Monster Crap Inductee: The Relic (1999)

Monster Crap Inductee: The Relic

Always Be Careful With Your Shipping And Handling

1997

I think we need to specify something based on the past with these October inductions, I am in no way honoring Tom Sizemore with this induction because while he was a talented actor, he was not a good human being. He was a drug addict, domestic abuser, and sadly did some other shit too that I would rather not mention as they are not good. But thankfully, with the movie you chose for me to induct, he was only just addicted to drugs at that point because it is time to go back to the 90s where we were wearing horrible fashion, making really bad spelling on words, and just thinking everything needs guns. Because the movie we are covering this month is The Relic.
 
Now many of you may not know this, but this movie is actually based on a book.
 

In 1995, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child wrote Relic, which was a good enough book that someone in Hollywood decided would make for a great film. Now for the film, they needed to make a few changes like getting rid of this Agent Pendergast character, which is huge because for many fans of Preston and Child, Pendergast was in a whole series of books, including the sequel for this book Reliquary. They also had to change another character, but we’ll get to him later.
 
As for the cast, they decided that for the main character of Vincent D’Agosta, they would hire Tom Sizemore (and this would be Tom Sizemore’s first starring role). Now Tom Sizemore made people notice him with roles like as Michael Cheritto in Heat, Max Pelter in Strange Days, and Detective Jack Scagnetti in Natural Born Killers. For the female lead, Penelope Ann Miller would be hired to play Dr. Margo Green. Penelope Ann Miller was well known for being Joyce in Kindergarten Cop and Gail in Carlito’s Way. As for director, let’s hire the director of Time Cop and Sudden Death in Peter Hyams. Let’s also hire for our elder gentlemen James Whitmore, whose career goes back to the 50s and he was a star in one of the better known 50s monster movies.
 

Yep….He Starred In Them!
 

He Was Also President Of The Assembly In The Original “Planet Of The Apes”
 
We also would also have several Monster Crap alumni in this movie like Robert Lesser (who was Murray in Godzilla (1998)), Lewis Van Bergin (who was Vincent Gallo in Pinocchio’s Revenge),
 

Yep…The Guy Who Killed His Son
 
Montrose Hagins (who was a Farm Woman (that’s the credit) in Critters 2), Ralph Seymour (who was Mark in Ghoulies),
 

Aaron Lustig (who was Dr. Edwards in Pinocchio’s Revenge),
 

Gary Hecker (who did creature vocals for Godzilla (1998)), an uncredited role for Dick Warlock (who was the assassin in Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch),
 

Yep….He Killed The Guy At The Beginning
 
And last because he was in our last induction and was in a monster suit, Brian Steele (who was the Hell Knight in Doom)
 

I Swear This Is Real Coincidence
 
With that said, let’s get to this induction.
 
We begin with a South American tribal event where we get the title to our movie.
 

At this event, we see the natives here making a concoction for a man who is taking photos.
 

This man is an anthropologist for the Natural History Museum in Chicago named John Whitney. And the concoction involves leaves with some sort of fungus on them.
 

John Whitney drinks the concoction given to him because you know, for being a foreign visitor to the natives, you don’t want to be rude and not accept what they offer you.
 

Bottoms Up
 
A native in a straw outfit and facepaint crawls towards him and John here thinks this may be Kothoga (it’s not, you’ll meet him later) but in the book, the thing’s name was Mbwun (meaning “He Who Walks On All Fours”). But they instead changed the tribe to the Mbwun tribe and the monster to Kothuga (meaning Satan Is My Father). By the way, the tribe in the book was known as the Kothuga tribe so complete swap here.
 
Anyway, the native does nothing and Whitney just freaks out. Later at a shipping dock, we find out that we are in Brazil and John Whitney tries to get his stuff off of a merchant ship heading to Chicago.
 

But because of all the delays with customs and crap, the captain is already 8 hours late and with bad weather approaching, he is not taking the stuff off and promises they will be in good hands though. Whitney tries to pay him, but that is a no go. So Whitney decides that he is going to sneak onto the ship and try to get his stuff as the ship leaves. Unfortunately, there is a mix up and his crates were left behind which causes him to yell in anger.
 

