I had this friend growing up who was known for his Dad’s VHS collection. His living room was lined with wooden cabinets containing every movie one could think of (and plenty more you’d scarcely believe even existed). It was like his own, private Blockbuster Video and, primarily, it contained horror movies.
Even as a kid who wanted nothing to do with the scary stuff, I was impressed, somehow drawn to the sea of tapes that lined his walls. Of course, there were cabinets we were allowed to open up and peruse… and there were those we weren’t. What I assumed to be the truly horrific flicks were reserved for adults only. However, at sleepovers, when the parents were fast asleep in some upstairs room, all bets were off.
Typically, my role in such a scenario was to vehemently fight the adolescent tide moving steadily toward horror, but as I detailed in my Scream (1996) article, my mind had been slightly turned earlier that summer. I had indeed enjoyed a slasher, maybe I would enjoy whatever would come next.
What he presented to the group that night was a brand new tape. It sparked a number of “oohs” and “ahhs” from the collective of 12-14-year-olds present and even I recognized the distorted, screaming red face from newspaper ads I had seen upon its release. It was called The Relic (1997) and, from what I knew, it was a monster movie.
The movie was a blast. Scary, sure, but more fun than anything else. One of those movies where the whole room was just waiting on bated breath to see the creature only to have the finale deliver it in all of the best ways.
We rewound the tape and placed it safely back in its spot so his dad wouldn’t notice, but that was hardly the last of it. It showed on regular sleepover rotation, the perfect sort of movie to squint at through the darkness while downing carbonated caffeine and microwave popcorn in the darkest hours of the night.
My fondness and nostalgia for The Relic aside, the film holds up even through an adult lens. For what was grainy, muddy, and barely visible on VHS has turned out to be an impressive, Stan Winston designed practical effects masterpiece through the demystification of high definition. It’s a simple story, primarily contained, but done so in a vast, sweeping museum housing more of the world than one could ever hope to encounter due to the nature of what it is.
It’s a film that captures the wonder and imagination of science, melding the natural world with the more esoteric realm of superstition, concluding that reality is found somewhere in between. And it all comes together with the realization of a practical monster. For when the Kothoga (known in the original script as Mbwun) first bursts onto the screen in full line of sight, attacking the small group of people who have opted to hold up in the museum, the terror, excitement and wavering beliefs the movie has been exploring spring to the forefront.
Still, the original screenplay is an entirely different animal, focusing more on the latent humanity of the creature and the emotional through-line as represented by the creature’s former self’s past relationship with the film’s protagonist. Much of the third act is altered, with one primary group traversing the museum as opposed to two and the monster itself showing up in small spurts, often fleeing when faced with moral dilemmas brought about by conversing with it.
While intellectually stimulating, this early draft of the screenplay lacks the visceral, visual payoff of the creature and the havoc it represents. It’s in the introduction to the monster where this difference in ideology is most apparent, occurring in two entirely different manners on the page and the screen.
In a film about the power and fury of evolution, it seems only fitting that its concepts went through some massive changes before coming to life onscreen, represented perfectly here by the juxtaposition between the film’s bombastic introduction to the monster and the page’s more discreet approach. In the end, what we’re left with are scenes defined by artistry and practical execution that still strike within me the same feeling of awe as they did when I was in my early teens, staying up far later than I probably should’ve to watch a movie my friends and I were instructed to avoid.
THE SCENE
Tom wanders the museum hall, complaining loudly about the situation when the Kothoga seizes him. Dr. Lee and Mr. and Mrs. Blaisedale scream while officer McNally fires on the creature. The Kothoga decapitates Tom and whips McNally with its tail, sending him flying across the room and impaling him on shattered glass. Dr. Lee runs away and the Kothoga barrels after him.
THE SCRIPT
Excerpt taken from the script ‘The Relic’ written by Amy Jones and John Raffo & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver.
THE SCREEN
The script and the film differ so dramatically in regards to the Kothogoa’s introduction, that a specific scene to scene comparison does not necessarily exist. However, for the purposes of analyzing the evolution of idea to execution, I’ve selected an excerpt from the script that depicts the monster’s introduction and will break it down with its closest counterpart from the finished film.
