Dark Relic (2010 TV Movie) User Reviews

The Cursed Cross

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 15 August 2010]

Although the premise is an interesting one, in execution Dark Relic just doesn't cut it and remains a typical product of the SyFy network, albeit of British origin.

In the Catholic world there are reported to be many pieces of the 'true cross' from which Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Some of them are no more than splinters, but James Frain and his ragtag group of crusaders have a nice chunk of wood in which the biblical inscription about Jesus being King of the Jews is carved.

When they take the thing back to Rome all kinds of things start happening to them. Monsters and demons of all kinds, monks become possessed and they can't get rid of the thing and it won't burn. What to do.

I think the idea here is that the true cross from which the Son of God was crucified is not an item of veneration, in fact logically speaking it should be a cursed piece of wood. Our wandering group finds this out too late. Along the way they meet some Moslems led by Alyy Khan and arrive at an uneasy truce with them.

Dark Relic has an interesting premise, maybe in the hands of a Stephen King it could have realized its possibilities, but not here.

Better & more original than the average SyFy Channel film but still not very good.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 26 September 2012]

Dark Relic is set during 1099AD at the end of the first Crusade, the noble & Christian God fearing Knight Sir Gregory (James Frain) lead over a hundred men at the start of the Crusade but now his charges number less than ten, after much bloodshed & loss of life Sir Gregory & his few remaining loyal men have found an ancient relic that they soon come to believe is part of the wooden cross that Jesus was crucified to. Sir Gregory plans to sail home with the Holy relic & his men but a fierce storm at sea forces them to abandon the boat when it crashes into rocks on the coast of an unknown land, with no option left Sir Gregory & his men set off on foot to find help & carry on their journey but a series of terrible events lead them to believe that the Holy relic is cursed & attracts evil including a huge winged fire breathing Demon from Hell. As more of Sir Gregory's men fall victim to the evil curse he decides that the Holy relic must be destroyed...

Directed by Lorenzo Sena credit has to go to the makers of Dark Relic for at least trying to make a SyFy Channel film that has some originality, the idea of a Holy Crusade in 1099AD where a Knight & his men are menaced by an evil curse sounds positively highbrow for the notoriously lazy people at the SyFy Channel. I suppose the only problem is that Dark Relic isn't that good, sure it's far from terrible & not as bad as your average SyFy Channel creature feature/giant monster film but when all said & done it's still difficult for me to recommend to casual viewers. The script for Dark Relic is perhaps more serious than the usual camp SyFy Channel offering with a fairly bleak tone that tries to touch upon the likes of religion, sacrifice, racism & faith but while these themes are briefly explored the script isn't ambitious enough to really drive these points home & say something meaningful. The overall impression I got while watching Dark Relic was that of seeing people dressed in Knight costumes walking through woods occasionally coming under attack from various things such as a swarm of Locust's, cannibal kung-fu Monk's (I kid you not) & really bad weather conditions. Dark Relic is a masterpiece compared to a lot of SyFy Channel crap but doesn't really stand up when seen against many other films, an interesting attempt & Dark Relicc isn't terrible but it's nowhere near great either.

Before this was released the SyFy Channel ran a competition to name it, yes the title Dark Relic was actually the winning entry although I have no idea what the winner won, if anything at all. Apparently filmed under the title Crusades. There's a bit of gore, a couple of people are seen hanging upside down with their guts hanging out & there are a few slow motion sword fight scenes but don't expect anything as stylish or exciting as 300 (2006). The CGI computer effects are predictably awful, the shot of the boat sailing across the sea has to be seen to be believed it's so bad, I have games on my phone that feature more realistic computer graphics. The fire breathing Demon doesn't look much better either.

I am not sure where Dark Relic was filmed (probably Bulgaria or Serbia) but some of the scenery looks quite nice but the low budget does show at times. The acting isn't too bad, it's better than in a lot of SyFy Channel films & it's odd not to see some has-been Hollywood star or wrestler somewhere.

Dark Relic isn't the worst film ever made & it does try but the low budget & the whole SyFy Channel feel goes against it, it's a bit different but still not very good if you know what I mean.

Almost unbearable

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 10 June 2010]

Well, as this being a SyFy movie, should basically be enough said right there.

As for the story, well the plot was alright and it was a great idea, but the movie suffered horribly from it being badly put to the screen. And the movie really suffered from the crappy effects and CGIs.

There were points where I wanted to claw my eyes out because of the effects, but somehow the story managed to keep me interested enough to actually watch this movie.