Whoopsies…..
 
We then go to Chicago.
 

And I Guess Now Is As Good Of A Time As To Mention This, The Book Has This Take Place At The Natural History Museum In New York City. But Because The Book Did Not Put The Museum In A Glowing Light, They Barred The Crew From Filming There And Wanted To Not Even Be Mentioned. The Producers Had To Choose Something Like That Museum And The Only Two Close Were The One In Chicago And The Smithsonian Natural History Museum In Washington DC. Chicago Loved The Idea And Let Them Shoot There And Thus, That Is Why We Are Now In Chicago And Not New York City.
 
The ship arrives in Chicago 6 weeks later, but much like the Demeter in the Dracula novel and films, the ship has no crew, who have mysteriously vanished. Cops are here to figure out what happened and we are introduced to our male lead character Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta.
 

Vincent is met by Hollingsworth who has something to show him and we already see that D’Agosta is in a bad mood as he had a divorce hearing and he lost Jerry, who we find out was the dog that he loved.
 

As they talk, we already see the ship either has blood around it or someone had a bad day painting. They haven’t been able to find any bodies and Hollingsworth thinks this was a drug hit and all the drugs and crew are gone. And there is a cat jump scare.
 

Oldest Trick In The Book
 
Of course, Vincent wonders if it was a black cat as those give you bad luck (which it wasn’t). That is going to be a recurring bit with Vincent as he has a strong belief in good and bad luck, which will be explained later as to why he has this. They smell something really bad and they find the bodies under the floors in the bilge.
 

And One Of The Bodies Is The Captain
 
After that gruesome discovery, we go to 1 week later where we meet our female lead character, an evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum named Margo Green.
 

There is a school field trip going on and two kids who skipped school elsewhere decide to sneak in with the group of kids so they can sneak in and have some fun in the museum.
 

The Kids Have A Conversation With Margo Which Is Extremely Brief
 
We also meet the security guard named Frederick Ford.
 

Margo then meets with Dr. Ann Cuthburt.
 

Ann tells Margo that her attempt for a grant has now competition from a guy named Greg Lee, who got his grant last time…..but wants another one so he is eyeing the grant she needs to keep her and her crew in business. Ann tells her that she shouldn’t be too worried as she thinks the right person will win the grant from the Blaisedales. Margo goes to her station and Greg is also there. Greg tries to hide, but Margo sees him and has a word with him.
 

Greg seems not to give a shit about her grant needs and is only interested in what he wants. In the book, Greg Lee is actually Gregory Kawakita who actually has a bigger role in the book, but we’ll get to his bigger role near the end. Margo goes by Whitney’s office and sees a bunch of crates there, but no Whitney. She is about to open a crate when Ann and Dr. Albert Frock enter.
 

Albert covers for Margo being there by saying he asked her to be here and we get a sense that they are good friends. Albert explains about the mix-up and that these crates were instead sent by air freight. They show her the Kothoga statue and explain that Kothoga was a guardian of the Mbwun tribe who they summoned to kill their enemies should they ever attack as part of a deal with Satan.
 
Margo hates the funding for John’s expeditions, but they explain that they make the museum more money then they give as they are extremely popular. They reveal that besides the statue, the only thing that was in there were these leaves. Because the leaves have fungus, Frock has the leaves burned so no one gets infected just in case the fungus is contagious. However, Margo takes one because she wants to research it.
 
After the museum closes, the two kids are still there looking at things, but have to hid when a security guard comes to make his rounds. The security guard named Ford goes to the bathroom and opens a window so he can smoke a joint.
 

Unfortunately for him, there is a monster here and it decides that since it saw Reefer Madness, it must get rid of the scourge known as marijuana so it kills the guard.
 

I Kid About The Whole Reefer Madness Stuff, But Ford Does Get Killed.
 
Margo is also still at the museum and she puts some of the fungus in a vial and keeps it for storage to investigate. She puts the rest of the leaf back in the fridge and gets a jump scare from some of her assistants, who are screwing around and pretends to be a skeleton.
 

She gets the hint and allows them to go home. The kids want to leave, but they do not want their parents to know they skipped school so they decide to use stairs to somewhere. Unfortunately, they meet the monster although we don’t see it.
 

