The Keep (1983)

It's a shame we'll never get to see the director's actual vision for this movie because it was cut from 3 hours to 90 minutes by the studio, because what is here is quite cool, even though it's chopped so badly that in some cases the sound mix is way off. There's something neat trying to get out, but we can only see what's here and say, could have been more.

Pity about a great and interesting story, which could have been handled better. Jurgen Prochnow and Gabriel Byrne as the two German officers of different minds are outstanding and make this film worth watching carefully, but the drama is damaged by the overstressed technical details, which in the 80s could not be made convincing enough to be worth exaggerating. The story of Ian McKellen and his daughter is fascinating enough and almost credible, if the demon did not have to much say in it. Scott Glenn also makes an intriguing figure adding to the character of the film as something of a mystery play, and no drama could be more dramatic than when almost all the protagonists die in the process. The music plays a special part in augmenting and stressing the drama and tensions and is highly efficient in illustrating the supernatural and demonic element. The fact that this Carpathian drama occurs exactly at the crucial turning point of the war, and that the Germans release the demon just in time to make him turn against them, is an intriguing part of the plot. Yes, it is indeed a film worth seeing and thinking about, but you don't need to see it twice.

I originally saw this not long after this was released on VHS and I loved it ever since. Unfortunately it never got the appreciation it deserved, probably because it differs greatly from the book which made the movie a bit hard to follow.A contingent of Nazi soldiers are making their way through Romania to control a mountain pass just after the start of operation Barbarossa, which was the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The Germans hold up in an old citadel/keep at the edge of a small Romanian village.On entering the keep, the commander, Jurgen Prochnow, notices the design of the interior in how the stone is rough on the outside but smooth on the inside, as if it was built in reverse. Unknown to them, the keep is designed as a prison for an ancient entity, Molasar. There are a number of "T-shaped" crosses that line the walls identified as being made of nickel helping to keep Molasar in place.One night one of the crosses starts to glow and a couple of soldiers believe that the cross is made of silver. They dig it out of the wall and this reveals a narrow passageway that leads into an immense cavern below the keep. The soldiers have unwittingly released Molasar and over the course of several days more soldiers are found killed. The Germans believe that all this is from resistance or partisan activity and a detachment of Einsatzkommandos, led by Gabriel Byrne, arrives to deal with this new threat, executing villagers as a deterrent. To make matters more confusing for them, they find a message on the wall and the local priest convinces them to send for a Jewish professor, Ian McKellen, who is currently being held in a concentration camp.Molasar ends up killing 2 soldiers that try to rape the professors daughter and this results in an uneasy alliance between the demon and then professor, going so far as to cure the professor of his illness. Meanwhile a man called Glaeken, located in Greece is alerted to Molasar's freedom and he makes his way to Romania to try and stop him before he's powerful enough to escape the confines of the keep. He carries with him a lance with a headpiece that is the same as the crosses in the walls of the keep.Molasar tries to use the professor to remove one of the crosses and take it outside as this will enable him to be finally free of the keep, however he is confronted by the German soldiers and commandos who are no match for Molasar's power. All of them are killed. Glaeken arrives and forces the demon back into his stony prison much to the dismay of the professor. Glaeken sacrifices himself by using his body to replace the main seal to keep Molasar in the keep.I must say that I loved this movie. Yes the pace is considered a bit too slow for a traditional horror movie and there are parts that are confusing for some, but it's not a standard horror movie. Its a shame that for the low budget in which this was made, it didn't even manage to break even, despite the quality of actors, yet like a lot of movies of this calibre it has a strong cult following. The film was panned by critics and also the author of the book of the same name, but the unusualness of the film is what is really interesting. This is well worth a look but irritatingly this has never been released on DVD or BluRay as far as I know but can still be watched online.

Michael Mann surely knows how to make movies. At least in regards to atmosphere and music aesthetics. With "The Keep" Michael Mann ventures into an odd world of Nazi-period Eastern Europe set against the back-drop of even greater ancient evil, which has been unwittingly released into our world. A Nazi unit camps out at a fortified keep in a remote Romanian mountain are. Where two soldiers attempt to loot the walls from a golden cross, an untold ethereal evil seeps through to our world and silently starts murdering the soldiers. This awakens a mysterious protector (Scott Glenn), who ventures to the keep to stop this force from escaping its prison. Based on the novel F. Paul Wilson, comes a tale that despite its significantly talented cast falls into obscurity because of a strikingly underdeveloped story.For one thing, the characters themselves are a very enticing bunch, rife with potential. Captain Klaus Woermann (Jürgen Prochnow) is a soldier in war-time, more emotionally attuned to his humanity, not so much to Nazi ideology, leading his army through a sense of obligation - a striking detachment from typical presentations of II World War Germans. The ruthless Major Kaempffer (Gabriel Byrne), leader of a Gestapo death squad, works as his direct contrast, fully indoctrinated and mercilessly cold, capable of killing women and children to achieve his goals (Byrne's chilling portrayal nonetheless remains a highlight of the movie). Into this construct arrives Jewish historian Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen) and his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson), who are brought in from the camps to aide in solving the deadly puzzle. For Theodore this task brings the promise of an ultimate solution to the Nazis, as the maleficent force promises their destruction in return for his freedom.As these characters intertwine in the misty Gothic backdrop created by Michael Mann and his talented cinematographer Alex Thomson, a sense of dread permeates (aided in part by great haunting atmospherics by Tangerine Dream). The slow camera-work and detailed sets, reminiscent of the best of Dario Argento, captivate with their gloomy consistency. Also the special effects are so perfectly 80-ish with their crude muckish gruesomeness, something that seems so lost in the perfection of CGI-induced horror. Slowly however the confused script and B-class elements so widespread in the 1980s, start to overrun the qualities, which made the movie so promising. Riden with clichéd portrayal and short-cuts in terms of story development, Mann ends up with a bungled mess of a horror, which neither frightens nor manages to maintain the eerie essence. Nonetheless the look of the movie offers some degree of satisfaction, it will undoubtedly remain a skeleton in Michael Mann's closet.