In the script, an excised character named Agent Pendergast, the central character in the novel from which the film is based, is the first to fully see and encounter the creature. Much of the action pertaining to the monster, again known in the screenplay and novel as Mbwun, takes place in the sewers. It feels confined and claustrophobic, dank and dreary, as though in a labyrinthian lair.
Still, here, the monster is revealed in the museum hall. Pendergast is alone, investigating, providing the moment with an intense but procedural sensibility:
Pendergast runs forward in the echoing hallway, his gun drawn, his flashlight on. A few more steps and he holds hard. His eyes go wide in astonishment as his light illuminates the beast.
The moment is a personal one for the story’s hero. A chance to display his aptitude and courage while providing him with the knowledge that all his preparedness is moot in the face of what was moments ago an impossibility. One imagines this to be a reveal intended to be in line with Jurassic Park (1993), a wide, awe-inducing shot of the monster and all of its horrific features.
As the flashlight beam hits it, MBWUN roars and looks up. Now we see it clearly for the first time. The monster is MASSIVE, putrid, rank. Slit reptilian green eyes are rimmed in red. A ridge of stiff black hair rises on the creature’s buffalo-like humped back. The withers are muscled and covered with plates. A forked TONGUE licks out as purple lips draw back exposing razor sharp teeth. The claws raise up to fend off the light.
Rather than run, Pendergast steadies himself with difficulty and takes a few seconds to aim with the greatest care. He squeezes the trigger hard and a white streak moves right up the beast’s cranium. Despite the direct hit, the creature is unfazed, leaving Pendergast only because he holds the flashlight on the beast’s eyes. The creature is said to lope off while Pendergast watches unimaginably relieved.
The exchange is over quickly, an exercise in building tension and bolstering the creature’s presence by way of the impact on the protagonist’s psyche, not just its physical presence. The film takes a largely different path to first showing the viewer the monster which haunt’s the film’s runtime.
Instead of a tight, confined hallway, the scene opens with a wide shot of the great room where the gala had been taking place. Water pours from the sprinkler systems, providing the impression that a torrential downpour is occurring indoors, bolstered by the taxidermy animals of the African plains which pepper the space. The place is dark but ever glistening, the falling water reflecting what little light there is.
The room is populated by a group of people, those who had split off from the others traversing the sewer: Tom, Dr. Lee, Mr. and Mrs. Blaisedale, and officer McNally. None of these are primary cast members, all supporting players who have existed thus far more as caricature than character. Having the monster encounter this group first as opposed to the film’s protagonist— in this case, Dr. Margo Green or even Lt. D’Agosta— not only increases the scene’s unpredictability but provides increased tension. These characters are expendable, the leads are not.
The scene opens with a series of close-ups establishing the awkward interpersonal goings-on within the group, none of whom suspect they’re in immediate danger. Each is still pursuing their own subplots, Dr. Lee pontificating to the rich, exasperated donors about his scientific beliefs and exploits, and Tom ranting about the outcome of the evening, when suddenly the Kothoga springs upon them.
No warning, no build-up, just a series of quick cuts as the massive, tusked jaws of the creature clamp down on Tom and proceed to tear him apart. The cuts fly by the screen quickly as each character sees and reacts, even though the dark, muddiness of the scene keeps the monstrous thing somewhat shadowed and murky. Still, the low light does provide the creature with a terrifying physicality, something that seems to have the features of multiple animals while not quite fitting squarely in any one quadrant.
The pouncing creature evokes the same feeling as the animals on display. In some ways, the Kothoga is the perfect embodiment of the world that the museum hoped to capture as evidenced by the presence of a ferocious tiger, frozen in time, as it ensnares a zebra for its meal.
Tom’s severed head falls to the ground in a close-up shot, clearly lit, his expression locked in fear as though yet another exhibit of nature’s fury. Close-ups continue to reveal bits of the creature, its teeth, and face, but still the viewer must use their imagination to put the pieces being seen together. The scene allows the audience and the characters to experience precisely what the thing is capable of as it is visualized, creating a process that is far more engaging than a simple wide shot of a striking animal.
