The Keep (1983)

Nazis are forced to turn to a Jewish historian for help in battling the ancient demon they have inadvertently freed from its prison.

Director:

Michael Mann

Writers:

F. Paul Wilson (novel), Michael Mann (screenplay)

Stars:

Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, Alberta Watson

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Scott Glenn	...	Glaeken
Alberta Watson	...	Eva Cuza
Jürgen Prochnow	...	Woermann
Robert Prosky	...	Father Fonescu
Gabriel Byrne	...	Kaempffer
Ian McKellen	...	Dr. Theodore Cuza
William Morgan Sheppard	...	Alexandru (as Morgan Sheppard)
Royston Tickner	...	Tomescu
Michael Carter	...	Radu Molasar
Phillip Joseph	...	Oster
John Vine	...	Lutz
Jona Jones	...	Otto
Wolf Kahler	...	S.S. Adjutant
Rosalie Crutchley	...	Josefa
Frederick Warder	...	Border Guard 1

Storyline

Nazis are sent to guard an old, mysterious fortress in a Romanian pass. One of them mistakenly releases an unknown force trapped within the walls. A mysterious stranger senses this from his home in Greece and travels to the keep to vanquish the force. As soldiers are killed, a Jewish man and his daughter (who are both knowledgeable of the keep) are brought in to find out what is happening.

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Plot Keywords:

demon | gothic horror | father daughter relationship | inn | nazi | 

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Taglines:

THEY WERE ALL DRAWN TO THE KEEP. The soldiers who brought death. The father and daughter fighting for life. The people who have always feared it. And the one man who knows its secret... THE KEEP Tonight, they will all face the evil.

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 December 1983 (USA)

Also Known As:

Satans borg

Filming Locations:

UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Associated Capital, Capital Equipment Leasing

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min 91 min (video) 210 min (original cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Stereo

Color:

Color (Rankcolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

First film directed by Michael Mann to be shot in 2.35:1 widescreen ratio. All of his other feature films have since been shot in this aspect ratio. Mann explained this choice in a 1983 interview: "It's important to me for two rea­sons. One, because this is an expression­istic movie that intends to sweep its au­dience away - be very big, to have them transport themselves into this dream-re­ality so that they're in those landscapes, there with the characters. You can't sweep people away in 1:1,85 and mono. Also, I'm just not interested in 'pas­sive' filmmaking, in a film that's pre­cious and small and where it's up to the audience to bring themselves to the movie. I want to bombard an audience - a very active, aggressive type of se­duction. I want to manipulate an audi­ence's feelings for the same reasons that composers write symphonies."

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Goofs

The soldiers who remove the first cross are wearing 1941 Russian Winter Campaign medals in their button-holes, yet the film is set before this campaign took place.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Captain Klaus Woermann: [to a soldier, looking at the Keep] Your new home. How do you like it ?

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Crazy Credits

The Keep Production Pays Tribute To Wally Veevers

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Alternate Versions

The more upbeat ending showing Eva and Glaeken alive together is closer to the ending in the novel by F. Paul Wilson.

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Connections

Referenced in The First Lecktor: An Interview with Brian Cox (2016)

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Soundtracks

Walking In The Air
(a.k.a. "Theme From The Snowman")
Composed by Howard Blake
Rearranged and Performed by Tangerine Dream
Copyright Highbridge Music 1982

User Reviews

The bad dreams of your keep are nursery rhymes in comparison.

It remains one of the most frustrating experiences for a Michael Mann fan to go through. The Keep is by definition a mixed bag, a collage of weirdness, tackiness and visual smarts that are great but in all honesty are in the wrong movie. It even boasts a cast of considerable talent, where Messrs Jürgen Prochnow, Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen and Gabriel Byrne lead off from the front. But the troubled production and numerous edits and cuts of the piece have left it as a scarred but fascinating oddity.

Based on F. Paul Wilson's novel of the same name, plot is set in World War II Romania. When members of the German army hole up at a Carpathian Castle, they get more than they ever could have bargained for when greed unleashes an evil demon upon all who dwell in the vicinity. In short order the German's are requested to seek out the aid of a Jewish historian (McKellen), who is freed from a death camp and hurried along to Carpathia to help the Nazis. Then there is the mysterious Glaeken Trismegestus (Glenn), a man of seriously scary eyes who is making a journey to the castle for the sake of humanity.

Now, there are a lot of reviews out there for The Keep, but since there are quite a few versions out there with different endings, it's difficult to know which one is being reviewed. But the over riding factor leans towards it being a mess of a movie. Wilson himself was greatly angered by the version he watched, which may well have been the original 3 hour plus cut? Calling it an incoherent monstrosity. This latest cut I saw was the "theatrical" version, complete with an extra "fan edit" ending, and I'm indebted to an on line friend and those "fans" who have given me the chance to see two endings that I hadn't seen before! Yet the one constant is Tangerine Dream's LSD inspired musical score!

Mann is early in his career here and trying his best to make something thematically potent and visually arresting, but it ultimately is done down by mixed ambitions and budget restrictions, where no amount of editing and fog machine usage can mask the problems. In fact it's now thought that Mann wasn't even directing come the second half of the movie?! It was an experience that would send him away from the big screen and into other work for the next few years. Thankfully for us Mann fans it proved to be a blessing in disguise, for he would return to make a serious mark on cinema from the director's chair. But with that still comes the disappointment that The Keep is not the thoughtful atmospheric classic that Mann envisaged when he started out to make it. 6/10