relic

this movie is a rare anomaly: the movie is actually better than the book!  i remember reading this book when i was in high school, in anticipation for the movie.  the book, though, was filled with generic characters and a really really bad ending.  it was so bad it kind of ruined the fun tension of the rest of the book.  the movie, though, fixes that problem and gives an impressively explosive ending that corrected the major failure of the book.  the story is set in a museum and follows the workers there as they prepare for a big fundraising ball to show off their new exhibit.  a few crates recently arrived from the congo, but they were strangely empty.  well, they weren't really empty, instead what was in them leads to a bunch of gruesome deaths.  as the mystery behind these deaths escalates, the ball is about to begin.  this is, in its simplest sense, a creature feature.  there is a really cool looking nasty creature who is causing all these terrible murders and one of the policemen and an important museum employee must try to get rid of the creature before it ruins the museum's biggest fundraiser of the year.  the creature itself, a stan winston creation, is pretty cool and very creepy.  i remember being blown away by it when i first watched this movie in the theater back in 1997.  the special effects hold up fairly well, especially when the creature is lurking in the dark.  when we finally get a good look at it, the effects are a bit dated, but the suspense and build up do a nice job of creating tension and setting up the action packed final act.