special effects are reasonable for a low- budget movie. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "A Pirâmide" ("The Pyramid")

The Pyramid fmovies. The Pyramid is yet another addition to the "dangerous exploration" genre. I found it mildly entertaining, yet not at all special or particularly interesting.

The story is the usual: explorers on a mission. Their organization, and the local residents are telling them to go home because "it's too dangerous," but they go on anyway. Scary stuff starts to happen, and they proceed onward until... well, you know.

The main actress comes from the Megan Fox school of open-mouth-pouty-face acting. She is supposed to be a successful anthropologist, but she comes off as a ditz. I'm not saying this because she is blonde and attractive... it was the way she delivered her lines.

The CGI was pretty awful. I won't spoil, but at one point toward the end it appeared that someone was wearing a prosthetic mask with really prominent eye holes. Some other things looked quite fake as well.

It was ... okay.

The thing with "the Pyramid" is that it has great presentation. The poster looks good, the trailer looks good too. It's enough to fool most people into watching it, expecting a film with some good scares. I, for one, went in expecting some claustrophobic terror like "the Descent".

Unfortunately, the Pyramid is not good, not good at all. In fact, it's just boring. The characters all suffer from being utterly unlikeable, from the annoying cameraman to the just as annoying blonde girl. From there the film turns into a boring drag, wherein every trick in the book is pulled: jump scares, cheap CGI, lots and lots of yelling and screaming, exposition that makes no sense. You name it.

This movie is awful. Don't watch it.

If there's one thing we've learnt from 'The Descent', it's that tight spaces make for good claustrophobic horror. That seems to be the idea behind 'The Pyramid', which sends an archaeological team into the depths of an ancient pyramid which has just been unearthed in the Egyptian desert. Aside from the opening scenes, most of the rest of the movie takes place within the narrow corridors or rooms within the pyramid, which in itself does generate a veritable sense of dread.

Whether it was the intention of screenwriters Daniel Meersand and Nick Simon at the start or that of director Gregory Levasseur later on isn't clear, but 'The Pyramid' follows the recent trend of horror movies in adopting the found-footage format. Largely, that is. The majority of the shots originate from British cameraman Fitzie's (James Buckley) point of view, which also means that the key characters we see on screen most of the time are father-and-daughter pair Holden (Denis O'Hare) and Nora (Ashley Hinshaw) and award- chasing filmmaker Sunni (Christa- Marie Nicola). Only when it seems technically possible to have a first- person p.o.v. shot does Levasseur switch to more traditional modes of shot composition and framing, in particular when all but one of the members of the team is left.

Truth be told, we've never really been a big fan of found-footage horror, in part because most filmmakers use technique as an excuse for poor plotting, thinking that just having their characters run and/or scream down dimly lit hallways and getting surprised by things that jump out at them – and the audience – makes for a movie. To some extent, Levasseur and his writers are guilty of that as well, relying too conveniently on rote jump scares to deliver the thrills, which any seasoned horror fan can probably anticipate when and what is coming at them.

But thankfully, the Egyptology-themed setting isn't completely wasted; the last third of the movie is steeped in religious mythology, in particular the appearance of a part-man part-jackal creature better known in ancient Egyptian history as an "Anubis" and its role in an ancient funerary rite known as the "Weighing of the Heart". This isn't the family-friendly adventure that 'The Mummy' and its sequels ever was; indeed, coming from producer Alexandre Aja of 'The Hills Have Eyes', you should certainly be prepared for some pretty gory shocking scenes, including one that is clearly inspired by an iconic shot from 'Aliens' (you know, the one from the back?).

Not all the movie is that intriguing though; for a good part where the group is making its way through the narrow underground tunnels, the pace drags because none of the characters are particularly interesting in and of themselves. What effort spent introducing some conflict between them also falls flat, as Nora's criticism of Fitzie's obsession to get their ordeal down on camera is over and done with in just one scene – not least for the fact that she becomes the one to hold on to his camera and document the proceedings after something unfortunate befalls him.

You'll probably do well lowering your expectations if you've decided to watch 'The Pyramid', which seems content to revel in B-movie tropes than to be anything truly inspiring by itself. To its credit, it doesn't entirely squander its titular Egyptian theme, though for that matter, it also doesn't fully exploit it as well. What longtime Aja