Officer McNally approaches, gun drawn and firing. A close up shows the Kothoga’s long, lizard-like tail whip forward, sending McNally flying across the room. The next shot lands squarely on the tail, holding there for a moment and providing the viewer the first real moment to breathe and take in what is being shown. It slithers and snakes behind it as the camera tracks along the body, showing its large, reptilian feet trod forward. The thing breathes in loud, harsh rasps that almost sound sickly, alluding to the transformative genetic manipulation that the film will go on to deal with.
McNally lies dead, impaled by the shattered glass as the image cuts to a medium of the Kothoga, turning his face toward the camera, clearly visible through the legs of the stuffed zebra. Its face is almost insect-like, menacing and brutal in a rudimentary way. It is then, after the attack, that the thing’s look completely materializes onscreen.
Dr. Lee takes off in a wide shot and the Kothoga turns once more. For the first time, the monster appears in a wide shot as well, barreling forward toward the frame, chasing after its prey.
Both the script and the film offer scenes which play out quickly. However, it’s the screen that attempts to complicate the reveal with action, entertainment, and bloodshed. The scene expands the visceral terror which accompanies the first appearance of an insurmountable monster by providing it with uncertainty in the form of dispensable characters and a dimly lit, puzzle-like visualization of the Kothoga itself.
And as Dr. Lee takes off down a long, dark hallway in the scene’s coda, one can’t help but be reminded of Pendergast’s first encounter with the beast in the script. Only, in the film, given the scene prior, it’s clear the Kothoga will most likely refrain from loping off.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
“I tried to make all the scares not explicit in terms of what you see,” director Peter Hyams said in his commentary track found on The Relic’s Blu-ray disc. “I think you actually see less than you imagine you see.”
When I was younger, a movie collection seemed to carry a bit of magic with it. A sense of boundless possibility, the idea that anything could be waiting for you amass those piles of black tapes. And there was no better time or way to explore them than the summer sleepover. Strengthened by the magnitude of your friends’ resolves, it was always much easier to face what would normally be far too terrifying to traverse without them. Take monsters, for example.
Enter The Relic. The kind of monster movie that delivers on exactly that which it promises. Scary and entertaining, with a fully realized creature that stomps, chomps, and roars its way through a museum for 90 minutes. Certainly, some of it was rendered with, admittedly, questionable CGI, but the filmmakers were smart enough to intercut it with enough practical elements that those shakier moments fall away without consequence.
The evolution from the page to the screen was a stark one, the introduction of the Kothoga moving from something of a one-shot, awe-inducing moment of realization to a more grandiose action sequence putting the monster’s capabilities on full display while still limiting its onscreen presence. Structurally the film’s version serves to not only provide more tension, it flexes the viewer’s imagination, allowing the reveal to take its time and be digested at a slower, more effective rate.
But all of it hinges on a fantastic looking monster.
In the book The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio by Jody Duncan, the author provides some detail and context into what made the creature and its creation so complex. The author writes, “within the show’s brief five-month preproduction period, the studio built Kothoga suits and a radio-controlled head, all designed to hide the human anatomy of the performer inside,” (Duncan, 2006, p. 207).
Duncan continues by describing the arm and leg extensions required for stunt performers Vincent Hammond and Brian Steele, as well as the months of training with an animal behaviorist required for them to be able to move inside of the suit (p. 207). Suffice it to say, the speed and execution of the monster’s realization is made all the more impressive when viewing the final, terrifying result onscreen.
The Relic stands as a fantastic example of a fun, affecting monster flick. Certainly, my teenage friends and I never had any complaints. But, more than that, it’s a great example of how important it is to remember that what works on the page will not always work on the screen. For the marriage of idea and cinema involves almost as much creative invention as it does adherence to a base concept.
Ultimately, the Mbwun and the Kathoga’s description may be the same, but bringing them to life involves more than simply showing an image on a screen. From the edit, to the lighting, to the characters in the story facing it down, every element of the film factors into the impact that creature will have and continue to have on the narrative being told.
No matter how many tapes my friends and I had at our disposable, we often returned to The Relic. And while a group of young teenagers in the 90s hopped up on Jolt and Sour Patch Kids may not be the end all be all in terms of cinematic taste, we all have our beginnings, right?
After all, evolution has to start somewhere.
Written by Amy Jones and John Raffo & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver
& Directed by Peter Hyams
, a childhood monster movie favorite of his that had some major changes between script to screen){kind=link}