Taglines: What Terrifies You?
The Relic movie storyline. A researcher at Chicago’s Natural History Museum returns from South America with some crates containing his findings. When the crates arrive at the museum without the owner there appears to be very little inside. However, police discover gruesome murders on the cargo ship that brought the crates to the US and then another murder in the museum itself.
Investigating the murders is Lt. Vincent D’Agosta who enlists the help of Dr. Margo Green at the museum – she has taken an interest in the contents of her colleague’s crates. Unknown to both there is a large creature roaming the museum which is gearing itself up for a benefit reception which the city’s mayor is to attend.
The Relic is a 1997 science fiction-horror film directed by Peter Hyams and based on the best-selling novel Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The film stars Penelope Ann Miller, Tom Sizemore, and Linda Hunt. The original music score was composed by John Debney.
The Relic premiered on January 17, 1997. It opened #1 at the box office, grossing $9,064,143 its opening week and a total of $33,956,608 in the US, against an estimated cost $60 million.
About the Production
The Relic was based on the horror novel by Douglas Preston, an ex-journalist and former public relations director for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and Lincoln Child (though it omits their major character, FBI agent Pendergast). 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.
Penelope Ann Miller had not done a horror film prior to The Relic but was drawn to director Peter Hyams’ desire to have a strong, smart female lead. Tom Sizemore was attracted to the film because he got to play the male lead: “I had the responsibility of pushing the narrative forward.”
Makeup artist Stan Winston and his team made three creatures with two people moving the heads and people on the side working the electronics to move the arms, claws, mouth, and so on. Hyams reviewed Winston’s early drawings and his only suggestion was to make the monster more hideous looking. The director also suggested certain invertebrates for inspiration and Winston came up with an arachnoid outline for the monster’s face. In the scenes where the creature is running or jumping, a computer-generated version was used.
In addition to shooting on location in Chicago, a set was built in Los Angeles of a tunnel flooded with water. Sizemore spent most of the shoot either damp, cold or soaking wet and, as a result, caught the flu twice. The production was shut down briefly when Hyams became too sick to work.
The Relic (1997)
Directed by: Peter Hyams
Starring: Penelope Ann Miller, Tom Sizemore, Linda Hunt, James Whitmore, Clayton Rohner, Diane Robin, Lewis Van Bergen, Audra Lindley, Constance Towers
Screenplay by: Amy Holden Jones, John Raffo, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Production Design by: Philip Harrison
Cinematography by: Peter Hyams
Film Editing by: Steven Kemper
Costume Design by: Daniel J. Lester
Set Decoration by: John H. Anderson
Art Direction by: James J. Murakami, Eric Orbom
Music by: John Debney
MPAA Rating: R for monster violence and gore, and for language.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures (US), Universal Pictures (non-US)
Release Date: January 10, 1997
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