Surprisingly, both The Relic and The Fury had a few things in common: First, both are primarily set in Chicago; Second, both heroines say "you go to hell!" before the big baddie explodes; Third, both of these movies fucking suck!
The relic starts out with an anthropologist photographing an indigenous Brazilian tribe during a ritual. At one point he is handed a cup of something to drink which he does without question. Now, I know this is a horror movie but there's still that part of me that thinks that he is the dumbest person ever for just blindly drinking something that no one else has had yet. This of course leads to a terrible psychoactive response and he cowers on the floor of a hut crying and hiding from the Kothoga (a.k.a. Mbwun) while the tribes people kind of fuck with him.
Eventually he stows away on a ship that he thinks the items he bought and/or stole from the tribe are on, only to realize they're not. He breaks down and the camera shows a ton of crates still on the dock as the ship leaves. How the dock workers missed something like 15 big crates I'll never know, but this movie needed something to add plot because up until now I haven't cared. This is a trend that will continue through this movie. Not the poor plot progression, just that I couldn't be bothered to care.
So the ship arrives, everyone is dead with their heads cut off. We meet our detective and are instantly made aware of his obsession with luck and superstitions. This works out great because guess what the Chicago Museum is about to open a giant exhibit about? Which is a total lie as none of the things in the exhibit are superstitions! They're all the religions of other cultures past and present from across the world. There is a statue of Pan and a door which has an orphic egg and the veve for Baron Samedi on it as well as some other symbols some set designer stole from a sacred symbols book. It's the most bullshit and offensive thing in this movie next to when the one professor makes a comment that totally ignores the religion of the Brazilian tribe and puts it into the catholic mythology.
To once again pull from my notes, the description I have of the exhibit is as follows:
"What faux pagan bullshit is this? Orphic Egg, Ghede veve, tribal shit, jungle, pyramid, Pan? Bullshit superstitions exhibit!"
Anyway, crates arrive, one is full of leaves that have some strange fungus/parasite on them and the crate and leaves are ordered to be burned... except our heroine, Dr. Margo Green (whose name I had to IMDB because I didn't remember) decides that keeping a few in a fridge is a smart idea. Everyone is fucking up in this movie in the worst ways.
From here comes the best anti-drug PSA when the night security guard goes to the bathroom for a little "smoke break." He only gets about three hits in when the monster grabs him, pulls him into the next stall, bites his head off, and eats his hypothalamus. Actually this might be a PSA against hooking up in men's rooms too.
I'm skipping to the end now because the rest is pointless and I was so far from being entertained with this movie I can't be bothered to write about it. The monster eats the fungus/parasite on the leaves to live and the same chemical is in the human hypothalamus. A gala happens and it's an all-you-can-eat-rich-asshole buffet for the Kothoga. We finally see the monster, and if you ever saw the first Ghostbusters movie, then think of the demon dog things that Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver turn into, with the mouth of a Predator, but not as cool as it sounds. Margo eventually covers a lab in chemicals, makes a bomb with science, and blows the thing up while hiding in a water tank meant to rot the flesh off of specimens. Oh, P.S. the monster was the original anthropologist transformed from drinking that stupid shit I said at the very beginning he shouldn't have drank!
I can't picture myself liking this if I had seen it when it came out, but I also had questionable taste in music and film then, so I might have really liked it and hated myself for it later. Every character in this film can fuck off on a flaming rocket ship into the sun. This movie made me want to watch Ghostbusters which is a far superior film with great story telling, plot, and characters. The Relic is a turd sandwich on a paper plate that's been left in a locked car with the windows up on a hot day.
I give this movie one Kothoga statue out of five:
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