As for the acting. Well mostly they were good enough, with a couple of exceptions. Nothing major or academy-winning performances here.

I do not recommend you sit down to watch this movie, unless you got an unhealthy interest in the age of crusaders and in cheesy supernatural movies, and with crappy CGI effects at that! But hey, if that is your combo, then go right for it. Personally, I could find much better and more constructive ways to spend my time.

Dull relic

[MartianOctocretr5 · 2/10 · 3 April 2010]

Probably looked good on paper. A legend about the crucifix surviving until medieval times, some knights on a quest to find and secure it, and some demonic plagues besetting the knights. Lots of action, story, and special effects about supernatural power; right? Wrong.

A rag-tag group of people are thrown together on this Indy Jones type relic hunt that argue about everything, from spirituality to the best brand of toothpaste. Argue, argue, argue. It gets annoying real fast, and one can only hope they have a sword battle that shuts them all up permanently.

The premise held potential, but is hopelessly obscured behind this foolishness. You could watch one of those cable TV political argument shows and get the same thing.

What a waste of time and talent (some spoilers)

[davis2000 · 2/10 · 28 March 2010]

When I saw James Frain (from the Tudors series), I thought this might rise above most SyFy dreck. In some ways it does since the special effects aren't always terrible and some of the acting is almost good. The story is very weak, at times incoherent and it's likely to offend some. Continuity errors abound and reaction shots are laughable at times.

Spoilers: one of the worst effects is the CGI wolves that attack the party in the woods. I'm pretty sure you could animate a better wolf at home with free software than this. The demon is generally nearly as realistic as he was in the video game Diablo II but it's size seems to vary a great deal depending on the shot.

The premise is very odd in that the Holy Cross, a religious relic that has traditionally been thought to be beneficial is somehow tainted and causes the demon(s) to follow and attack the party carrying it from the Crusades, sometimes preceding them somehow to possess monks etc. The fact it's immune to a crucifix but susceptible to a talisman the Muslim warrior (Alyy Khan) carries seems a tad offensive. The Cross is evil, the Muslim talisman is holy - what message are they trying to send? In typical fashion, after the non-whites have saved the "hero" many times they're struck down in a very ignominious way and for no real reason other than to leave the stage clear for the hero. Just to show they can't be consistent, the tainted relic of the Cross is then shoved down the demon's throat to destroy him which thoroughly muddles things in time for a very abrupt ending.

Even for free this is worthless unless you like to make fun of bad movies with your friends. Some talented actors were wasted here.

Awful, and not even in a fun way.

[luixino87 · 1/10 · 2 January 2012]

I couldn't sit through it. Special effects looked like my Nintendo 64, which is unacceptable for a 2010 movie. They were seriously laughable, like what you would see in a movie half way through post-production. The writing was predictable and unrealistic (supernatural beings aside), the dialogue was forced and awkward, the acting was mostly mediocre, and the photography looked amateurish. I chose it because I assumed the fact that James Frain was in it meant that the movie was at least well done. I enjoyed his acting in The Tudors and The Cape, but obviously he just jumped at not being cast as the bad guy for once. Terrible. Don't watch it. I meant to give it half a star, but unfortunately that's not an option.

A religious debate group in halloween costumes

[emphedokles · 2/10 · 24 February 2011]

I give this flick a two because of the good idea. Finding a part of the real cross and being attacked by demons, could have been a good story.

But ... At the first pictures of the movie you see crusaders after the war in clean cloth, with clean faces and fingernails. Well thats the point where you have to realize that it will be something like a lame Scifi channel production. But it gets worse.

The discussions are what makes this movie really unrealistic. From the beginning of the movie everybody permanently tells the crusaders that the crusade maybe was a bad idea and it may not have been a holy war. When this the first time happens i got a smile on my face because i thought: All right heretic, that were your last words and now the slaughtering starts. But the crusaders in this movie are real open minded. They are open to discuss everything. Its allowed to call the crusade a bad idea all the time, its allowed to tell them that muslims and christians are basically the same religion and it is also allowed to tell them that Jesus was not the son of god. They are fine with all of that. The Muslim warrior which joins them later is also open for all this questions. The crusaders and the Muslim warrior do not have any problems with each other because ... the war is over.

Oh, by the way. Now and then some bad made CGI creatures appear and disturb their discussion.

I did not watch the movie to the end. If i want to see a hypocritical debate about religion which includes some ugly creatures, then i just will watch the next TV debate about this subject.

