"The Relic" is a tough one to grade. On the one hand it's a decent story about a creature brought back from an expedition to Brazil. I won't give away the coolest part of the movie, but when Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller) says "I know ___ you are...", it makes a lot of the not so good moments a little more tolerable.

Let's spend a second or two on the characters. Dr. Green, played by Miller, is about as unsympathetic as they come through the first half of the movie. She finally started to win me over once she warmed up to Lt. D'Agosta. Lt. D'Agosta is a hard-as-nails cop with a heart of gold played by the always entertaining Tom Sizemore. The rest of the cast are the typical hackneyed gritty cops, snooty rich elite, or insufferable know-it-all scientists. I mostly hated all of them which is good because most of them were killed with significant gore by the ancient beast.

The monster itself is original and is probably the best thing about the movie. That is, when you can actually see it. There either wasn't enough of a budget to light this movie or they were purposely trying to hide shoddy effects. I actually didn't think the effects were too bad, so I'll just state that the whole movie was darker than it needed to be. The characters were constantly using flashlights. You can't see much of anything for the last third of the movie. I suppose it could have been the Netflix streaming copy that I was watching but I doubt it.

With a few more lights and a little more monster this could have been a very good Horror flick.