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The Relic
A homicide detective teams up with an evolutionary biologist to hunt a giant creature that is killing people in a Chicago museum.
1997 · Directed by Peter Hyams · 110 min · Horror · Mystery · Thriller · Science Fiction · Screenplay in the scene database · 13 frames
Tagline
They did the unthinkable. They brought it back.
Plot
John Whitney, an anthropologist for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, studies a tribe in South America and drinks a soup made by the tribesmen. Shortly after, Whitney accosts a merchant ship captain, asking him to remove the cargo he had intended to send to Chicago from the ship. Unwilling to delay the ship's departure, the captain refuses, and Whitney sneaks aboard. Unable to find his cargo, he cries out.
Six weeks later, the ship arrives on Lake Michigan with its crew missing. Chicago PD homicide detective Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta and his partner, Sergeant Hollingsworth, investigate the ship and find dozens of corpses in the bilge.
Another seven days later, Margo Green, an evolutionary biologist, arrives at work at the museum and discovers that co-worker Greg Lee is applying for the same research grant she is, after he had gotten one for himself already. After their arrival by air, Margo and her mentor, Albert Frock, examine Whitney's crates and find them empty, except for a bed of leaves and a stone statue of the "Kothoga", a mythical forest monster. Margo notices a fungus on the leaves and sends it for analysis; the remaining leaves are incinerated. That night, security guard Frederick Ford is killed like the ship's crew by an unseen creature. D'Agosta suspects a connection. Believing the killer is still inside the museum, he orders it closed until the police have finished searching. Ann Cuthbert, the museum director, protests and mentions a critical upcoming exhibition.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Amy Holden Jones, John Raffo, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
- Cinematography: Peter Hyams
- Edited by: Steven Kemper
- Music: John Debney
- Production design: Philip Harrison
- Produced by: Gale Anne Hurd, Sam Mercer
Cast
- Penelope Ann Miller as Dr. Margo Green
- Tom Sizemore as Lt. Vincent D'Agosta
- Linda Hunt as Dr. Ann Cuthbert
- James Whitmore as Dr. Albert Frock
- Clayton Rohner as Det. Hollingsworth
- Chi Muoi Lo as Dr. Greg Lee
- Thomas Ryan as Tom Parkinson
- Robert Lesser as Mayor Robert Owen
- Diane Robin as The Mayor's Wife
- Lewis van Bergen as John Whitney
Production
- Country: Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Mutual Film Company, Paramount Pictures, TOHO-TOWA, Pacific Western
- Budget: $60,000,000
- Box office: $33,956,608
- Themes: chicago, illinois, monster, based on novel or book, museum, amazon rainforest, pile of dead bodies, god, dead body, creature, anthropologist
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