Jay is a cameraman for a team of archaeologists. They are excited to have found a rare 3 sided pyramid and are ready to start exploring it. Sadly those selfish Egyptians are in the middle of their uprising and the team are called home. The gang are informed that they have only 24 hours to explore their potential treasure trove.
Luckily the have a million dollar rover ‘Shorty’, which can take the danger out of the proceedings. We know of Shorty’s capabilities after a gratuitous scene of its sleazy operator (not Jay!) spying on an undressing lady.
They manage to get the entrance chamber open but things look dangerous when a local gets a puff of poison gas in has face. This potential warning is dismissed as an effect of fungus and they forge ahead with their plan to explore the tomb in a hurry.
Unfortunately Shorty proves to be as useful as a cock flavoured lollipop when he breaks down after two minutes - or has be been stopped by unknown forces? That one.
Immediately disregarding their earlier reservations the full team heads in, closely followed by an Egyptian soldier who had been tasked with sending them home. I can't remember his name but it may have been 'Cannon Fodder'.
Predictably things soon goes tits up with our heroes falling through the floor into a catacomb of chambers, compete with killer Siamese cats and nasty traps. As our heroes are picked off one by one, who will survive? - not a lone female as usual surely?
This is a truly dreadful film but it’s awfulness did keep me engaged right to the end.
It is presented with some opening captions as a ‘found footage’ film but this is forgotten early on as we get lots of POV and ‘entering the room’ style shots. I don’t mind this conceit if it makes for a better film but it served only to take you out of the story and the characters’ predicament.
The plot as it is, is very thin and even then things like characters becoming infected with a eye changing virus aren’t followed up on. You get the usual jump scares and flashes of the bad guy but you’d wish they’d stuck to that when you see the big reveal. I won’t spoil it, but you won’t have seen worse CGI than this. Pity the poor actors trying to interact with a monster that looks ridiculous and physically impossible.
To be fair they do set it up when the pompous archaeologist tells stories of Anubis weighing hearts to value souls, but it was a brave and ultimately mental choice to make it actually happen.
The cast is uniformly awful with ‘cheeky chap’ Jay losing any charm he had under a ill advised beard and some toe curling dialogue “We’re just like food in a bowl” he yells and “This stinks” which is a perfectly succinct review of the whole enterprise. My favourite line of natural sounding dialogue was “Robot guy has just been devoured by a creature we can’t identify” - how did this miss out on ‘Best Screenplay’?!
You could argue that the film doesn’t take itself seriously, but it does. Every survival horror cliché is run through right down to the ‘Drag Me to Hell’ final moment. There were a few laughs in there but none that were intended.
Enter ‘The Pyramid’ at your own peril!
The Tag Line : ‘Finished it mate’. 35%
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