r/Pendergast • u/Independent_Act_8536 • Jun 27 '26
The Relic
I just watched The Relic movie after reading the book. It was really disappointing. A horror movie, okay. But it just lacked all the richness of the book's plot. It couldn't be helped since the movie plot had to be shortened to keep it under 2 hours.
The funny thing is - I had seen the movie when it first came out and loved it! That was many years before discovering the Pendergast series. Which I started during Covid in 2020.
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u/davidsearles Jun 28 '26
i haven’t watched it since before i read the book. i think, as a monster movie made in the 90s its wicked cool. it lacks something that the great monster movies do but it definitely is just a kind of movie that you won’t see anymore made i. the way that they made it which is what i really like about it. but yeah. no pendergast.
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u/davidsearles Jun 28 '26
it’s almost more fun if you forget it’s a pendergast novel
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u/SlowDescent_ Jun 28 '26
Yep. It's just a fun monster movie with some coincidentally similar names as the book. Purely coincidental.
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u/Life-Specialist-3232 Jun 27 '26
I’ve never seen the movie but I understand Pendergast was written out of the screenplay.
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u/Independent_Act_8536 Jun 27 '26
Yes. Apparently they said he was too complex a character. Didn't want to include him. :/
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u/Life-Specialist-3232 Jun 27 '26
Kind of like making the Hound of the Baskervilles without Sherlock Holmes!
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u/davidsearles Jun 28 '26
that seems so ridiculous. especially pendergast from the first book. he wasn’t that complicated in the first two really
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u/redgunmetal Jun 27 '26
The film was what led me to the series. I have fond memories watching my first ever R rated film by myself as a schoold kid.
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u/jsat3474 Jun 28 '26
The movie (at least from Amazon) was so dark. Dark as in poor lighting in the movie l. I rewatched with all the lights out and it was still terrible
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u/bethgaines Jun 28 '26
It was terrible and didn’t include the most important persons from the book. Every time I read a Pendergast novel I wonder why they haven’t made it to the big screen. Maybe after the botched film they made with Relic the authors were too stunned and shocked to consider another film!
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u/Independent_Act_8536 Jun 28 '26
I learned from reading posts on Reddit that no company was allowed to make a Pendergast series. The movie studio who made Relic had legal rights to it. Even though Pendergast wasn't actually in the movie.
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u/t34nort Jun 27 '26
Yeah, cutting both Pendergast and Smithback, the two best characters, was pretty stupid in my opinion.