The Relic

Original title: Das Relikt

1997
R
1h 50m

IMDb RATING

5.8/10

31K

YOUR RATING

Home Video Trailer from Paramount Home Entertainment

Play trailer0:31

1 Video

90 Photos

Horror Mystery Sci-Fi Thriller

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.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.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.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.8/10

31K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 4 nominations

Videos1

Trailer 0:31

The Relic

Photos90

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Because the novel portrayed the museum's administration in an unflattering light, they turned the film's producers down. Paramount Pictures offered the museum a seven-figure sum of money to film there, but the administration was worried that the monster movie would scare kids away from the museum. The producers were faced with a problem as only museums in Chicago and Washington, D.C., resembled the one in New York. The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago loved the premise and allowed them to shoot there.

Goofs
In the book by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, the monster has been in the museum's subbasement for around seven years, making the lair filled with either partially or fully decomposed skeletons completely plausible. However, in the movie they change the duration to only six weeks. The lair they find in the movie with tons of skeletons doesn't connect with the time it took for them to become that decomposed.

Quotes
[Lt. D'Agosta joins the talkative Dr. Zwiezic at the morgue for the autopsy of Frederick Ford]
Dr. Zwiezic: Lieutenant D'Agosta, it's lovely to see you under such alarming circumstances. 7 decapitations in one week. Don't you just hate someone who only takes head and never gives it?
Lt. Vincent D'Agosta: You're bad, Matilda. Real bad.
Dr. Zwiezic: Autopsy attended by Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, Chicago homicide. I heard your ex got custody of the dog.
Lt. Vincent D'Agosta: Is it on the goddamn internet?
Dr. Zwiezic: You shouldn't have been late on your ALPO payments.
[D'Agosta chuckles]
Dr. Zwiezic: We have an African-American male, probably age 55 - 60. Height 5'4" - with his head maybe 6'1". Weight 160, give or take, if you know what I mean. There are an undetermined number of lacerations proceeding from the left anterior pectoral region downwards through the sternum, terminating at the right anterior abdominal region. Pectoralis minor and pectoralis major are separated to a great degree, and there is spontaneous dehiscence. The sternal process has been split and the ribcage exposed. Now for the head. The head is decapitated between the axial process and the atlas. The entire occipital portion of the calvarium and half the parietal process has been crushed, or rather seemingly punched through and removed, leaving a hole perhaps 5 inches in diameter. The skull is empty. The entire brain appears to have fallen out or been extracted through this hole.
Lt. Vincent D'Agosta: Any idea about a weapon?
Dr. Zwiezic: [Dr. Zwiezic replies dramatically] Something big.
[Lt. D'Agosta chuckles]
Dr. Zwiezic: The brain is severely traumatized and appears to have been severed at the medulla oblongata. The pons varolii is intact but separate. The cerebrum has been completely separated from the mesencephalon, and... Hey! Hey, wait a minute. This brain is light, even for a man. Something's missing, Lieutenant. Where's the rest of it?
Lt. Vincent D'Agosta: We got everything we found.
Dr. Zwiezic: There is no thalamic region. There is no pituitary gland.
Lt. Vincent D'Agosta: What are you talking about?
Dr. Zwiezic: The thalamus and hypothalamus regulate body temperature, blood pressure, heartbeat. It regulates hundreds of hormones into the bloodstream. Don't you agree, Fred?
Coroner's Assistant: Yes.
Dr. Zwiezic: He never shuts up.
Lt. Vincent D'Agosta: [Lt. D'Agosta smirks] Hmm.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Fierce Creatures/Metro/In Love and War/Prefontaine/The Relic (1997)

Soundtracks
Sunrise
String Qartet in B Flat Major
Written by Joseph Haydn (as F.J. Haydn)
Performed by Kodaly Quartet
Courtesy of Naxos of America, by arrangement with Source/Q

User reviews246

Review

Featured review

5/10

Monster on the loose in a Chicago museum, but it's too dark (literally)

Released in 1997, "The Relic" stars Penelope Ann Miller and Tom Sizemore as a biologist and detective in Chicago who team up after a series of brutal deaths at the Chicago museum where the former works. James Whitmore, Linda Hunt and Chi Muoi Lo co-star as scientists at the museum.

This is a gory monster movie made with a whopping budget and an intriguing sci-fi concept concerning the creature, but it's hindered by bad lighting and bland characters. As far as the former goes, this is one of the darkest movies I've ever seen that doesn't take place in a cave. Regarding the latter, Sizemore is good, but Miller is only serviceable with the rest of the characters being merely okay. I suppose it doesn't help that the story lacks dramatic drive. People laud the film for not throwing in a romantic subplot between the protagonists, but SOMETHING needed done to make it more compelling. How about throwing in some teens visiting the museum – something! Nevertheless, there are some legitimate scares, the kills are utterly savage and the monster, location and sets are good.

The film runs 110 minutes and was shot at the awesome Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, with interior/studio work done in Los Angeles.

GRADE: C