I had another one of those urges to watch a film I hadn’t seen in a while yesterday, so last night I watched:
The Relic (1997)
If you haven’t seen it, it’s a horror/sci-fi/thriller starring Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan), Penelope Ann Miller (Kindergarten Cop), Linda Hunt (also Kindergarten Cop) and James Whitmore (The Shawshank Redemption) among others.
It’s based on the 1995 horror novel of the same name by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
This is what it’s about:
When a series of gruesome murders lead a detective (Sizemore) to a museum preparing to unveil its new exhibition, he and the museum’s resident evolutionary biologist (Miller) begin to suspect the killer is anything but human.
This is another movie that doesn’t have a great rating on IMDb but is more than worth a watch in my opinion.
It’s a bit of a comfort movie for me (gore aside) but unfortunately I think it’s a film that often gets forgotten about.
I remember someone saying to me years ago before I’d seen it that it wasn’t very good and that you hardly see the monster throughout the whole film.
To be fair they weren’t wrong about the last part but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Part of what makes Jaws so good is that you don’t really see the shark for most of the film. I’m not saying this movie is as good as Jaws but I really like it.
The story’s original, it has gore, thrills, suspense and a monster who feeds on people’s brains (or hypothalamuses to be more precise).
It’s also another one of those good, honest feeling 90s movies. I say “honest” because it seems like back then they made films because they had a story worth telling, rather than throwing any crap out just to make money regardless of whether it was any good or not.
Is it the best monster movie you’ll ever watch? Probably not but it’s certainly worth 1 hour and 50 minutes of your time.
If you’re after something to watch this weekend and fancy a bit of a creature-feature/mystery/thriller, why not give this one a whirl?
Seen it? Let me know.