REVIEW - The Pyramid (2014)

Gregory Levasseur, the screenwriter behind HIGH TENSION, the HILLS HAVE EYES remake, and other Alexander Aja (who produces here) projects jumps into the directors chair for the first time with THE PYRAMID. Part found footage film, part narrative, THE PYRAMID centers around a father/daughter archeology team and the documentary film makers following them as they work on their latest discovery, a long buried 3-sided pyramid.
When Egyptian authorities shut down the operation, mere hours after an entrance to the structure reveals itself, the team decide to sneak inside to get a quick look around, and gather data on the ancient anomaly.
Soon, disaster strikes, and the group dind themselves trapped within the labyrinthine structure, as unidentifiable creatures stalk them, and booby traps make quick flight an impossibility.

THE PYRAMID, while neat for using monsters not seen in horror movies, suffers massively from being "act-y" and having dialog that, at times, would make a first year creative writing student wince. Odd, because I really think director/co-writer (along with Nick Simon) Levasseur is a solid movie scribe. But as a director he is unable to illicit believable performances from his often hammy cast, which includes TRUE BLOOD alumni Ashley Henshaw and Denis O'Hare (who does everything he can to keep things sincere), James Buckley (THE INBETWEENERS), and the particularly annoying Christa Nicola (a relative newcomer with a very short list of credits, and threatening to remain short given her quality of work here...whose girlfriend is she I wonder?).
The saving graces are, for the most part, the creatures, and that even falls down when second rate CGI rears it's dog-faced head in the climax. THE PYRAMID is not a complete waste of time due to it's highly unused monsters concepts, but beyond that, it's the viewers job to cull anything worthy out of the experience. At the end of the day it's a disposable half-pleasure of a flick. If you don't end up unearthing and digging into THE PYRAMID history will forgive you.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

   

~ Boris Lugosi