The next day at the museum, the police are here as they have found the mutilated body of Frederick Ford. They also find out that the last person who left the building was Margo. Margo gets word from Greg that someone got killed and Margo gets asked by a female cop to come with her as she needs to be interviewed.
 

We Also Find Out The Two Kids Are Alright, But Aren't Saying What They Saw So They Are Useless Witnesses. This Is Different From The Book As In The Book, These Two Delinquents Got Killed As They Are The Murders Being Investigated Instead Of This Security Guard. I Do Not Hate This Change.
 
Unfortunately, Margo goes to talk to D’Agosta just as he is looking at the body and she is horrified.
 

They get Dr. Green out of there and we get more of Vincent’s belief in superstitions as he tells Hollingsworth to walk around a dead body, not over it. Vincent says the museum is not going to open until every room in this museum is cleared so they need to do a sweep. Vincent meets with Ann and their director of security Tom Parkinson.
 

Ann says they need to work in the museum as they need to prepare for the premiere of a special exhibit (the one on Superstitions) tomorrow night. Vincent can only tell them that he is going to do the best he can to make sure the place is clear because they may have a guy who “makes Jeffery Dahmer look like a cub scout”.
 

What You Call Me???
 
So as the police investigate, Vincent talks to Margo and we learn how the use beetles to rip the skin off animals that they just need the bones for. We also find out the beetle cage was left open so some beetles might have escaped. Vincent apologizes that she saw that mutilation at the crime scene and Margo talks about how she said hello to Frederick for the past 6 years. She sees a penny and is about to pick it up, but Vincent says that penny has its tails side facing up so that is bad luck to pick it up. Margo doesn’t believe in superstition so she picks it up anyway. We then see the storage areas of the museum, which is why they really want those three museums as they have storage areas for exhibits not on display as most museums don’t have room for that. Vincent asks about John Whitney as his office was vandalized last night and she says she sadly knows him. I have a feeling that there was a bit of mention of Margo and John having a past relationship which was left off the cutting room floor (although I have no proof of such) based on actions later in the film and based on how Margo talks about John.
 
They go to a place that restores relics to their original look and we see woman working there saying the relic look like some chimera. Vincent is then explained that a chimera is a combination of creatures into one that ancient cultures saw as gods or enemies. Vincent then gets beeped and leaves as he has another matter to deal with. He leaves Margo with his card if she thinks of anything else.
 
Vincent heads to the morgue where he is met by the crime lab coroner named Matilda Zwiezac.
 

She Makes A Joke About How Much It Sucks When Someone Takes Head And Refuses To Give A Little Back. Also Hi, Helen Roper From Three’s Company.
 
During the talk about how this murder happened, Vincent asks what could cause this and all Matilda has is that it was something big. We then discover that part of the brain is missing so this creature may be eating parts of the brain, which is why the brain might have been separated from the rest of the body.
 
Back in Margo’s office, she is looking through the DNA structure of the fungus from that leaf. Unbeknownst to her, a beetle gets on the leaf.
 

She then puts the leaf back into the container and puts that back in the fridge as she heads out. As she leaves, she investigates the Superstition exhibit that will apparently be a big event which the museum really wants to premiere on time. Some of the stuff in there are ladders (maybe going under them or not), black cats, open umbrellas indoors, and statues from ancient cultures.
 

And Mummies
 
Meanwhile, see Vincent call Hollingsworth and asks him to see if any of the decapitated bodies from the ship also have parts of the brain missing as they may have a pattern. And of course, he always would like to know how someone gets custody of a dog. Well, I can answer that as many people who have pets raise them like children and thus, courts sometimes treat them like children as to who is best for the dog and thus gets custody of them.
 
Back at the museum, Margo hears snarls from some kind of creature so she decides that she better get the hell out of there. She goes into the bathroom and hides in the stall while standing on the toilet because she thinks the creature is in the bathroom with her.
 