So what is this all about? It seems like someone wanted to make a movie about religious tolerance between muslims, cristians and atheists based on the example of a happy group of crusaders and Muslim warriors. Well, good for him. But next time he should show this to his left wing lesbian vegetarian discussion group in private and do not publish it and steal 1,5 hours of the live time of fantasy movie fans.

"Our gods might be different, but our enemies are the same".

[lost-in-limbo · 2/10 · 2 April 2011]

God love those Syfy TV productions. The medieval horror "Dark Relic" ticks all the boxes, from what we come to expect. It's a glossy (even though the visuals are poorly staged - fake looking backdrops), but terribly bland outing with dismal computer effects (this especially goes to the wolf's attack), cheap set-designs and props, preachy dialogues and a real lack of pacing. Aside from one or two creative moments (possessed monks in a monastery), it was a complete bore. A small group of ragged crusaders are returning home from the holy lands with a holy relic, which they come to discover, is cursed as dark forces begin to make their journey hell. The lackadaisical plot is routine in its narrative drive, the lousy action simply lumbers along and the characters are lazily pitched ("They are our friends"). The performances (led by James Frain) are suitable enough. There's little in the way of fun, as it's stiltedly uninteresting entertainment.

Criss cross

[ctomvelu1 · 2/10 · 15 August 2010]

I cannot believe I sat through this whole thing, but that's how bored I was before -- mercifully -- having to head off to work Sunday afternoon. Tepid tale about a group of knights carrying home a piece of the one true cross at the end of one of the Crusades. Unfortunately, this piece of wood attracts a demon, which in turn unleashes various plagues on them, including assaults by dead birds, wolves and bats -- or maybe they were locusts. It was hard to tell. Most of the time, the soldiers and others they meet along the way just stand around and talk. And talk. And then stand around some more. The demon is on screen for a few seconds in the middle and then for a couple of minutes at the end, but clearly this is where the majority of the movie's budget went. The film is just another in the endless stream of bad Sci-Fi Channel CGI creature features. The acting is not as bad as the dialog, thank God, but we do have to suffer listening to accents that range from veddy British to straight outta Brooklyn. What a waste. The occasional sword fights are clumsily staged, and the final battle with the demon is even worse. A brief sequence involving possessed monks in a monastery looks like it was pieced together from outtakes from Sam Raimi's ARMY OF DARKNESS. I am giving this dreadful flick a 2 instead of a 1 for the two very hot-looking babes who accompany the ragtag band of soldiers. It doesn't say here, but clearly this was shot in either Canada or Romania. Same difference. Boring scenery, bad mix of accents. By the way, instead of watching this, catch the Hollywood oldie-but-moldy, THE MAGIC SWORD (aka ST. GEORGE AND THE SEVEN CURSES). It has a similar plot and is a heckuva lot more entertaining and fun.

Watchable....but...

[lonnielongino · 2/10 · 18 June 2019]

This movie really could have been something. Given a better budget it really could have. But SYFY wants to churn out cheesy CGI and mediocre acting. The story was strong enough to keep you interested but the bad acting and graphics almost ran me off from this one, but I stuck it out. The plagues that followed our group were all CHI no real FX ,very little real violence or gore. A lot of build up to a very disappointing ending. Spoiler ahead, the relic that the demon was supposedly chasing them to get, destroyed it just by touching him with it. WHAT???.Makes no sense for the rest of the story. Also the big ending scene took all of 45 seconds. SyFy you'll are capable of better movies than this!

A Melting Pot of Plagues

[abominablebro · 8/10 · 28 March 2010]

Dark Relic is a film about a group of crusaders who retrieve a piece of the crucifix that Jesus Christ himself was nailed upon. As soon as they take it awful things begin to happen to them: Their food is tainted, they shipwreck, dead birds fall on them, locusts swarm them, wolves kill their horses, possessed monks attack them and not to mention the fire-breathing demon that stalks them. That said this film was pretty good. The effects were above average for low-budget and the acting was great. I found myself giving the movie positive feedback by saying things such as "Nice!" or "Awesome!" throughout. There are many things to like about this movie which make it a good film to watch on a Saturday night.

