The Relic (1997)

March 18, 2023 8:32 PM

A homicide detective and an anthropologist try to destroy a South American lizard-like god, who's on a people eating rampage in a Chicago museum.

Streaming on Amazon Prime but leaves in 14 days. Just Watch listing.

Possible trigger warning: this is an extremely dark film (literally, not tonally) and there are a lot of flashing lights and lights shone abruptly at the screen.

posted by skycrashesdown (7 comments total)

Forgot to add - for folks sensitive to this sort of thing, a dog is killed.
posted by skycrashesdown at 8:54 PM on March 18

It was so great to see James Whitmore in this film. (Spoiler!) His character dies in exactly the same manner as he did in the classic Them!.
posted by SPrintF at 9:36 PM on March 18

Oh my gosh, I haven't thought about this movie in ages.
posted by Kitteh at 4:52 AM on March 19

This was an OK thriller, but I left feeling some scenes had been chopped out. Most notably, I definitely got the sense when the beast confronted Penelope Ann Miller that there was some (probably unpleasant) history between them from their days as colleagues.
posted by mark k at 9:18 AM on March 19

I remember liking this more than I thought I would, and especially liking the creature design and like the way it moved and stuff.
Granted, I haven’t seen it since it came out on VHS, so maybe I’m due a rewatch.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 11:13 AM on March 19

I've been a sucker for this movie since I saw it in theaters. It's doofy as hell, but well-crafted doofy. Peter Hyams could direct the shit out of a movie. As usual Tom Sizemore is a lot of fun. Total piece of crap in real life, obviously.

I will say it's weird to me that it cut out the co-lead character of the novel, Aloysius Pendergast, a brilliant FBI agent from New Orleans with a completely inaccurate accent. Basically Benoit Blanc: Monster Hunter. That could have been a hoot. I don't know who I would have cast though.
posted by brundlefly at 5:30 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]

For anyone with access to BBC iPlayer, it seems to have been on there for at least a year.
posted by Fuchsoid at 5:51 PM on March 19