But It Is Just The Custodian Who Has Asthma
 
The red carpet is being rolled out for the premiere of the Superstition exhibit. Vincent sees the effort being prepared for the premiere and tells Ann he does hope the premiere does happen, which she says she does as well. We get repeats how this premiere is a big deal and will raise a lot of money for the museum. We do find out that the mayor is coming as well as rich VIPs. Vincent promises that they will find the killer and Ann makes a joke about how if he doesn’t catch the killer, there will be 300 pounds of smoked salmon for him to have to eat.
 
Meanwhile, two cops go through the underground parts of the museum and argue about expressos and lattes. They find a giant footprint with blood so they may be near. Elsewhere, Hollingsworth tells Vincent that all of the bodies on the ship were missing part of the brain and thus a pattern has been created.
 
We then see Margo preparing her speech for the investors in hopes of gaining the grant when she is again talked to by Vincent. He finds out that she studies evolutionary biology and she makes a joke about how only some of us are evolving. Margo thinks he is trying to hit on her, but Vincent really wants more information on John Whitney so Margo takes him to Dr. Frock who knows more about him. Of course both Vincent and Dr. Frock are both superstitious so they get along fine. Dr. Frock talks about the relic that John Whitney brought back and says it may expound upon a theory he has had for some time, which is the Callisto Effect. He explains while evolution may mostly help better species, sometimes there are evolutionary mutations that are hideous and create short lived species. The Callisto Effect is not real and made up for this movie and the book it is based off of. Vincent then asks about the issue of eating out parts of the brain and everyone is confused so he says never mind.
 
We go back to the two cops looking underground. A homeless bum runs at them and they shoot him to kingdom come.
 

They find out that the homeless man was a convicted rapist who is also a suspect in a couple of murders so they think they have their killer, but Vincent is not so sure. Tom Parkinson thinks they also have the killer and wants the cops to leave so they can do the exhibit. Vincent is not convinced this is the killer so Tom has to call the mayor to tell Vincent to let the exhibit happen.
 

The mayor explains how this premiere gala is very important to him, his wife (who has a dress that shows off her cleavage apparently (cleavage that “won him the election”)), and his donors so it needs to happen. Tom has a shit eating grin because he knows the party is going on, but Vincent says he is only allowing the party to be open, but the rest of the museum will be closed during it. He then tells Hollingsworth he wants to do another sweep with dogs before the premiere.
 
Back in Margo’s office, she hears movement in the container. She opens it and out comes a giant mutant beetle.
 

She smashes the beetle with a book and now she has something else to investigate.
 

She dissects the beetle and makes a discovery that the beetle got mutated by eating the fungus that was on the leaf. She goes to ask Greg Lee about some of the DNA found on the beetle. He explains that some of the DNA she found in the beetle is gecko DNA, but he thinks it is a mix-up of some kind. Meanwhile, the relic that was found by John Whitney has been fully restored.
 

Greg tries to warn Margo that they are about to close down the wings soon, but she is still too busy looking at her sample. The premiere gala then begins while Vincent and his cops bring the dogs in to make a sweep. Dr. Frock now has to tell Margo to get ready for the gala and she now decides to change into her gala dress while Frock looks at the sample. She talks about how the beetle ate the fungus and turned into the giant he sees before him. She also explains about how there is reptilian DNA and knows that there is a virus in the fungus, but why would the virus be able to change the DNA.
 
Some of the guests at the gala show up like the mayor and his wife.
 

Yeah….No Offense, But I’m Not Sure How That Cleavage “Won Him The Election”
 
At Margo’s office, they make the discovery that whatever feeds on the fungus needs the hormones secreted from a piece of the brain (the hypothalamus) to survive. At the gala, we meet the Blaisedales.
 

Greg Lee hears the Blaisedales and decides to make his pitch. He also decides to be a dick and say he was the last one to leave the offices so they are locked down, leaving Margo and Dr. Frock trapped so he can make his pitch to them without interruption.
 

Asshole….
 
Margo and Dr. Frock go to find another way into the main room. Back in the tunnels, the dogs see something and go after it, escaping their handlers hold on their leashes. Due to the dark, we don’t see much, but we do hear one of the dogs getting killed.
 

Don’t Worry, Maili…..You Thankfully Won’t Have To Deal With Any Mean Monsters, Mostly Because I Can’t Trust You To Do Anything
 
The handler obviously loves the dog so he goes after them while Vincent tells Hollingsworth that now they definitely need to close the museum because the killer is obviously still in the museum. It is time for the gala guests to go into the Superstition exhibit as we see what happens to a guy who goes off on his own after his still alive dog.
 