Could have been better

[marco-30-384328 · 6/10 · 21 September 2011]

I actually liked the story of that movie. The movie had some points of thrill, but like the other reviews already said: The movie was destroyed by lousy and cheap so-called "Special-Effects" that sometimes had the quality of a mid-nineties-computer-game. The acting of James Frain, whom I first saw in "The Tudors" and of Alyy Khan was good (an probably kind of saved the movie from disaster). I almost felt sorry for them spoiling their names for this movie. The rest of the acting was average. I do not regret watching this movie (maybe because I like these middle-age crusade-type of movie). I would not watch it again and I would not really recommend it to any friends. This movie really could have been better with some up-to-date special-effects and if it would have been put into scene a little bit better.

Such a promising premise, with such a mediocre execution.

[movieswithgreg · 4/10 · 27 September 2020]

The acting was find. The CGI was just horrible. It needed another 10-20 million for budget.

Somewhat enjoyable

[abuse-this2 · 5/10 · 24 February 2013]

Not a total waste of time as so many ScyFi channel films. The film's biggest downfalls are the poor CGI (something one might expect the ScyFi channel to be particularly good at given the genre, but actually are very bad at) and so-so directing and scripting.

It always amazes me that films which portray the demonic as such powerful and real forces give such short shrift to the powers of Good. It strikes me as rather lame that film makers have the demon win when confronted with a person of true faith standing on their faith against such. If the demon exists, so too must God and his angels. And yet, this film has devote monks becoming possessed flesh-eaters in the blink of an eye, a knight of the Crusade "poisoned" by a splinter from a piece of the "true cross" and converted into a demonic monster with flailing tentacles, cursed nails stronger than a holy relic (a piece of the cross) and the blood of Christ, and a demon immune to the Bible and a crucifix but at the same time subject to the power of an Islamic symbol. One of the characters is an indentured laborer who confesses to being a non-believer to a knight of the Crusade. Subsequently, she revises her position to one of belief. Other critics spurn her conversion, but I have to ask: given an out-right blatant proof of the existence of Evil in the form of a demon, I think that most atheists or agnostics would find faith in a deity of some form rather quickly. Kind of like the old adage: their are no atheists in foxholes ...

The acting is okay, and Fain plays the lead well. Alyy Khan does a pretty decent job in his role as supporting actor. I did find the reasoned approach to the coexistence of their different faiths to be a pleasant change. I am just not sure of how realistic it was for the time. It isn't unreasonable that a crusader returning to England after years of battle might be weary of the acrimony back and forth and to have a more wizened approach, but Khan's character has no basis for such given his position and background in such a strongly indoctrinated faith.

Given the portrayed invulnerability of the demon to normal weapons, it was a decent plot ploy that the blood of Christ would serve as a weapon enhancer to make normal weapons effective against the demon. However, the piece of the cross did not ooze such all the time so how did they gather enough to coat the weapons? Likewise, all this time the demon has been following the piece of the cross, even transporting it back to the good guys when they try to bury it and leave it behind, and yet when it is shoved in the face of the demon, the demon is blown to bits. And if the relic is so powerful against the demon, why is it that the knight can't remove the cursed nails from it? The nails are more powerful than the demon? Very weak.

Too dull and cheap to have any kind of value

[TheLittleSongbird · 2/10 · 7 January 2013]

The idea was interesting, so I was willing to forgive the budget quality if it was a watchable movie at the least. Apart from this odd if very interesting idea and the good performances of James Frain and Alyy Khan, Dark Relic was anything but. Apart from these two performances, the rest of the acting is at best mediocre. A number of things didn't help them at all. The characters are little more than obnoxious stereotypes that we learn nothing about, while the dialogue constantly has a very awkward feel to it. There is nothing exciting in the story at all, which suffers further from a complete lack of coherence. The special effects are of really poor standard, I wasn't expecting high art of course considering the budget but these looked like examples of somebody not even trying. The camera work is hackneyed, while the direction is flat and the monster is very underused and as far from menacing as you can come. So all in all, dull and cheap, essentially a pretty poor but slightly redeemable SyFy movie that doesn't have much if any kind of value. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Don't do it

[tahoe327 · 2/10 · 5 January 2020]

Just stop now and don't waste your time , dull and badly made .

Enjoyed the adventure

[spandex07 · 8/10 · 26 May 2020]

Ok, if you're looking for state of the art special effects, you're going to be disappointed. Unfortunately it was made on a small budget, and it shows. but if you're in the mood for something a little different in the ' crusades ' theme, give this one a go! It reminded me so much of the old Simbad movies, with one obstacle after another coming at them. Watch it for the story. The acting is good, not great, and as I mentioned above, the effects are B grade. After all, is't all about the journey? ;)