IMDB rate: 4,7
Genre: Found-Footage, Survival
Starring: Ashley Hinshaw, Denis O'Hare, James Buckley
The Pyramid... well I actually was prepared for this one to be bad. Not only because I read some reviews about it explaining exactly how terrible it was, I actually didn't expect anything else after reading the summary:
A team of U.S. archaeologists unearths an ancient pyramid buried deep beneath the Egyptian desert. As they search the pyramid's depths, they become hopelessly lost in it's dark and endless catacombs. Searching for a way out, they become desperate to seek daylight again. They come to realize that they aren't just trapped, they are being hunted.
Why did I still watch it? First of all, I love stories about Ancient Egypt and the pyramids and stuff, second of all movies like these always give plenty of material to write about, also I haven't seen any horror movies about Ancient Egypt before so I gave this movie a shot!
People call this a found-footage (or mockumentary) movie, but to be honest that's hardly true. The movie starts out as one indeed, but for some reason it fails to keep pursuing that perspective. In fact, one second the movie is filmed with their camera, the next shot however is one from an angle that they couldn't have possibly filmed, and the shot after that turns back to their own camera again. It's kinda annoying after awhile and I think it's one of the biggest flaws in this movie. Just make a choice and choose a perspective, either one would've been fine, but just not both. A movie which combined these two perspectives well was [REC]3, where the beginning was filmed with a hand-camera and then there's a very smooth transition between that and the regular camera. Perhaps that would've been a better choice for The Pyramid as well.
The Pyramid is a very cliche movie actually, every time something was going to happen I just knew that that particular thing would happen in a few seconds. For example (spoiler!) when the tunnel to the pyramid opens, we just knew that something would hurt one or two people. It happened. When the woman started to climb to tunnel, you just knew she was going to be attacked and fall down. It was all way too obvious unfortunately. Another different sort of cliche that bothered me is the 'all men are dumb, but this strong woman will survive' cliche. I don't know but it seems some sort of new hype where this needs to keep happening.
I was actually surprised to see Denis O'Hare (American Horror Story, Dallas Buyers Club) in this movie. He's not a bad actor in my opinion so I based my tiny bit of hopes on him. Unfortunately, even he couldn't make this right again. His acting was fine though compared to the other ones, it was purely how bad the script was that made it all seem so terrible. The characters are very unlikable, their dialogues are unrealistic and everything seemed very staged. Also, the camera-guy only making witty comments is getting a bit boring as well.
This movie reminded me a bit of As Above, So Below, which wasn't such a bad movie actually compared to The Pyramid. I think the Pyramid could've been more enjoyable with a better script and some consistency in the filming style. The idea of the 'monsters' inside the Pyramid aren't too bad, they don't look too bad either, it's just that it gives a weird twist to the story itself. I wouldn't recommend wasting your time on this movie, although it is fun to see a horror movie, found footage style, that includes Ancient Egypt.
My rate: 4/10
No comments:
Post a Comment