Good News: He Finds The Dog
Bad News: He Gets Killed And The Dog Does Nothing To Save Him
 
Oh and the cops find a whole bunch of bones so this killer has been killing homeless people as well.
 

They Also Find The Handler’s Head So They Know What Happened To Him
 
Vincent also may have made a new dog friend in the surviving dog.
 

The tour goes to the relic that John Whitney found and Ann tells the tourists all about the devil god Kothoga. Hollingsworth and his partner barge in and have to explain the bad news that the museum is being closed because a killer is still on the loose. People start running scared as there is also blood dripping on guests and a body falls on some sharp spears.
 

Unfortunately because of glass being broken and museum security, the museum itself ends up being sealed up.
 

Some People Escape, But Our Characters With Names All Are Stuck
 
All the lights are also out and the sprinklers start bringing down the water.
 

At Least It’s Water Spraying And Not Corrosive Acid Like In Netflix’s “The Fall Of The House Of Usher” Series
 
One of the security guards tries to go to the breakers to get things fixed, but the breakers have been all destroyed. Tom calls the control room and all he gets is that someone trashed backup generators. The guards in the control room then gets killed.
 

The Roars Are The Only Thing We Get To Know That It Is Curtains For The Second Guy.
 
Hollingsworth (under orders from Vincent, who doesn’t give a crap what the mayor says) says they might need to go through the basement as there may be an underground tunnel to lead to an escape across the street, but Tom thinks they should stay here until they get rescued despite Vincent on the radio saying they will die if they stay put. Ann finds Tom to be a coward and fires him. Still, Tom, The Blaisedales (as Mrs. Blaisedale cant go down stairs), and Greg Lee (because the Blaisedales are staying) decide to stay. Hollingsworth then leaves a cop with them as the rest attempt to go through the tunnels.
 
Meanwhile, Vincent runs into Margo and Dr. Frock and the monster shows up as well, which makes the dog run for it. Vincent closes the door so the monster cant get it. Vincent wonders what that was and Dr. Frock says he thinks that was the so-called Kothoga as Whitney must have found it somehow somewhere and sent it back. Frock wishes Whitney gave them warning if he was going to bring something back so monstrous. Margo then explains that in the crates were leaves with the fungus and whatever eats the fungus turns into a monster that needs hormones from the hypothalamus to survive. She thinks this monster started out as something else before the fungus changed it. She then picks up some saliva that was on the ground.
 

Frock believes that this shows how the tribe got the Kothoga using the fungus and then it got to a certain size, they would stop feeding it so it would attack the enemies to get the hormones. Margo says they need to get back to her lab/office so she can see what this monster is. Frock says he’ll stay behind as he will never get up the stairs and would only hold them back. Meanwhile, we see the authorities have arrived outside the museum.
 
At Margo’s lab/office, she puts the sample into her machine and they have to wait for we get to hear about a bullet that Vincent has kept as a keepsake.
 

He says that when he was a rookie on the beat, he saw a guy who had locked his keys in his car with the motor running. He was using a clothes hanger to try and get it open. Vincent went over to try and help this guy out, but what he didn’t know is this guy had just robbed a liquor store so when he saw a police officer coming towards him, he freaked out and pulled a gun out. He tried to shoot Vincent point blank range, but the gun didn’t fire. Vincent then took the gun away and beat the shit out of the criminal. Later on, they looked at the gun and found out that the bullet is perfect and should have gone off on him. So because of that, he keeps that good luck bullet around and believes in luck.
 
Back in the main museum room, Greg Lee is trying his pitch on the Blaisedales (who seem annoyed by it) and Tom talks about how he is not taking the fall for this. He is about to say what he is going to do to whoever caused all of this, but Kothoga kills his ass.
 

The cop that stayed gets killed next
 

And we finally get a real good look at the Kothoga.
 

And Honestly, It Looks Good. A Bit of Lion, Lizard, and Bug Mixed Into It.

