The Pyramid
Holden (Denis O'Hare) and Nora (Ashley Hinshaw) are a father/daughter archaeological team who, through the use of technology, have located a previously undiscovered pyramid buried beneath the sand about 250 miles south of Cairo. They get together a team to explore this tomb, meticulously uncovering it. One of the members has borrowed a high tech robot he calls Shorty, from NASA, similar to something they used for the Mars Range Rover. As they open the tomb for the first time, a noxious green gas spews out, killing one man. To make matters worse, unrest in Cairo sees the government telling them to shut down and go home the next day.
The scientists are naturally perturbed and reluctant to leave. But they'd sent Shorty inside and aren't willing to leave without him, especially as he isn't theirs. So they decide to go behind the government's back and enter the tomb anyway. Once inside, they take a page the playbook of Hansen and Gretel, except instead of dropping bread crumbs, they trail a wire, to find their way back. But life happens, the wire is broken, and they find themselves hopelessly lost inside the pyramid.
To make matters worse, they discover the pyramid is beset with traps... and possibly with strange creatures, and the members of the team begin to die, one by one. Survival depends for the rest on their ability to navigate out of the pyramid.
If you are interested in Egypt or Egyptology in any way, I would not recommend this film. I suspect the writers knew little about ancient Egypt except what they found in the Cliff notes. I found myself shaking my head a lot. First off, the idea that there is an undiscovered tomb so much older than the others that it had time to be buried is ludicrous. Also, a close-up of the so-called pyramid seemed to not match what we saw later. Nothing was ever explained as to why the unrest in Cairo caused them to be told to leave. Maybe the filmmakers were leaving that for sequels. Luckily, I don't think there will be any.
The acting wasn't great, the writing was horrific, the story rather vapid. I found myself rooting for the creatures, to be honest. The best thing I can say is it's only an hour and a half. If you are brave enough or forge to turn off the credits and let them run, there is additional footage at the end of those. If you don't see it, you haven't missed anything. I like Denis O'Hare, who you might remember from American Horror Story, but even he can't save this. I'll give this film 1.5 Stars. I've seen worse, but that's not a flex.
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