Aahana Swrup
The 2014 found footage horror film ‘The Pyramid’ follows an archeology group’s fascinating and ill-fated venture into a lost pyramid of Egypt, buried deep inside the Earth. Near Cairo, father-daughter duo Miles and Nora Holden uncover the tip of a yet undiscovered pyramid, hidden under decades of deposition. As a result, Sunni and her cameraman, Fitzie, follow the Holdens and their group to the Egyptian desert to document the historic discovery. However, trouble strikes once the team decides to traverse into the unknown world inside the pyramid, where something sinister lurks in the darkness.
The film maintains a mysterious atmosphere around the mystical pyramid and the creatures it holds within. As such, Nora and her team end up submitting to a bleak fate when they try to bring out the centuries-old secret to the daylight. Naturally, the same leaves the audience clamoring for answers about the tomb, which spill themselves near the story’s climax.
The Pyramid Plot Synopsis
In August 2014, archeologists Miles and Nora Holden unearthed a hidden pyramid a few miles south of Cairo. While their team digs around the area to excavate the entire structure, conflict continues to rise within the nearby area between the military and protestors. Amid the chaos, two documentary filmmakers, Sunni and Fitzie, manage to arrive on the scene to capture the Holdens’ findings on camera.
Soon, with the help of satellite locating, Nora learns about a tunnel leading to the pyramid’s apex. Due to the ancient nature of this pyramid— even older than its three successors— much of it is buried deep inside the earth. Yet, the tunnel allows them access inside to learn more about the mysterious pyramid’s nature. Nevertheless, before they can begin such an investigation, the Holdens’ research gets pulled with orders to clear the area quickly because of the growing civil unrest.
Therefore, desperate to sate her curiosity, Nora manages to convince her father to allow their robotics engineer, Michael Zahir, to send in his rover, Shorty, so they can at least have a recorded visual of the place. Still, the situation backfires on them after some unseen dog-like creature attacks Shorty, severing its connection to the outside. As a result, the team has to go inside the pyramid to retrieve the million-dollar rover.
Once inside, the group tries to locate Shorty inside the pyramid’s dark caverns, where they find walls covered in hieroglyphics alongside a tomb with weapons marred in dried blood. Eventually, when Michael tracks down his rover, it’s been torn to pieces. Worse yet, the pyramid’s structure begins to falter, and soon, the group finds the floor from beneath their feet giving out.
Plummeting onto a deeper level inside the pyramid, Nora and the others effectively lose the ability to retrace their steps to escape from the structure. Furthermore, a big chunk of the roof falls on top of Micheal, trapping his leg to the spot. With tensions running high, the team realizes they need to find a way out and bring medical help for Michael as soon as possible. Thus, they decide to explore inside the pyramid for a way out despite the warning door at the apex.
Their journey ahead remains tumultuous, with a grave fate befalling Michael, who is the first one to die, leaving only bloody tracks in his stead. Although Shadid, a military man from the outside, attempts to help the group, he also falls victim to hidden pyramid creatures and bloodthirsty cat monsters. Sunni, too, sees a similar end.
Near the end, the Holdens and Fitzie, running for their lives from the deadly creatures and the pyramid’s in-built booby traps, find themselves inside a burial chamber. Inside the room, Miles comes across a journal from the Freemasons who once tried to escape from this place in 1897, to no avail.
Unable to see a path of this labyrinth, especially with the proof that even the skilled Freemasons couldn’t, Miles’ confidence begins to falter. Simultaneously, a clawed hand punches through the archeologist’s chest, holding Miles’ heart in its hand as the man dies. Fitzie helps Nora, his sole co-survivor, flee the chamber, unwilling to finally face the pyramid’s big secret.
The Pyramid: What Is The Pyramid’s Secret?
Initially, the characters’ motives stem from their desire to uncover the secrets within the unpredictable pyramid until their survival takes precedence. Miles and Nora began investigating the pyramid while searching for the Lost Pyramid of Akhenaten. Although the one they find clearly predates Akhenaten’s time, it quickly captures their attention. Likewise, Sunni and Fitzie, recognizing the significance of this pyramid’s discovery, desperately want to be part of a historical moment and tag along.