 
It chases after Greg Lee who ditches the Blaisedales (who we never see what happens to them, but the effects supervisor says they were killed in a deleted scene) since he may want that grant money, but he isn’t going to put his life on the line for it. He tries to hide in the Superstition exhibit. He hears the monster and turns around to see his reflection in a broken mirror. But as you would expect if you know that a broken mirror is bad luck, the Kothoga’s reflection also shows up and Greg is dead.
 

Huge Departure From The Book, But Again….I’ll Get To That Near The End.
 
Back with Margo and Vincent, Margo finds that the monster has gecko, tiger, and beetle DNA and a new bit comes up that reveals human DNA (and that it started out as a human). Outside, with the authorities on the scene, they try to make a rescue via the windows on the roof.
 

The First Guy Gets Grabbed By Kothoga Pretty Quickly.
 
A second guy gets knocked out by the tail and killed.
 

A third guy sees it and wants to go back up and the rescuers do try, but remember that gecko DNA that was in this monster.
 

Yeah, It Can Walk Up Walls And Ceilings Like It Was Nothing
 
So good news is they get that third guy back up to safety.
 

Bad News Is Only Half Of Him Made It Safely
 
Unfortunately, Dr. Frock (the best character in this movie) is the next to die as the creature quickly comes towards him and he gets offscreen killed.
 

Dr. Frock Even Smiles As He Sees Kothoga Before Being Killed
 
Margo then reveals that Kothoga obviously cant deal with extreme hot or extreme cold so they can either freeze it or burn it to death. They grab a spray of liquid nitrogen in hopes of freezing it.
 

The two go to get Dr. Frock only to find him dead.
 

Margo is in tears over this loss as she and Frock were good friends. Hollingsworth leads the group of survivors with him to the waterway. Unfortunately for the cop that wasn’t Hollingsworth who went with him, he gets dragged into the water and killed.
 

This causes everyone to run.
 

This Woman Is Also Killed
 
The rest are able to get out of the water and into the regular sewer. Vincent gives Margo his lucky bullet as he goes and goes to use the leaves (that they grabbed) and use them to lure the monster away from the group trying to escape. The monster appears and thanks to attempts to freeze it by Margo and shooting by Vincent, Vincent is able to still live and the monster is not dead. Foolishly, they leave the liquid nitrogen spray behind. We then see that the survivors led by Hollingsworth made it across the street to safety. The police immediately help them.
 

Better News For Cuthbert In The Movie As In The Novel, The Cuthbert Character (A Male) Was Institutionalized After It Was Revealed He Tried To Cover Up The Whole Monster Attacks
 
Vincent then makes the decision that he is going to lure the creature away so Margo can go to safety despite her protests. Margo then gets an alert that tells her who the human DNA belonged to and if you hadn’t guessed it by now, it is John Whitney.
 

Yep….He’s The Kothoga Monster
 
She tries to tell Vincent the news, but the monster breaks through the window to go after her. Vincent cant do much since he is on the other side and had her lock the door. Kothoga chases Margo and Margo knocks over flammable liquid. She then makes a flammable cocktail (not a Molotov one), but eventually goes face to face with the beast. Now remember when I said I think there was some stuff cut that makes me think John and Margo had a relationship that ended badly? Well, that is the only explanation I have for when the Kothoga comes up to her, he licks her cleavage.
 

She then throws the cocktail and it sets the room on fire as she gets on an elevator to go back to the first floor. This sets Kothoga on fire
 

Ah Yes….Some Early 90s CGI
 
Kothoga still chases after Margo while on fire as explosions destroy most of the exhibits in storage. It also knocks Vincent back with the blast.
 

Or Tom Sizemore’s Stunt Double.
 
Margo then hides in a blast sealed container as the monsters is killed.
 

Outside, the mayor saves Vincent’s job by saying he saved a lot of lives. The authorities find Vincent, and Margo and Margo reveals that the monster has been blown to bits. She tries to give Vincent back his lucky bullet, but Vincent tells her to keep it and thus the movie ends.

And I Don't Have To Bring Up Rellik From TN.......DAMMMIT!!!!!!!!

That's Killer Spelled Backwards. 

Shut up, Mike Tenay.
 
