The '90s has spawned a fresh approach to the classic horror flick. An obscure space creature, an Amazon beast, or a genetic freak terrorizes a group of top scientists, some of whom show insurmountable courage in the face of the horrific creature, while the weaslley scientists of the lot end up facing a creatively bloody end in the gooey maw of the beast. The heroes outdo the creature, and it faces an equally creative demise.
A string of such plots has riddled the cinema of the decade, with such hits as "Alien3", "Species", and mega-hit "Jurassic Park," and misses like "Screamers", "Carnosaur" and "The Arrival."
While the newest flim of the genre, "The Relic", may be easily dismissed as belonging to the latter category, don't be fooled. In fact, "The Relic" actually breaks the mold. Building up gradual suspense, with gradual hints to the beast's origin, and judiciously dispersed bodies, the film masterfully weaves the best of all the above-named movies (including the "misses") into a suspense-packed wild-ride of a horror classic.
The film stars Penelope Anne Miller as the sexy, super-smart Dr. Green, and evolutionary biologist at the Chicago Museum of Natural History. A colleague studying an obscure satanic Brazilian tribe sends the museum leaves with a bizarre red bacteria on them, before he dissappears into the cargo-hold of a merchant freighter. The bacteria hold the key to an evil, insect-lizard creature capable and willing of ripping the head of any unfortunate person unlucky enough to stumble across its path.
A few days later, a gala fund-raiser (tuxedos only, please) opens at the museum despite the recent decapitations of several museum workers. The rest of the plot? All hell breaks loose. What more needs to be said when a seven-foot lizard (the "Cathoda" beast) with a hunger for human brains meets our mishmashed band of heroic scientists and Chicago Police detectives?
A movie like this doesn't need great acting, although Miller and Tom Sizemore (police Lt. D'Agosta) put in notable performances as the two lead characters.
Computer animation is used when necessary, and plaster-cast latex heads are used in the film often, as the script calls for more decapitated heads than a bowling alley has bowling balls.
I wouldn't recommend viewing this movie with a date or young sibling. Very graphic and very bloody, the film could cause many feeble old people to sieze up in cardiac arrest.
But if you are in the need of a severe adrenaline rush, a good scare, or just some wholesome suspense, few movies offer as much of all three as "The Relic."
But keep in mind, it's just a movie. It's nothing to lose your head over.