Director:
Peter Hyams

Screenplay:
Amy Holden Jones, John Raffo, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

Cast:
Penelope Ann Miller, Tome Sizemore, Linda Hunt, James Whitmore

Horror/Thriller, USA/UK/Germany/Japan/New Zealand
1997, 110 minutes, colour, Original English Language

Cult classic, creature feature movie horror doesn’t get any better than this! THE RELIC takes the traditional formula – nasty monster on the loose, a sealed location, characters split up and ready to become monster munch until the hero defeats it – and serves it up with such verve and elan a good and gruesome time is guaranteed for all!

Things go, of course, monstrously wrong when a researcher at Chicago’s Natural History Museum returns from South America with some sealed crates. The police first discover grisly murders on the ship that brought them to the US. Then there is a murder at the museum itself. Detective Lt. Vincent D’Agosta (a perfectly cast Tom Sizemore “Pearl Harbor”) enlists the help of Dr. Margo Green (a spot-on Penelope Ann Miller “Along Came A Spider”). What they don’t know is that something very large and nasty is prowling around and getting ready to spoil in a very big way a benefit reception for the city’s mayor and high society.

Keeping its ace up its sleeve, that is its monster in the shadows, THE RELIC builds its tension and scares expertly, helped by fi rst rate camerawork and creature effects. Fans who like their monster meat rare and bloody will not be disappointed either. Writers, director and cast play the story straight, too, resisting the usual genre urge to go for humour and even satire.

THE RELIC is a film that delivers its fun by the bucket load. It respects the clichés, treating them seriously for the fans while opening them up to newcomers. This is a film made by and for those who know and love such material. Will you ever be able to visit a museum again?