Now I get to mention the huge departure from the novel. In the book, Margo never finds out that it was John Whitney. In fact, it was the Greg Lee character (named Gregory Kawakita) who finds that out as well as the whole truth about the leaves and the fungus and still survives at the end of the book. Seeing a huge way to be powerful, he uses the fungus as a drug on the streets to turn people first into addicts, then monsters. Being the only person who can make the drug, he guarantees that he can control them completely and not worry about getting killed by them. I am thankful the movie went with a different ending as that does not seem that right of an ending for a film like this. Frock also lived and turned evil in the sequel book as well.
 
So let’s talk about how this film did. As far as box office goes, while the movie did get to #1 in its first week, it declined rapidly in later weeks and only was able to make $40 million while the production budget for the movie was #48 million so this movie was a box office bomb. This movie didn’t do well with critics either who basically compared it to Alien and said it wasn’t really memorable, although Siskel & Eibert (two of the more hardnosed critics) loved it and gave it two thumbs up. But despite the negative reviews, the film does have a cult following and even the actors and actresses in the movie liked it, including Penelope Ann Miller who called it a “scary good movie”. And considering what I normally deal with in actors’ thoughts on their own movies, this is great to hear.
 
As far as future stuff goes, Penelope Ann Miller (who played Margo Green) and Tom Sizemore (who played Lt. Vincent D’Agosta) still had/have good careers and got roles after this film. Director Peter Hyams would then do the Schwarzenegger vs. The Devil movie End Of Days, before doing a film that would really destroy his career by being the actual credited director in the huge cinematic mess that was A Sound Of Thunder.
 

Lord Help Me When I Eventually Have To Do This Movie….
 
Linda Hunt (who played Anne Cuthbert) who mostly be known for voice acting in roles like Disney’s Pocahontas and the God Of War series, but that all changed as she landed a huge role in 2008 on NCIS: Los Angeles (a show that is still going).
 

She Is Operations Manager For NCIS Henrietta “Hetty” Lange
 
Sadly, it is now time to talk about the people who have are no longer with us.  This would be Audra Lindley’s (who played Matilda Zwiezic) last film as she passed away in 1997 (months after this movie came out) at the age of 79 due to complications from leukemia. James Whitmore (who played Dr. Albert Frock) passed away in 2009 at the age of 87 from lung cancer. Montrose Hagins (who played the Chanting Woman in the Mbwun tribe) died in 2012 at the age of 88. Santos Morales (who played Capt. Borne aka The Captain Of The Doomed Merchant Ship) passed away in 2012. Jophery Brown (who played Frederick Ford) left this mortal coil in 2014 at the age of 68 from complications related to a cancer treatment. Ken Magee (who played the coroner’s assistant) left this mortal coil in 2015 at the age of 69 from cancer. Ron Cummins (who played a character named Dr. Gross) died 2016 at the age of 74 from myeloid leukemia. Lewis Van Burgen (who played John Whitney) died in 2018 at the age of 79. Thomas Ryan (who played Tom Parkinson) left this mortal coil in 2022. Tom Sizemore (who played Lt. Vincent D’Agosta) died on this year at the age of 61 from a brain aneurysm.
 
So now my final thoughts on the film and I may be one of those that likes this film. Yes, there are flaws with this movie like the CGI being dated, some of it feeling like it aping other movies, and the lighting, but I like the acting, the twists, and most of the practical effects. And let’s just say I love the monster which was made by Stan Winston and his studios (with a return to making a monster have mandibles just like the Predator). While some people like the book more than the movie, I am one of the few who in this case like the movie more than the book.
 
Now, I did have a NCAA Tournament Pick’Em bracket that was won by a gentlemen named Duke Cameron so he got the choice of what I should induct into Monster Crap for November and he definitely chose a film that will be a slog for me. Lord help us as I induct next into Monster Crap…
 

RIP Jeff Burr

1963-2023

It is sad to hear that on October 10, 2023, director Jeff Burr passed away at the age of 60 from an apparent stroke. While he is mostly known for doing horror sequels like Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, Puppet Master IV and V, and Stepfather II. He will always be known to the Monster Crap community for one sequel and one collection of short stories. 

Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings and From A Whisper To A Scream

He will be missed.