Movie Review: The Pyramid

Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: December 5, 2015
Rating: R
Director: Gregory Levasseur


A group of archaeologists are working in Egypt when they uncover an odd pyramid with three sides. Among those working on the dig are Dr. Holden and his daughter Nora, who is also a doctor in archeology. Though they manage to access the pyramid and find a tunnel that leads deep inside, as soon as they gain access, some weird gas comes out and kills a ton of people.


Not long after, they receive word that they must leave for their safety. Another riot occurred nearby and the area is no longer safe for the doctors and their researchers. In the hopes of getting some information quickly, they send in a robot to capture some video and photos. The robot suddenly goes dark after being attacked by something they can barely see. Instead of getting the hell out like normal people, a group of five, led by the father daughter doctor team, decide to go in and check things out.


It doesn't take long before they find themselves hopelessly lost inside the pyramid and its many tunnels with no hopes of escape. When a section of the roof collapses and pins one of the group beneath, they make the decision to leave him behind and go in even deeper to possibly find a way out. The rest of the movie plays out just the way you might expect with the exception of some killer thousands old Egyptian cats.


In a long ago and far off place, namely my living room about a month ago, we saw a trailer for a new horror movie that looked great. The movie showed a small group of people trapped inside a pyramid with unseen creatures following them. Think The Descent but in a pyramid instead of a cave. Instead of getting that movie, we got The Pyramid.


The main problem with The Pyramid is that it didn't feel unsettling. How can you have five, then four, etc. people trapped inside a pyramid without it feeling unsettling? It actually rarely felt like they were in any type of danger. They would spend 10-20 minutes walking around without anything really happening. We would get one shot of them in danger, then it would end too quickly, and it was back to the same old, same old. Not to mention the fact that we lost two of our main characters in what felt like five minutes.


We had Nora constantly worrying about the guy they left behind, and we had the doctor constantly worrying about his daughter. And can I just say that Nora is extremely annoying? Just once I would like to see a horror movie with a father and daughter where I actually gave a damn about the relationship they had. Nora was so bad at times that I was literally yelling at the television and begging him to leave her behind.


The one good thing The Pyramid had going for it were the cannibalistic Egyptian cats. The first time these cats came out of nowhere, I did a little half jump in my seat. They popped up just enough times to get your heart going without being too annoying. As I had a small gray Egyptian looking cat curled up on the floor next to me, it did give me pause. Sadly, my little cat is scarier than this movie was.

Movie Review: Bad Kids Go to Hell – "What a Bitch"

Runtime: 91 minutes
Release Date: December 7, 2012
Rating: R
Director: Matthew Spradlin


The Breakfast Club takes the horror movie route in Bad Kids Go to Hell. The film opens on a scene of SWAT team members running through a school and and finding a single student standing in the middle of a library with an ax in his hand and a series of dead bodies on the floor. It then jumps back six hours in time to show us what happened that led to that moment.


Crestview Academy is a typical private school filled with a bunch of rich and snotty kids. Six of those kids find themselves stuck in the library for the day for Saturday detention. Their teacher assigns them a new project to keep them out of trouble for the day, which is when the issues unfold. One of those students discovers that the school was built on top of land once owned by Native Americans and that several bloody battles occurred in the area. When they attempt to leave, they learn that something doesn't want them to escape, which in turn leads to the students being killed.


Bad Kids Go to Hell had the chance to be a solid horror film, but it somehow missed the mark. Despite Judd Nelson, who I secretly still crush on from the 80s, it was one of those movies that started off good and then somehow went downhill. Even my boyfriend, who finds redeeming factors in every horror movie I make him watch, left the room at several points and then later admitted that he couldn't get into the movie.


The problem is that most of the characters have no redeeming factors. When you watch a movie about a group of teens stuck in one place for 90 minutes, you want to root for someone. I just wanted to see them all die. Every character in the film is one note without any dimensions. The girls are bitchy, gossip about each other, and are just generally rude, while the guys are just as bad. I wish I could say something interesting about the movie, but Bad Kids Go to Hell just missed the mark with me.