The Pyramid (2014)

1/2 Star (out of 4)

Pointless

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

After working as a writer and in various other capacities on Alexandre Aja's horror films, Gregory Levasseur makes his directorial debut with this awful, quickie "found-footage" horror movie, similar to, but far inferior to, As Above/So Below.

After the discovery of a new three-sided pyramid in Egypt, a two-person documentary crew (Christa Nicola, James Buckley) arrives to film its excavation. But when the project's funding is yanked, archeologist make a last-ditch effort to study it by sending in a small rover mounted with cameras. Something mysterious destroys the rover, and a team of five intrepid souls enter the pyramid to get it back, including father Holden (Denis O'Hare) and daughter Nora (Ashley Hinshaw). It's not long before they are lost in the pryamid's deceptive labyrinths and facing something far more deadly than they ever expected.

The Pyramid feels lazy and dashed off, as if getting it into theaters was more important than actually crafting any suspense, or creating believable characters. It can't even bother to keep up the "found footage" pretense, frequently cheating and cutting to the inside of chambers as they open from the outside, etc.

The remaining characters seem totally unaffected by the deaths of their fellow travelers, as they keep on either cracking jokes or spewing factoids about ancient Egyptian burial practices. The scary stuff is entirely stale, relying either on ill-timed, sudden shocks or on cheap-looking computer-generated monsters. As the monster drags its nails on the walls to taunt its prey, he seems more like Freddy Kruger than an ancient Egyptian.