Blood Relic

A complete waste of about a half an hour.IT'S A CURSED TALISMAN MOVIE...OH NOOO!The only thing this movie had going for it was a nice collection of vintage warplanes that were housed in the museum used a setting for this mess.Cardboard acting, horrible make-up (rubber Spencer Gifts Heart, and Campbells Tomato Soup blood)and the same old "lets have a séance" plot line abound in this movie.About the only thing frightening in this movie is Billy Dragos dental work!I had to turn it off after what appears to be every female hottie in this film starts disrobing,looks like the producers ran out of ideas early here.I can't understand why after watching the terrible acting in the first half hour of this movie,anyone wouldn't be rooting for the killer anyway. Skip this one.

A cast of mostly anonymous teenagers hired to clean a aerospace museum experience bloody mayhem after one of them finds an occult talisman. This film is strongly adequate in most categories. The photography is professional. The direction is reasonably assured. The cast isn't too embarrassing, and generally all of the girls show some flesh. The aerospace museum location adds production value even though most of the mayhem happens in a more generic warehouse. The gore is adequate – though the make-up generally plays out in the aftermath of the attacks rather than in the violence itself. So what's the problem? It's just tired. Young, good-looking people being killed off one-by-one by a masked assailant. Been there, seen that. I needed an extra hook, and there wasn't one. The potential of an interesting "monster" was wasted. The talisman is a wasted device. It seems turns the wearer into a homicidal maniac. The characters are always simply running from the unknown human carrier than battling the demonic entity pulling the strings. It would have been more interesting if the filmmakers had taken the time to develop force behind talisman better, and let the characters try to figure a way to take it on directly. Not terrible, when you consider the low standards of the genre, but there are better films out there.

Working at a local military museum, the workers restoring the exhibits find that a sacred amulet found there releases a murderous spirit on the base and is being forced to kill due to the homicidal influence of the relic, forcing them to find a way out of the museum while stopping the killer's rampage.

This here wasn't that bad of a slasher. One of the things it does right is getting a good setting for this of an airplane museum, which is pretty creative and allows for some great scenes within such a location. The scenes after the party, mainly the ones of the survivors wandering through the darkened hallways, trying logical plan after logical plan to get out, provide some great suspense as they go about their plan of action without alerting the killer, and trying to accomplish all this really great sneaking around in such creepy locations are really good. Due to the blackout in the area bringing up the cramped and confined office spaces and crew quarters within the long hallways while moving out into the main hall of the museum which has them interacting alongside the full-scale plane props during this set-up, the atmosphere here is highly enjoyable while generating plenty of fine suspense along the way. The killer in here has one of the greatest designs ever, as the large jumpsuit, pilot's helmet, and mask make for a great look for a killer, and this one pulls it off nicely which compliments the suspense quite well. There's some great nudity in here, which is greatly appreciated and surprising for this film, not only including a strip-poker sequence that has enough flesh since everyone strips off, but there's a couple of great sex scenes and the fun sequence where one woman is forced to strip for her boyfriend wearing a pilot's outfit until it's revealed that it was a gag, but it's a suspenseful one before that nonetheless and is all a part of the fun had with the nudity. The last big plus here is the fun and ingenious twist provided at the end that turns around the identity of the killer really nicely and comes about as a fun and surprising scene. Along with the blood and gore in here, these here are the film's good points as this here only has a few flaws to it. One of the biggest problems here is the fact that the purpose of the talisman relic indulging in the power to the others is never explained. It's simply told what it is, what it looks like and what happens, but never why and there's a serious void in here due to that, especially since there are two people who had been exposed to the powers who had told of their experiences, yet nothing is said why they were under the influence. Another flaw is that the majority of the film's kills are incredibly lame in execution, either doing it off-screen to be found later or just being the single most bloodless type of kill around which really leaves them pretty lackluster for the most part. The last flaw in here is the lame séance scene, which offers nothing of value, seems stuck in for no reason other than a lame jump-gag or a predictable supernatural twist, and could be done away with easily. These here are the film's flaws that hold it back.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Nudity, Graphic Language and a couple mild sex scenes.

In 1983, a U. S. Naval pilot shot down in Grenada discovers a human skull on a pole with a small carved talisman on a cord around it. For no good reason, he removes the (not very cool looking) little thingie and puts it around his neck. After he's been rescued, the cursed necklace causes him to go nuts and kill some mechanics. Then he hides the talisman in a storage compartment at the base. He's shipped off to the funny farm for 22 years, and in all that time it never occurs to him to tell anybody about the talisman even though he knows exactly where it's hidden and his story could easily be proved. By the time he's released, it's 2005 and the former Naval station is being converted into a military history tourist attraction. The gang of sarcastic oversexed college twits working on the renovation decide to sneak in after hours to play with a Cryptique spirit board (an unnecessary plot detour). Somebody in a flight suit and helmet starts sneaking around stabbing them to death. As the Navy man, John Christian is excellent in both his "nice" and "evil" scenes, although he doesn't look a day older in the 2005 portion of the film than he did in the 1983 segment. At one point he explains that the only way to destroy the demonic talisman is for the person wearing it to be killed while under its influence. There's no reason why his character would know that. He just does. The main (male) character is such an idiot that he thinks the killer is a character who has been with him throughout the last few murders. He bashes the guy's skull in before he remembers that they'd been together the whole time. Oops. There are some lapses in internal logic, but as teenkill movies go BLOOD RELIC is probably one of the better exercises in stalk-&-slash made around this time. The pacing is perfect, the characters are a little better defined than usual, and the prevailing mood is decently suspenseful. There were even a couple of mild surprise twists that honestly managed to fool me. Scream queen Debbie Rochon comes off a little better than usual as the most cynical member of the group, and she even keeps her clothes on except for quickly flashing one breast. Most of the other actresses play trashy characters who take their shirts off as often as possible, appearing topless so many times in a single night that it borders on the absurd. There are a few brief, gory makeup effects but they're strictly standard stuff. The false scares that turn out to be practical jokes won't fool anyone, but the actual murder scenes are pretty good. It's too bad there isn't an interesting villain or any visual side to the supernatural aspect. Whoever wears the necklace simply freaks out and starts killing people, and that's about all we ever learn about it. The closing credits ruin the scariness by showing unfunny outakes in which the actors crack up laughing. Oh, well.... I guess you can't have everything, huh?

There isn't really a whole lot one can do in making a horror movie that doesn't at least remind you of another horror movie you've seen. In that respect, Blood Relic is no different.

There's not enough time spent showing how all these folks who know each other actually know each other, or why those who DON'T know the others are there in the first place.

Some films talk too long about integral parts of the movie, but Blood Relic just slaps the main inanimate character in, expects you to believe it, and then tries half heartedly about halfway through to explain where it came from.

A few gratuitous partial nudity shots for no apparent reason, some excess blood from small wounds and not enough from large ones, and a few other shortcomings detracted from the whole movie.

My main complaint is that the characters aren't explained or developed at all. After each character's fatal meeting with the bad guy(s), you're generally left thinking "Awww, and I hardly even knew that one, either." I had no problem with the movie though. As someone who takes every opportunity available to watch what others routinely refer to as 'bad' movies, I'd give it a five (or even better) because it had a little of the horror, blood, screeching, running around senselessly, etc. that I've come to love in my movie fare.

And another feature to this flick... Do you simply LOVE a freaky ending? I like unexpected twists, as long as they're plausible. The ending of Blood Relic is...

Something you'll just have to see for yourself!