Horror Happenings! – Quietly celebrating 28 years of THE RELIC (1997)

I always thought that THE RELIC got a bad rap. It was a fun popcorn movie that sported a hell of a monster, courtesy of Stan Winston. However, the film had a lot of things going against it, so let us count off its three main problems, shall we?

First, its leading man was Tom Sizemore, who had a very public struggle with drug dependency. Second, the budget (reportedly around $50 million) unwisely hurled at the film’s production was immense, especially for a 1990s creature feature. Third, I distinctly remember Paramount pushing back the release date at least twice, with the flick finally opening on January 10th, 1997 (belying the prominent “1996” date on many of its promotional materials).

Considering these factors, THE RELIC ultimately suffered a predictable fate and was shuffled off to video soon after where it hopefully turned a profit by the end of the year. A lot of horror fans wrote it off in the wake of its disappointing theatrical run, but it’s probably time to check it out again after all these years. There’s a lot of fun stuff in there, and it seemingly set the stage for the later success of histrionic monster melees like THE HOST (2006), CLOVERFIELD (2008), and even the recent crowd pleaser, GODZILLA MINUS ONE (2023).

#horrorhappenings #therelic #paramountpictures #tomsizemore #stanwinston #thehost #cloverfield #godzillaminusone