Be careful what you drink
While in South America an anthropologist named John Whitney (Lewis Van Bergen) drinks a potion during a tribal ritual. While on a boat coming back with some artifacts for The Museum of Natural History in Chicago he turns into a monster. Before he left South America he sent two crates to the museum. In the crates were some type of leaves native to South America.
The ship is found floating, the crew dead. The dead are missing part of their brains. The hypothalamus. The crates with the leaves are sent to the museum. A security guard at the museum is murdered. And like the people on the boat he is missing part of his brain. The hypothalamus.
Lt. Vincent D'Agosta (Tom Sizemore) is assigned to the murders. He talks to Whitney's co-workers at the museum. Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller) is a evolutionary biologist at the museum and one of Whitney's co-workers. On one of the leaves is some kind of fungus. Margo is trying find out what the fungus is and how does it relate to the monster that is terrorizing the museum.
Meanwhile, the Museum busy preparing for the grand opening of a new exhibit which explores the origins of superstition. More people die. The museum's special opening is going to have lots of rich people coming. Oooh.
"Relic" was released in 1997 and was directed Peter Hyams. I liked this one. Mainly because it had a good looking monster called “The Kothoga”. It was done by Stan Winston so what do you expect? In addition it’s (sorta) based on a story by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Throw in a little Tom Sizemore as the lead, with Linda Hunt and James Whitmore in tow and you have a winner in my book.
The movie itself is awfully dark. More so than it should be. It was annoying at times. When there’s a monster I wanna see it. And, like I said, this one is a good one. Unfortunately it doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but when it’s there its great. There is a lot of suspense, tension and mayhem balanced out with some humor. Good actors and good acting. You even get to see the Kothoga feel up a woman. It’s a great movie but I’m afraid it will lose some people because they can’t see what’s going on.