In the mid 80s, audiences were hungry for heroes in the mould of Indiana Jones. Films featuring Sherlock Holmes were quite out-of-fashion. People expected a hero with a bit of dash and a penchant for action; not a meticulous, stuffy, ultra-intelligent sleuth. Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear is an unusual hybrid, because it takes the period trappings of a Holmes mystery and dresses them up with Indy-style action and mysticism.
The story has young student doctor John Watson arriving at a boarding school in Victorian London. He meets, for the very first time, a brilliant young student named Sherlock Holmes and they rapidly become friends. At the same time, a series of bizarre murders have been going on close to the school. In each case, people have had terrible hallucinations and in desperate states of panic have inadvertently killed themselves. Holmes and Watson investigate, and uncover an ancient cult which is responsible for the killings.
The film has its share of problems. For one thing, purists will know that the very first meeting of Holmes and Watson was described at the start of the book A Study in Scarlet, and didn't take place in a school. Some of the performances are overly hammy, particularly Freddie Jones in yet another of his wild-eyed characterisations. The idea of a huge pyramid being ingeniously concealed beneath a London warehouse is hard to swallow (surely someone would have noticed them building a construction of this size in such a tightly-packed city). However, the problems can be forgiven because the film moves at a lively pace and is invested with lots of clever dialogue and stirring action. There's even a touch of humour (something lacking from the original Conan Doyle novels). One scene in particular is most amusing, when young Watson is shot with an hallucinatory dart and imagines an army of living cream buns jumping into his mouth! The climactic duel on the ice is very excitingly staged too. There's also a surprisingly downbeat event at the end which thankfully strips the film of the typical 80s sentimentality. This is agreeable and entertaining stuff.