However, once the team begins to catch glimpses of the actual secret within the pyramid’s walls, fear trumps their curiosity. Nevertheless, once Fitzie realizes he has all but sealed his fate by stepping foot inside the apex hours ago, he decides to see things through and returns to catch the creature who had attacked Miles on his camera’s night vision. The answer he finds leaves him stunned.
The creature inside the pyramid is actually Anubis, a half-human, half-jackal god known as the devourer. After Nora witnesses the god’s liking caught on camera, she begins to piece the story together through her extensive knowledge of Egyptian mythology and the hieroglyphics littering the cavern walls. The tomb inside the burial chamber bears Osiris’ life story on the outside, implying the grave, and subsequently, the tomb belongs to the ancient god.
Since Osiris is Anubis’ father/creator, his death brought on Anubis’ wrath, which he expelled on the human folk around the town. Anubis dearly wanted to join his father in the afterlife. Yet, he knew his heart was impure. According to Egyptian beliefs, after one dies, they are tried for their goodness during the final judgment, which decides if they should achieve resurrection or damnation. Therefore, Anubis needed a pure heart to reach the heavens like this father.
As such, Anubis started hunting the humans, taking their hearts for judgment to capture a pure one and ensure his own passage. Consequently, the townspeople trapped the god inside his father’s pyramid, sealing him inside. Over the years, whenever someone like the Freemasons has stepped foot inside the pyramid, Anubis killed them and took their hearts. Centuries later, Anubis is still on the same task, with his sight on two more victims, Fitzie and Nora.
Does Nora Escape From The Pyramid?
By the end, Nora and Fitzie are the only two individuals left alive inside the pyramid, with Anubis actively hunting after them. Still, the two manage to evade him for a while as they re-enter the burial chamber. Nora tries to look for clues inside the room to aid their exit since Shadid must have entered the pyramid through an opening of some kind.
Deciphering the chamber’s ornate ceiling with stars and constellations decorating its surface, Nora follows the Sirius star, a symbol for the three-sided pyramid. Thus, she finds the air shaft with a flimsy ladder descending from the top. The duo arms themselves with Shadid’s gun and Miles’ flare device and begin their climb up the ladder. Nevertheless, Anubis soon finds his way to them and proves to be much quicker with the ladder than either of them.
Fitzie tries to shoot at the god but ends up getting dragged down the shaft while his camera captures bits and pieces of his mauling. Meanwhile, Nora continues her pursuit for escape and even manages to overpower the half-jackal god by startling him with her flare, sending him flying down. Yet, just as she clings onto the shaft’s opening, finally on even ground, Anubis drags her back inside.
The next time Nora awakes, she’s tied to a sarcophagus, with Fitzie lying dead by her feet. Moments later, Anubis comes up to her, ready to rip her heart out for his judgment. Should Nora’s heart be pure, Anubis will finally be reunited with his creator, and if not, it can serve as another meal for the god. Nonetheless, before death could pierce its way into Nora’s chest, she frees herself from the rope’s hold with her hidden blade and slashes at the God in front of her, running for her freedom.
This time, when Nora runs from Anubis, the pyramid’s creatures somehow come to her rescue, piling up over Anubis and holding him off. As a result, Nora is able to climb all the way out of the shaft and make her way partway through the cavern. Still, her consciousness gives out soon, and when she regains it, a little boy is standing in front of her, peering curiously at her severely injured face.
The beam of light from outside serves as a beacon of hope, but it goes out quickly when Anubis emerges from the pyramid using the same shaft. The film ends with the god lunging at the kid, claiming his heart. In the end, whether or not the kid’s heart is pure enough for Anubis to pass into the afterlife remains a mystery. Yet, if the heart fails, it is likely that Anubis will flee into the outside world, wreaking havoc until he finds what he wants.
