The Relic (1997)

 

This is, perhaps surprisingly, a film that has nothing to do with a relic. Talk about false advertising.

Okay, okay, there is a relic in the film, but it is a massive McGuffin and has no real bearing on the plot. What we do get, is a fun 'creature-running-amok' film that still stands the test of time. 

Perhaps some of the few CG shots are dated, this is true, but when you get Stan Winston Studios to provide the creature you know it will look good. Add to that solid directing from Peter Hyams and a cast of decent medium-level stars who do their best with what their given and 'The Relic' holds up fairly well.

The stage is set right from the get-go: a man visiting a tribe in the Amazon rainforest gets some weird brew to drink after which he begins to hallucinate and becomes very afraid of a thing called the 'Kothoga'. 

Fast forward a little and the same man is in a panic at the docks where he is desperate to find crates marked for a museum in Chicago. He eventually stows away and then it's off to the museum, where we meet our lead dr Margo, an evolutionary biologist. She is desperate for a grant to continue her work, but a douchebag of a colleague constantly swipes away her money. She hopes a massive charity ball at the museum will help sway some benefactors. There's this new exhibit about superstition, which again doesn't really factor into the plot all that much.

Except our other lead is a highly superstitious police lieutenant, who is puzzled by a ship from Brazil that was brought in and where the crew is missing. 

Yes, this is the exact same ship from the beginning. 

They do eventually find some of the crew. Well, some bits and pieces of the crew would be more precise and when a security guard gets brutally slain in the museum, they're on the hunt for a psychotic killer. But little do they know there is something that likes to go bump in the night...

The plot is based on a novel by the same name and in all fairness: it is rather silly. But then again, so are most creature stories. You get a big dose of superstition, religion and scientific mumbo jumbo thrown together and voila! But that doesn't take away from the fact that this is still an entertaining horrorfilm, that is much better at delivering scares than one might assume. A lot is happening in the dark and before one can protest that it is too dark: no it isn't. Peter Hyams uses shadows and darkness to amp up the atmosphere of something lurking and for a big chunk after the initial reveal, the creature is actually visible. It's a bit tough to accurately describe, something like a cross between a lizard, a lion and then a face that is supposed to resemble an arachnid but which has Predator-vibes.

I'm guessing it's the mandibles.

Now where this creature comes from and what it wants is absolutely hilarious if you think about it and the explanation why it does what it does makes almost no sense, but that's not why we're here, is it? There are some gruesome kills and most of the prosthetics look really good (one or two iffy shots notwithstanding). The climax is perhaps a bit underwhelming, but by that point you will have had quite the ride. 

Also: the entire film (well, almost) takes place in a museum, so how's that for a cool location?

'The Relic' is a film that needs to be rediscovered and to this day it remains a great watch if you can set your brain to a lower setting and not question the pseudo-science involved.