THE RELIC (1996. Dir: Peter Hyams)

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I had a great time. The story is quite predictable and unoriginal for sure, but director Peter Hyams makes it work on two levels. First off, it's effectively handled: credible, fast paced, always interesting, good effects, well built atmosphere. Secondly, Hyams instills into the film a layer of intertextuality, by using or reshaping ideas and set pieces from genre and non genre favorites. This is signaled early on. Now, when you enter a theater to watch a horror film, you can count on at least one thing: somewhere along the way you'll have a cat jumping out of the shadows to try and scare you. Well, here Hyams disposes of this necessity in the first post-credits scene. You know the cat is coming, but you don't expect him so soon, so the cat makes you (or at least me) jump. There are several other nice touches from other films. During the crucial chase at the end, Hyams recreates the marvelous set piece from CRIMEWAVE with the heroine running through a series of doors, shutting each behind her, while the monster breaks through them. During that chase there is an ALIEN style face off between heroine and monster. The charging burning monster seems very reminiscent of the monster in FORBIDDEN PLANET. There are several nods towards JAWS, and the discussion in the watery hall whether escape and salvation lies in going downstairs or not is taken right out of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. This intertextuality is rarely beneficial to the plot (the cat teaser is used to introduce the cop as superstitious), but it is used to add another dimension of fun to the otherwise straight forward horror, while not interfering with the horror. This is why I find this one better than SCREAM, for instance. SCREAM, while also very efficient horror wise, is unsure of what it wants to do with it's intertextual layer, and it seems to keep getting in the way of the horror instead of complementing it.

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